After showing the potential of both himself and his G2-spec Ford Fiesta ST at the end of last season, Steve Mackenzie arrived in Western Australia for the opening Round of this year’s East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship ready to be a front-running contender.
Having set a string of fastest stage times at last year’s Rally Victoria, Mackenzie was left confused and deflated after WA where the best he could manage was a third fastest on the opening day.
“The lack of pace definitely did surprise me,” he admitted. “I’ve got some ideas for where we should begin, hopefully we should be able to get back on the sort of pace we had in Rally Victoria last year.”
Mackenzie was hampered during the early stages in WA when an oxygen sensor snapped off, confusing the car’s ECU, which in turn increased the fuel flow to the engine and eventually ran the fuel tank completely dry.
“There was nothing major with the car, just hiccups that caused bigger issues,” explained Mackenzie. “We’re still developing the car of course. It’s only the third rally in this car, so we’re still learning as we go. But more pace and reliability to look forward to between the last rally and the next one.”
The long trip to Western Australia had proved to be a stern challenge for Mackenzie and the Opti-Coat Rally Team, but Mackenzie found it was a four-time Champion who tried to lift his spirits.
“Talking to Simon (Evans) he tried to pep me up, telling me I was doing a great job, but personally I was quite disappointed with how things went in WA. We know the car has the potential, things just didn’t go our way at that event,”Mackenzie added.
While Mackenzie was left largely stumped to explain why he was so far off the pace, he’s confident he already has some ideas on where he needs to improve ahead of the next Round in Canberra.
“I think it is lacking a little bit of power, but I think handling is probably the key area we need to work on, I think that’s what let us down the most.”
“Canberra I’ve competed at a couple of times before, so I’m confident we’ll be able to get there and have more of an attack on familiar roads,” he continued. “Last year in the old Fiesta we were reasonably competitive in Canberra, so I think we can look forward to a better result in this car when we get there.”
The National Capital Rally gets underway on May 15 ahead of two days of rally action on the classic Canberra roads. The second Round will feature the outright 2WD, National 4WD and Classic competitors and will be joined once again by the Side-by-Side Rally Challenge between Polaris and Can-Am.