Simon Evans has etched his name into the record books after winning his second consecutive Australian Rally Championship title at the NGK Rally of Melbourne this weekend.
Not only did Evans and co-driving wife, Sue, win the title in Melbourne, they set a record that may never be beaten. In the 2007 season, comprising six two Heat events, they won every Heat – that’s 12 out of 12.
In Heat 2 of the Rally of Melbourne they won by just 11 seconds after Ford’s Michael Guest set the early pace and took the rally lead. But Evans was never going to be beaten on the final Heat of the season, and put the foot down to take yet another convincing victory.
Guest’s drive was impressive and shows just what the Super 2000 Ford Fiesta is capable of. He was consistently quicker than the S2000 Corolla of Neal Bates, and bodes well for the future of the car and the team.
Separating the two normally aspirated cars was the Group N Lancer Evo 9 of Spencer Lowndes, who completed a brilliant home rally to claim second for the weekend.
In fifth place was Victorian Champion Justin Dowel in another Lancer Evo 9, while former ARC front-runner, Stewart Reid, was sixth in his Group (P) Corolla.
The Raymond brothers, Glen and Matt, were on course for a top five result until they rolled on the final forest stage of the day.
Results, Heat 2:
+11.0s   1 Simon Evans Sue Evans Toyota Corolla Group N (P) 57m58.1s 2 Michael Guest David Green Ford Fiesta Super 2000 3 Spencer Lowndes Chris Randell Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 +26.5s 4 Neal Bates Coral Taylor Toyota Corolla Super 2000 +1m16.3s 5 Justin Dowel Matt Lee Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 +2m37.9s 6 Stewart Reid Jon Allen Toyota Corolla Group N (P) +4m00.1s 7 David Hills David Callaghan Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 +4m10.0s 8 Brett Kipling Fred Gocentas Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 5 +4m11.1s 9 Jesse Robison Sam Robison Subaru Impreza WRX +4m17.8s 10 Paul Batten Craig Jones Subaru Impreza WRX STI +4m24.9s
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