The third round of the West Australian Rally Championship, the Experts Cup, will get underway this weekend and will revert to the favoured pacenote format.
The southwest town of Collie will host the event with many of the roads still fondly remembered as the fast and smooth Rally Australia stages.
A good field of 34 cars will line up on Saturday afternoon, just after the crews have completed a two run recce of the stages. This round will also include the Clubman Cup series with those competitors contesting 5 of the eight scheduled stages.
The WA Car Club will be charged with the responsibility of putting together the round, this event to also include a loop of stages to be contested at night. All up just over 112 kilometres of competitive will be run over 3 sections with the first cars due back at the finish at 7.30pm.
This area of the southwest is well known for its very cold and in some year’s very wet events. With the heavy rainfall experienced in the last week in the region and more rain forecast, damp and slippery stages are a good bet.
At the pointy end of the championship standings VR4 man Derek Reddie still holds a seven-point advantage over Lee McIlroy in his later spec WRX. Defending champions Hynes and Percival took maximum points on round two and are now just one point off second place and will be looking to close the gap to the leaders.
Young guns Wilde and Travers, both running GC8 WRXs, put together some very good stage times on round two and will certainly be ones to look out for in Collie.
Making a welcome return to the championship will be Chris Anderson. Chris will be co-driven by the experienced Toni Feaver, the pair to tackle the event in team’s WRX from last year. Although not having a lot a seat time just lately this crew will be out to get quickly back on the pace and running with the leaders.
The event headquarters will be situated at the Collie Trotting Track with 3 services scheduled over the day. The action kicks off with car one away at 2pm.
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