Steve Raymond and brother Glen, have hung on at round 3 of the Exedy Victorian Rally Championship to take victory in a day that saw other favoured contenders fail to finish.
The East Gippsland Stages held from the regional city of Bairnsdale started with favourable conditions for crews after rain earlier in the week. Raymond drew Car 1 on the road and would sweep the fast sandy tracks for the other front runners, but it didn’t slow him down as he stamped his authority on Stage 1, taking the stage win by two seconds over Justin Dowel and Scott Spedding in their EVO 9.
Rowan Woollard and Phil Hurle’s event suffered an early setback in their Datsun 1600 on SS1 with a roll costing them valuable time. They were ultimately out of late time, although they righted the car and finished the stage. A frantic repair at Bairnsdale Racecourse service would see them start Heat 2 later in the day. Brothers Steve and Brent Mackenzie in their Ford Fiesta ST also encountered problems on SS1, with a power steering pump failure ending their event early without recording a stage time.
Warren Lee and David Lethlean would pull a blinding stage 2 time along the famous Engineers Road, taking the stage win, but it wasn’t enough to hold back Dowel who took the overall event lead by two seconds. Lee continued to push, however a rear diff failure resulted in the crew retiring on SS3 and unable to re-join for Heat 2, a blow to their 2012 championship campaign. Lee was not alone with problems on SS3, with Dowel suffering electrical problems resulting in no electronic diffs and revs cutting at 4500 RPM - his time tumbled on the stage, handing a significant 25 second lead to the Raymonds going into the final stage of the heat.
The Raymonds extended their lead over Dowel on SS4 to win the heat by 42 seconds, with Tristan Penahall and Jolie Middleton finishing a well-earned third in their WRX STi, while Wayne Stewart and Lucas Zinsstag held on for fourth in Heat 1. Ashley Allan and Brad Knox finished Heat 1 with their best result to date in fifth O/R in their WRX Sti.
The Exedy 2WD Championship was being hard fought after the early exit of the Mackenzie brothers, with Mike Conway and Jenny Cole leading the 2WD charge in their Ford Escort while Brian Semmens and Dan Parry lead the points charge in their Nissan 200SX. Peter Schey and Andrew Crimson impressed in the debut of their Historic MK 1 Ford Escort RS1600 BDA by rounding out the Top 10 of Heat 1.
The Hyundai Excel Rally series was seeing a massive battle between Andrew Thompson and Simon Barton-Ancliff and Round 2 Excel winners, Viv Dilkes‐Frayne and Doug Fernie. Each swapping stage wins, but it would be Thompson who would hang on to win Heat 1 by just one second over Dilkes-Franyne. Daniel Anderson and Mike Twycross's event ended early on SS1 after rolling out of contention.
A 60 minute service back in Bairnsdale would allow crews time to fully service their machines ready to tackle the two long night stages that made up Heat 2. Dowel was unable to rectify the electrical issues and would head into the night stages lacking top end speed, however, just 2.1 km into SS5 he lost all lights and was forced to withdraw from the Heat.
The Raymond brothers took the Heat 2 victory by 18 seconds over an impressive drive by Conway in the club Escort to come home second in heat with Penhall/Middleton rounding out the top 3. Woollard threw caution to the wind to recover from his heat 1 roll to finish heat 2 in fifth behind Bernard Mirion and Alan Mackay in their Subaru Impreza RX.
Round 4 of the Exedy VRC now heads to the southern New South Wales town of Eden over the Queens Birthday long weekend. Supp Regs can be downloaded from www.vicrally.com.au
Photo: John Doutch
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