Dylan King and Lee Tierney (Subaru Impreza WRX) have won the opening round of the 2014 West Australian Rally Championship (WARC), the Quit Forest Rally, which was held in the towns of Busselton and Nannup over the weekend.
King/Tierney took the lead of the event mid-way into Heat One on Saturday and didn’t look back winning Heat One and Heat Two by strong margins over their nearest rivals.
“It’s an awesome feeling to win this event, I couldn’t be happier with how the weekend has gone,” King said.
The win puts King in a strong position at the start of the WARC year with several of his main series rivals, including reining WARC Champions Leigh Hynes/Stuart Percival, not finishing the event due to a mixture of mechanical issues and off-road excursions.
“To get maximum points is a great start to the WARC and with Leigh (Hynes) dropping out during Heat One we’ve now got a nice little buffer over him which is good,” King said.
“Our plans for the year are to contest all of the rounds of the WARC and if we can, possibly go and do some Australian Rally Championship events as well,” he continued.
Doug Tostevin/Tammy Adams (Subaru Impreza WRX) finished the event in second with John O’Dowd/Ben Searcy (Subaru Impreza WRX) third.
“We really enjoyed this event, we had a couple of little problems but overall it was a great event and to finish on the podium is a great start to the championship,” Tostevin said.
“I can’t complain about being beaten by Dylan (King), I know how good is car is because I sold it to him,” he joked.
The next round of the WARC is Trade Hire Donnelly Rally on May 10, 2014.