Sydney based rally driver Brett Middleton has been crowned champion of the East Coast Bullbars SUV Rally Challenge, a part of the Bosch Australian Rally Championship, in its inaugural year, following his recent win at the Scouts Rally South Australia.

Middleton has had a clear run of the of the ECB Rally Challenge in the world’s first turbo diesel Subaru Forester rally car with a win at the opening four rounds of the six round championship: ECB Rally Calder, the Quit Forest Rally, the International Rally of Queensland and the Scouts Rally SA.

“It’s been a really exciting year for me and my co driver Andrew Benefield,” said Middleton.

“To win the ECB SUV Rally challenge in its first year after four rounds is a big honour and we are looking forward to seeing this more teams join us in competition.”

Middleton was the pioneer of the ECB Rally Challenge. Not only was he the first entrant in the new category, he was also the first competitor to run a turbo diesel.

“Running a turbo diesel was a massive challenge, more than we expected” added Middleton.

“We chose the Forester because of its great handling capabilities, our knowledge of Model and our ability to improve it, but the limited rev range of the turbo diesel took some getting used to.

MRT Performance is Australia’s largest Subaru specialist and MRT is the rally team, so they put all their knowledge to good use in the championship. 

Based on the similar popular WRX, STi and Forester platforms the rally Diesel car was a development of that with Middleton’s workshop putting 28 years of knowledge to good use

“We used our electronic control software (EcuTeK) to custom program the factory ecu for 100 Nm, more Torque and this made an enormous difference to the speed of the car, plus our partners Whiteline and DBA added more with their specialty parts” Brett said.

“The biggest thing to get my head around was when to change gears and because of the shorter torque band it meant I was changing gear a lot more often.”

“The car has kept the team on its toes and every rally we are learning more and more about the Diesel. The ECB SUV Rally Challenge and Bosch Australian Rally Championship continues in October 12-14 with the Snake Racing Rally Coffs and the final round, Rally Victoria held November 16-18 where Middleton hopes to finish in strong form.

“The car has a lot more to come, with continues development,” he said.

“Bring on the final two rounds and 2013!” 

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