Raymond takes Forest Rally title

Neal Bates and Coral Taylor, driving the NBM Motorsport Toyota Corolla S2000, have won Heat 2 of the Quit Forest Rally in Western Australia, but it was the Raymond brothers’ weekend in their older Group N (P) Toyota Corolla Sportivo’ who won the rally overall.

Pushing through for his first heat win, Glen Raymond was ecstatic for his team.

“To win the Heat yesterday for the first time and to come third today is fantastic. It’s what we have been working for since we started rallying.”

The Heat win elevates them to third overall in the ARC.

“We finished 10th yesterday and today’s win is the best I could do,” Neal Bates said. “The roads were really slippery but the Corolla was setup to deal with that. Simon (Evans) not finishing yesterday has helped us out and we are now leading the Championship.”

Simon and Sue Evans, in the Evans Builders Lancer EVO 9, had a mixed day with an overnight engine rebuild. Trading top four times all day, it was enough to reward the overnight work with second place in the Heat, but fourth place overall. They move into second place in the championship.

Darren Windus lead the Heat by 15 seconds in his rented S2000 Corolla, but his day turned upside down after a big accident.

“It was a left, and on the outside there was a stump and we hit it. It was a side impact, basically the worst kind of accident you really want,” co-driver John Allen, said.

“It’s very disappointing – but the worst part is that the Raymonds hit us after that!”

“Matt (Raymond) told Glen to slow down, but he obviously didn’t slow down enough and hit the side of the car.”  

Windus was taken out of the car and was attended to by the paramedics in the FIV, but did not suffer any major injuries.

“For us it was perfect, we were leading the rally. Darren thought he was slow on the first stage – he said that was his warm-up stage – and we won it quite comfortably and the next stage the car was going good. The frustrating part is that we weren’t driving the car silly,” Allen added.

Yesterday’s fourth placed driver, Justin Dowel, also crashed out, badly damaging his Lancer Evo IX.

QUIT Forest Rally
Heat 2 Results:
1. Neal Bates / Coral Taylor, Toyota Corolla S2000, 58m04.3s
2. Simon Evans / Sue Evans, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, +13.6s
3. Glen Raymond / Matt Raymond, Toyota Corolla Sportivo, +19.1s
4. Dean Herridge / Glen Weston, Subaru Impreza WRX, +24.5s
5. Eli Evans / Chris Murphy, Subaru Impreza WRX, +1m19.1s

Australian Rally Championship pointscore
After Round 3 (of 6)
1. Neal Bates / Coral Taylor        199 points
2. Simon Evans / Sue Evans        186
3. Glen Raymond / Matt Raymond    174
4. Eli Evans / Chris Murphy        116
5. Justin Dowel / Matt Lee        112
6. Dean Herridge / Glen Weston    75

Photo: Hubble Photographix

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