After 230km of the hardest ARC roads in Australia, Steve Shepheard and John McCarthy brought home the SACHS Rally Team Evo X in a solid fourth place in the International Rally of Queensland.
Three outright stage wins and consistent top times kept the team in the hunt right till the last stage, but from the start of the event the team’s number one aim was to get to the finish and get series points on the board.
“With this round being an endurance point score, you have to aim at being there Sunday afternoon to get a result and championship points, and after a bad start in WA, we needed those points. We are happy with the weekend,” team principal George Shepheard said.
Steve Shepheard added: “Very rough and ultra technical is how to describe the roads this weekend after they copped a battering in the January floods. You really had to be committed, but careful to find the time, but still conserve the car and tyres.
“We had a few small problems Saturday morning that dropped a bit of time, but from then on we had a pretty good run really.
“Driving the unrestricted Evo with so much more power is a heap of fun, it’s what you want as a driver for sure!”
“There is no harder event in Australia than this one for a navigator and driver combination,” co-driver John McCarthy said. “There is never any let up and it’s so technically demanding, so to get to the end is prize enough.”
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