John O’Dowd has finished on the podium in the opening round of the 2017 CAMS Onlsow Contracting WA Rally Championship (WARC).
He was third in the Trade Hire Kin Kin Rally, a new nine-stage event run near Manjimup on Saturday.
John O'Dowd at the 2017 Trade Hire Kin Kin Rally. (Photo: Gemma Lucas, Drift Images)“We were very happy to finish and come away with a decent haul of points,” he said.
O’Dowd, who last weekend finished ninth amongst a field of the country’s best competitors at the CAMS Australian Rally Championship (ARC) opener, Eureka Rally in Ballarat, said that event had been a great warm up for the WARC.
“Doing the Eureka Rally definitely did help,” he said. “It was also my first event with new co-driver Ken Sheil and a great chance to get to know each other.”
The Trade Hire Kin Kin Rally featured three stages run three times and O’Dowd described the event as ‘tight and technical’.
“The roads were great, but they got really cut up by the end of the rally and a lot of cars went off,” he said.
O’Dowd approached the first three stages of the Trade Hire Kin Kin Rally with caution.
“We came out harder after that,” he said “But we had a small issue at the end of stage four, so we were a little slower over stages five and six because the steering was very heavy.”
Back at service, the team fixed the suspension-related problem and O’Dowd was straight back out for the final stages.
“A big thanks to Maximum Motorsport for getting that sorted and to our sponsors - Knightcorp Insurance, Pacific Finance, Truck Wholesale WA, O’Dowd Transport and Rent WA – for their continued support,” he said.
O’Dowd and Sheil will be back in action for round two of the WARC, the Make Smoking History Forest Rally, which will be run around Busselton and Nannup from April 21 to 23. The event is also a round of the ARC.
The week before, O’Dowd will also compete in the Hi-Tech Oils Bathurst Six Hour.
He is teaming up with Jim Pollicina in a Mitsubishi Evo 10 for the Mount Panarama endurance race. This will be O’Dowd’s 11th endurance race at Bathurst.
- Team release
SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO READ THE FULL STORY
