RallySport Magazine September 2016

LIGHTFORCE RALLY SA - ARC 4
“On a fast left hand
bend, his Corolla left
the road at 150km/h.
Bates and McCarthy
were fortunately okay.”
all. A short blast through the short,
6.37km of Cromer proved rather
straightforward.
Brendan Reeves set the early pace by
2.2 seconds from Evans. Mark Pedder
completed the stage a promising third
quickest in his fully rebuilt Peugeot 208
Maxi.
The Goldfields stage, set northwest
of the Mount Pleasant base, is a driver’s
favourite, but was dominated by
Brendan Reeves. This took his tally to
three stage wins out of three, and a 21
second lead was quickly built.
Molly Taylor was a surprising eighth
quickest in SS1, but a faulty wire caused
no anti-lag on her Subaru, dropping the
car’s power. This was easily fixed by the
crew after the stage.
A kangaroo attempted to derail
Simon Evans’ stage two, but that,
coupled with a spin on the last corner
of the stage, meant he dropped to
third, behind Harry Bates.
“We have major rear brake lock up,
which is stalling the engine,” Evans
lamented.
Mark Pedder, although not troubled
through the first lot of stages, found
the roads slippery but was in fifth place,
behind the debuting Arron Windus,
who had survived a big spin on the first
run through Goldfields.
Taylor had recovered somewhat to
be sixth, just clear of Tasmanian Eddie
Maguire in a Lancer Evo 9, and WA’s
Brad Markovic.
In the first afternoon stage, disaster
struck for the championship leader,
Harry Bates. On a fast left hand bend,
Bates was third before
his accident on day one.
Harry Bates’ Corolla
took a big hit.
his Corolla left the road at 150km/h.
Bates and co-driver John McCarthy
were fortunately okay, but their car
was in desperate need of repair, and
perhaps requiring a miracle to make it
to the start of heat two.
“We took a slight cut across the grass
and it was a lot slipperier than it had
been in recce,” Bates explained.
“The car slid to the outside of the
road and for a second I thought I had
it under control. But it hit the trees,
ripping a front wheel off and doing
significant damage.”
With the stage
temporarily stopped,
Bates’ crew were able
to extract the car
from the stage (see
separate story) and
trailer it back to the
service park, where a
12-hour rebuild got
underway.
Fixing a brake bias
issue (by turning the
brake bias adjuster!)
from earlier in the
day, and driving
a little smoother,
meant Simon Evans netted a stage win
on ‘Crawford’. He was now building
momentum and was looking forward to
the night stages.
An exhaust leak was Reeves’ only
dilemma as he led heading into the
night.
Arron Windus had started the event
well and was third outright at one
stage, but four spins in the most recent
two stages were not ideal for the 20
year-old.
“We’re just trying a bit too hard. We
Brendan Reeves
has now won three
events in a row.
20 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - SEPTEMBER 2016