Following a successful run at last weekend's Rally Victoria, the final round of the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship, Victorian driver Ashlea James has confirmed he will return to the Championship in 2015.
The Ashlea James Engineering Rally Team (AJE Rally Team) came away with wins in both the 1600 CUP and P2 class in the ECB Australian Rally Championship, as well as winning the P2 Class in the Focus On Furniture Victorian Rally Championship component of the event.
“I am really encouraged by the results,'' says James, who also accrued enough points to win both the P2 and Clubman Victorian Rally Championships with a round still remaining.
"But I'm particularly thrilled with the rapid improvement we've made over this season. We've been able to close the gap to the outright G2 cars by some 2 seconds per km compared to our performance in the same event a year ago."
At one stage, the gap got as low as 2.3 sec/km on a stage where the AJE Rally Team had no practice, unlike the faster cars ahead of them.
“We're suffering a massive horsepower deficit of almost 50 per cent and 'it's all arms and legs, a real hectic job at times' working a clutch pedal, shifting a synchromesh gearbox and trying to keep up to the steering input needed with a standard steering rack,'' says James.
So, I'm really looking forward to getting behind the wheel of our new VW Polo G2 now and seeing what we can do with the sequential shift and all the other special racing equipment that car has to offer!”
James says he's now confident the team will go well in the Polo and last weekend's run at Rally Victoria has really helped to motivate him and the rest of the team to step up and get back into the ECB ARC for next year.
“I'd like really like to thank our long-term team partners, Velo Racing Seats, autosportdirect.com.au, Race Brakes and Garry Kerrigan Auto Body Restoration Specialists,” James concluded.
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