2010 Western Australian 2WD rally champions Razvan Vlad and Daymon Nicoli are set to contest the Bosch Australian Rally Championship in their Group N Ford Fiesta ST.
Running under the www.MAXYrally.com banner they will start the season competing in the Quit Forest Rally which takes place in South Western WA. They are sponsored by ANQ Solutions, XS Energy Drink and Douglas Automotive. The team is one of only two that will represent WA in the Bosch Australian Rally Championship and are looking for more local business to support their effort.
“Quit Forest Rally was my first event in Australia and it remains one of my favourites,” said Razvan. “We finished second 2WD in Busselton last year in our old Daihatsu Charade GTti. This year I hope that we will do better in the Fiesta, which is a lot easier to drive and more stable at high speed. My focus will be to finish the rally and score points in the championship”.
Daymon is the youngest navigator to compete at the highest level in Australian rallying. He turned 16 last November, just a few weeks after winning the 2WD WA Rally Championship.
“All five rounds of the championship are pacenoted events, and four of them are new to me,” said Daymon. “It will be a lot of hard work writing new notes, especially for the World Championship event in Coffs Harbour. The schedule is very tight, so it is important to get the notes right the first time.”
The Ford Fiesta ST that the team will be using was imported from New Zealand, where it won the 2WD championship in 2009. The car was developed by M-Sport in the UK as a Group N3 machine. It is closely related to the road going version but has a much stronger suspension and a dog engagement gearbox, which allows for clutchless gear changes.
“We decided to keep the car in Group N, which limits a lot the performance improvements, because this is the only way we can compete in the Australian round of the World Rally Championship later this year,” said Bob Nicoli, the team manager and ex-factory driver for Daihatsu. “It is the first time that Razvan and Daymon are competing on gravel outside WA. It will be a steep learning curve for them and they really need to get as much time in the car as possible. Reliability is more important than outright speed and we worked with M-Sport to make sure that the car is as strong as it can be under the Group N regulations.”
You can follow Razvan and Daymon on their ARC adventure by going to www.MAXYrally.com. Information about the championship and spectator guides can be found at www.rally.com.au.
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