Crocker has dominated the Championship in his debut year, proving again that the three-time Australian champion is among the world’s elite production car drivers.
At the wheel of the Les Walkden Rallying-prepared Impreza WRX STI, Crocker has taken top points in each rally contested so far – Canberra, Rotorua, Hokkaido and Malaysia. He has also secured 23 of the 24 bonus points for winning each day and sits on top of the points series points table with 63, 24 clear of his nearest rival, Japan’s Katsuhiko Taguchi.
The maximum that Taguchi can score if he clean-sweeps Indonesia and the final in China in November is 16 points per event, a total of 32.
So, Crocker must score at least nine points across the two events to shut the door on Mitsubishi driver’s championship aspirations.
However, the Victorian and his Les Walkden Rallying team-mate, Eli Evans, face a tough weekend, on tight, twisty roads and in stifling heat, aware that things can quickly go wrong.
“We’ve had a great run this year, the car has been perfect, and we’ve found a pace and a set-up that’s really working for us,” Crocker said.
“But each of the events are so different and this is certainly one of the toughest and the easiest to come unstuck on.”
“We’ll look to start off and establish a solid position and then make our call from there as to how hard we push.”
“Yes, we’d love to win the championship here and go to China and just enjoy the experience. But this can be a cruel sport, a simple puncture can change so much, so we’re certainly not getting ahead of ourselves.”
Crocker will once again be joined by co-driver Ben Atkinson while Evans will be partnered by Chris Murphy.
Evans has adopted the same set-up in his Impreza as Crocker, and is hopeful that he can produce another strong showing this weekend.
“We’ve tried a few different things this year but we’ve decided to take the lead from Cody this weekend.”
“At the last couple of events we’ve had strong second days but struggled a bit on the opening day.”
“Hopefully we can get over that here and then we’ve got a good chance of a strong points result.”
“Currently we’re sitting fifth but with a good result here and in China, a top three result at the end of the season is not out of the question.”
“It would be a fantastic outcome for Les Walkden Rallying if we can put two Australian Subarus in the top three in this international series.”
Rally Indonesia gets underway on Saturday morning and concludes Sunday afternoon.
Leg One consists of eight special stages across 140.14 competitive kilometres, while Leg Two takes competitors across a further five stages and 83.64 competitive kilometres.
Asia-Pacific Championship Points (after five of seven rounds)
1 C Crocker (Australia), Subaru, 63
2 K Taguchi (Japan), Mitsubishi, 39
3 R Sungkar (Indonesia), Mitsubishi, 31
4 H Yangisawa, Japan, 26
5 E Evans, (Australia), Subaru, 19
6 J Mietten (Finland), Mitsubishi, 16
SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO READ THE FULL STORY
