Scott Pedder has powered to a dominant victory at Scouts Rally SA, holding his archrival Brendan Reeves at arm's length throughout the weekend. Reeves held on for second, despite losing a wheel during the day, while Citroen’s Tony Sullens capitalized on other driver’s mistakes to claim third.
“A great weekend!” beamed Pedder at the finish in Gawler this afternoon. “The result was so much about the hard work done by the team to produce a perfect car, and some hard work between Dale (Moscatt, co-driver) and I on our pace notes.”
Pedder’s win sees him leapfrog Reeves in the Championship points, grabbing a slight but significant 5-point lead. “We started Queensland 37 points behind, and after two perfect events for us, and a few small issues for Brendan, now sees us ahead.”
“I’m thrilled to win here in South Australia – it was the scene of my first ever victory in 2005, then I thought my career was over here in 2010 - so to win again today feels very special,” Scott added.
Reeves mean while had a roller coaster weekend, first struggling with setup shortcomings, before suffering two flat batteries and then losing a rear wheel earlier this afternoon.
“With all the problems to get second is actually very pleasing,” explained Brendan. “We’ve lost the lead in the Championship but there are extra points on offer in Rally Australia, plus we’re back to an enduro style event and that suits me just fine.”
The wheels came off for Reeves, literally, on Stage 20 through Forties. “The rear left came clean off, we think it broke the studs. We got out to check, and decided to carry on, then the team did an amazing job to replace everything at service including the rear beam and a new caliper. My plan is to forget this event and really focus on what comes next.”
Reeves’ incident saw him drop to fifth for the day, but still able to stay ahead of Tony Sullens in the outright positions for the rally. It proved to be a testing weekend for Sullens too who battled his own setup head aches earlier in the weekend before gearbox gremlins hobbled his afternoon.
“On the Manfive stage we only had 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th gear, and then on the next stage only 3rd. I could manually select but it took removing the front bumper and removing a clip,” Sullens said.
“At the end of the day I’m over the moon (to finish third),” he exclaimed. “At the start of the weekend if you’d told me I’d finish third I would have said ‘no way’.”
A remarkable run, after front brake problems yesterday, saw Victorian Alan Roe finish the day third behind Pedder and Sullens. While Michael Boaden, who himself had gearbox issues yesterday, managed to come how behind Roe in fourth.
Gearbox concerns seemed to be the flavour of the day with local young gun Guy Tyler stuck in third gear since mid yesterday, yet despite the issue he managed to make it all the way to the finish and sixth behind Reeves.
“Such a difficult weekend, but I’m just so happy to make it to the finish!” Tyler laughed.
After a strong run yesterday Adrian Coppin slumped to last place today after a major off during the morning’s stages. “I came into a corner, out braked myself, and on turn in a began to slide wide. I should have pull out but I got on the power and it shot me off the road and we got beached on a retaining wall,” Adrian said.
“I thought our rally was over, but we built a stone ramp and managed to get ourselves clear. All in all it’s been an up and down weekend but we still got some good Championship points,” he added.
Neal Bates may have again dominated the weekend in the Classics, winning today’s Heat by just over 2 minutes from Porsche driver Jeff David, but the Toyota stalwart insisted it hadn’t been a cruise to the finish.
“It’s actually very a very tough rally, with the very wet weather conditions on Friday and Saturday. On paper it looks like we won by a lot but things weren’t perfect for us. The quality of the Classics this weekend has been excellent, with a couple of Celica’s, an Audi Quattro, a Falcon GTHO, a Porsche, a Merc, a Volvo, all sorts of brands, all sorts of types, and we’re all out there having fun,” said Neal.
Ross Kingham managed to climb into second place behind Bates, unsure what all the fuss was about at the finish. “I don’t know why everyone is so surprised, I never doubted our Volvo for one minute.”
Yesterday’s drive belt dramas for Cody Crocker and Michael Guest allowed Nathan Chivers to swing home for victory in the Side-by-Side Rally Challenge.
“I really appreciate all the support by Can-Am to help me here, it’s been a great car and didn’t miss a beat all weekend,” he said.
Iain Hughes managed to claim second in his Polaris ahead of team mate Cody Crocker, who made up for his disappointing weekend by claiming the inaugural Gawler Trophy for the fastest time around Showground Special Stage, setting a time even faster than the outright 2WD, turbo four wheel drive and Classics.
“How about that!” Cody exclaimed at the finish. “I thought I might have a slight chance but we really came through. That’s a bit of a giant killing performance!”
While in the National 4WD’s Henry Nott brought his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI home for a resounding win ahead of the Suzuki Vitara SUV of Bill Monkhouse.
“I’m pretty happy with that,” said Nott. “We had a few issues today with the gearbox, I might have stuffed up a few synchros so I couldn’t get a couple of gears. Overall though I couldn’t be happier!”
The fifth and penultimate Round of the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship is Coates Hire Rally Australia in Coffs Harbour. The local Round of the World Rally Championship takes place from the 11th to the 14th September.