LRT Lewana Stages – Saturday July 28th
WA Rally Championship leader Alex Stone will have one eye on the road and one eye on the prize when he competes in the LRT Lewana Stages Rally next weekend.
The event, which is round four of the WARC (and the second last event for the year), will be run over nearly 120 competitive kilometres of fast gravel roads around the old Grimwade town site near Balingup.
Stone wanted to be competitive but ‘safe’ in his Subaru WRX and anticipated strong rivalry from four drivers including a Subaru trio of Leigh Hynes (who’s second on the championship leader board), Doug Tostevin and Lee McIlroy, plus Travis White in a Mitsubishi Lancer.
“It’s going to be more about consistency throughout the event,” Stone said.
Meanwhile the championship leader had been busy preparing his car for the rally. The blue WRX suffered a blown turbo in last month’s Experts Cup in Collie and his team has been making sure that was the only damage the car sustained.
“We’ve been doing a lot of testing and the motor has come up okay. The compression test was good,” he said.
The Lewana Stages is a pace-noted rally which Stone said meant the drivers could hit speeds of up to 200km/h.
Road director Stephen Mackinlay said: “The flowing nature of the roads means you can carry good speed from one corner to the next.”
“Drivers require absolute commitment over the blind crests to be competitive.”
According to Mackinlay, top competitors in the two-wheel-drive competition would be Ford Escort drivers Dylan King (who’s leading the championship) and Blair Pugh as well as Kiel Douglas in a Holden Commodore.
“All three have been fighting it out this year and they’re definitely the guys everyone else measures themselves against, but Sean Keating in the red Allstar Garage Silvia could be the ‘dark horse’.”
The event is also a Clubman Series rally which is run over half the distance and Matt Snaddon will attempt to make it four in a row in his Toyota Corolla.
The Lewana Stages rally kicks off on Saturday 28th July at 1pm from the Kirup Oval on South Western Highway. Spectator information is available for Rally HQ at the Kirup Community Hall.
Full results are available on www.rallywa.com
SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO READ THE FULL STORY
