Pre-Poland Q&A with Dale Moscatt and Mark Pedder

The ARC media teeam took the opportunity ahead of Poland this weekend to quiz Dale Moscatt, the co-driver brave (or silly) enough to be splitting his season with Mark Pedder in the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship, and Scott Pedder running in selected WRC2 Rounds in the World Rally Championship.
 

Q: Dale if we can talk about WRC2, and in particular Scott. After two very tough events in Portugal and Sardinia, how is Scott coping with the challenges and the setbacks?
 
Dale: It was always going to be a tough start for sure! We were never going to have anywhere near enough time in the new car to have him feeling comfortable and at home in the car. So when you’re going into a new series and new events there is already enough to learn. Throwing in a new car he really did start with one arm tied behind his back.
 
Q: How’s he feeling in the car now despite the limited running at both events?
 
Dale: He’s made a lot of progress with it, especially with the setup, and the things that we’ve now learned. We’re both feeling a lot more comfortable. When you know and trust the car it makes it far easier when you get to difficult conditions or tricky situations like you get in the WRC.
 
Q: How tough were Portugal and Sardinia compared to other rallies you’ve done?
 
Dale: They were both incredibly difficult rallies, really rough conditions, and drivers having problems up and down the field. We had a game plan that if we just finished we’d get a good result, unfortunately on both occasions we became one of the statistics.
 
Q: Do you feel hard done by then to have retired on both events?
 
Dale: I feel sorry for Scott, especially in Sardinia, because the changes he’d made to the car had made a massive improvement. The changes he’d made had improved the car in 90% of the corners, but the weakness to that is it made it difficult to get turn in to slower corners and you need to use a lot of steering lock. Where we made the mistake clipping the bridge was a slow corner where he had a lot of lock on to get round the corner, so the wheel sticking out so far was where why we clipped it.
 
Q: You’re obviously seeing positives though in Scott’s speed in the car?
 
Dale: The split times we saw in Sardinia were fantastic, the speed is there, we just need it all to come together.
 
Q: Is Scott getting frustrated knowing he has the speed but not the reliability?
 
Dale: It’d be really easy for him to get frustrated, but you know we work hard on avoiding that. We know the behind the scenes story, I think it’d be easy on the outside to think it’s been a bit of a disaster so far, but we’re positive and making good progress.
 
Q: If we can loop Mark into this conversation too. Mark you obviously know your brother very, very well, how is he holding up in your mind?
 
Mark: I think Scott’s biggest frustration was the mistake he made breaking the suspension in Sardinia because he was trying to drive conservatively when it happened. Knowing Scott extremely well he hates driving conservatively in any rally car, so to go out clipping a bridge when he’s being too conservative, yeah that hurts.
 
Q: Portugal and Sardinia were both incredibly rough, and we know Scott loves flat out roads, are you confident Poland will see a turn around for him?
 
Mark: I certainly hope so, for his confidence more than anything! He gets a test before Poland and I think that’ll help, I think that’ll change his mindset and he’ll have a real crack.
 
Q: As the older Pedder brother have you offered him any words of advice?
 
Mark: He doesn’t need my advice (laughs). He’s an extremely talented driver, in a great car and with a great team behind him. Motorsport is a tough game, and luck can go against you. I just have everything crossed he can have a fast, clean run in Poland and prove to himself that he has what it takes in WRC2.

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