After a trying day before the event when testing exposed some potential problems, the crew made the Angaston start around the Super Special Stage.
Heat 1
The all bitumen stage had a couple of tricky handbrake corners and a half spin took the shine off SS2 for the team, leaving them down the order for Friday night.
Saturday morning moved into the forestry complex around the spectator area and the first of the shire roads. The Full-On Rallysport Evo 6 really began to shine on the fast shire road stages, and whilst the Evo 6 set up didn’t suit the forestry complex, the team minimised time loss through these repeated stages and more than recovered on the road stages.
After the first road stage of Mt Gawler, the Fullerton Financial Services Evo 6 was up to 17th outright, improving on their times from last year by around 2 seconds per km. These quicker times continued through the afternoon, and by the time the Angaston Specials came around again, the team was settled into 13th outright, and 3rd in the Rally Challenge.
Two neat runs around Angaston sealed the day and 13th place was confirmed.
Heat 2
Sunday started with 2 new shire road stages. Goldfields Reverse started the day and Bruce and Hugh recorded their top speed for the event on this stage at 185 km/hr, immediately starting the day in 16th outright. At the end of the day’s second stage, Tweedies, they were up to 14th, with Bruce driving superbly.
The next group of forestry and road stages lifted the team to 12th outright and 2nd in the Challenge, with the Eden High stage again a highlight of the event.
“It’s a really challenging stage for both crew members,” said Hugh. “As the stage speeds up in the second half, keeping the pacenotes on song is tough. But it’s a great feeling to finish that stage with a good performance.” The team were 1.7 seconds/km faster than in 2006.
The final batch of stages had no problems, with the crew setting 11th fastest time on the last stage, Charleston, to finish the heat in 12th outright and 2nd in the Challenge.
This has left the Full-On Rallysport team in 4th place in the Challenge standings, after competing in just 2 rounds, and 16th outright in the ARC standings.
Thanks must go to the hardworking service crew of Rob Reddiex and Richard Harris, and the team’s supporters Fullerton Financial Services, Prime Haulage and Pioneer Seeds.
Next event: The Great Lakes Rally of NSW.
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