It is Pedder’s first victory at the event after coming close on several occasions in the past.
“It’s fantastic, I’ve always wanted to win the Forest Rally; I’ve got close a few times and never got there so it’s just great. Ross Tapper and the guys run an absolutely tremendous event and it’s just fantastic to be here,” Pedder said.
Pedder and Mortimer won Heat One ahead of Simon and Sue yesterday and battled it out with the current National champions throughout Heat Two.
The Heat Two lead changed on three occasions as both crews set blistering stage times ahead of the chasing teams by more than a minute early in the day.
Drama struck on SS17 Brockman 2 when Simon and Sue Evans suffered a broken gear box and dropped 15.7 seconds to Pedder and Mortimer.
At the time a despondent Simon Evans said “it’s over” however, they made it back out after service and when Pedder and Mortimer clipped a rock and suffered a puncture on SS18 Healthway Loop 2, dropping 19.8 seconds, the Evans’ were back in the lead.
Changing the tyre between stages Pedder and Mortimer responded on SS19, 3.1 seconds ahead of the Evans’ and back into the lead.
With service crews and officials waiting anxiously in the service park back in Nannup the times came through for SS20. Simon and Sue Evans had won the stage but it was not enough to take the heat victory.
‘This was the fight we’ve been wanting for the last few years,” Simon Evans said at the end of the rally.
“It’s great to have Scotty back; we’ve had a great race. It was definitely on this morning and we pushed real hard and so did Scotty, this is what rallying is all about.”
Behind the leaders Ryan and Rebecca Smart were charging through the field, second fastest on SS17 and SS19 and winning their first ever ARC stage on SS18.
Finishing Heat Two in third, more than 30 seconds ahead of Darren Windus in fourth, the final place on the podium was up for grabs.
Windus had taken third outright in Heat One and the Smarts fourth and with places reversed in Heat Two the teams were equal on points and an outright time was needed to determine the result. In the end 18 seconds handed Darren Windus the final spot on the Quit Forest Rally podium.
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