Hynes closes on WA Rally title

Round four of the West Australian Rally Championship was held on September 19 around the old timber mill at Donnelly River in WA’s south west.  

In wet but perfect rally conditions, the winners of the previous round, Leigh Hynes and co-driver Stuart Percival, stamped their authority on the event by setting the fastest time on the first four stages, and in the process took a commanding lead of over 31 seconds into the second service.

In second place was Alex Stone and Dianna Madlener, with points leaders Toby Heyring and Peter Turner in third.  Hynes, in the MRF shod Impreza, eased off a little on stage 5, giving away 4 seconds to Stone.  Stage 6 then saw Stone finish with a flat tyre, handing Hynes an even more comfortable lead of over 1 minute, and also allowing Heyring to get within 3 seconds of him, while John Macara and Greg Flood were only 19 seconds further back and pushing hard.

With 2 night stages to go Hynes and Percival cruised through to take a 16 second win over Stone, with Macara snatching third from a very unfortunate Heyring, who after picking up the pace considerably, went off on the final stage.

“I’m very pleased to win two in a row and to give the amazing 5-way DMS Shock Absorbers another win,” Hynes said. “It’s a credit to Jamie Drummond that these shocks have turned my average car into a clear winner.

“Since the last event we made a few other minor changes and that’s what you have to do now. There’s no point resting on your laurels because you’ll get left behind. We also couldn’t have got this result without a great team behind us, so a big thanks to my wife Kirsty, our service crew and our supporters, RMS Service Centre, Busselton Subaru Service, and Drummond Motorsport Shock Absorbers.”

Other notable drives were from the ever improving Adrian Broom and Brendon Carr in the Laurence Wines Impreza, who claimed 6th place, and Craig Wimbridge and Mile Vlasavljevich in their Subaru Legacy, with Craig returning to the sport after 21 years.

With only the Light Car Club Safari Rally remaining on October 18 in the Chidlow area, the WARC point scores now look like this: Hynes/Percival 129, Stone/Madlener 108, and Heyring/Turner 100.

Author