Leigh Hynes and Stuart Percival’s campaign for success in the WA Rally Championship season opener, the Quit Forest Rally (QFR), was cut short on Saturday morning when the pair rolled their Subaru WRX.
The boys were not hurt in the accident and drove to the end of the stage, but the team decided to focus on fixing the car for the next rally, rather than rush the job to restart in Heat 2.
“Because the championship is based on the best results from five out of six rounds, we thought we could afford to drop a round,” Hynes said.
From the start of the rally on Friday, the Busselton Rally Sport WRX experienced problems with its throttle from the start of the rally and Hynes explained: “Sometimes it would stay on after I released the throttle and sometimes we’d get no response. It was really unpredictable.”
The team’s service crew worked tirelessly to identify and fix the issue, but early on Saturday when Hynes and Percival hit the gravel, it was evident something was still wrong.
“Coming into a corner, the throttle cut out,” Hynes said. “I turned in early so we wouldn’t go off on the outside, but we hit a rock and flipped.”
“It’s our first major accident since 2010, so that’s not too bad,” he added.
Despite feeling disappointed with not finishing QFR, Hynes said the positive of bowing out early was that he still had tyres left for the rest of the championship.
The team’s plan now is to get the car to Donnybrook Panel Beaters and LRT custom engineering for repairs. The next event of the WARC is the Trade hire Donnelly rally which will run over the fast and narrow roads around the Donnelly Mill, near Bridgetown, on Saturday May 10.
“We’ll be back out to show our sponsors proud. We want to win the next one for True Blue Alarms, WA Freemason’s and QVEE,” Hynes said.
Photo: Tim Allott
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