Mazda2 driver Brendan Reeves and his co-driving sister, Rhianon Smyth, have finished the first full day’s competition of Rally Australia in second place. Reeves went into today’s seven stages in fourth place after two runs of the Super Special Stage last night.
Today’s competition consisted of six forestry stages in the Urunga area, south of the rally’s base in Coffs Harbour, followed by two runs of the Super Special Stage, a purpose-built track in the Coffs Harbour CDB.
Road conditions were dry and dusty making tyre choice a challenge, but Reeves was happy with his choice, particularly on the longest stage of the day, “Newry”, at 24 kilometres.
Competitors completed a loop of three stages in the morning before heading back to Coffs Harbour for a midday service. They then returned to repeat the morning’s stages, however the final forestry stage of the day was eventually cancelled due to time constraints because of a dust being a problem.
“We had a really great day,” Reeves said. “It’s great being back in the RallySchool.com.au Mazda2 which ran really well all day.
“The conditions were really tough. A lot of the stages today were quite technical and with the dusty conditions, it made reading the corners quite difficult.
“We’re really happy with our second place today and will try and better that tomorrow.”
Saturday’s stages of Rally Australia will see crews contest another 132 kilometres over six stages (four forestry and two Super Special) with the forestry stages to be held in the Nambucca region.
Rally Australia is round five of the 2013 ECB Australian Rally Championship (ARC) and also round ten of the World Rally Championship.
Eli Evans (Honda Jazz) leads the ARC with Tom Wilde third, 13 seconds behind Reeves.
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