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Asia Pacific Rally Championship March 14,
2006 |
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Asia Pacific Rally Championship
Latest News: www.aprc.tv |
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CANBERRA: Crocker and Subaru take early championship lead
(Photos by Ross Hyde/ LINEAR)
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Crocker Wins |
Australian Cody Crocker got his 2006 Asia Pacific Rally Championship campaign off to an ideal start by winning the first round of the international series The Subaru Rally of Canberra in his homeland of Australia. Crocker dominated the event leading from start to finish and winning every stage - bar one. "Its never an easy win, we had some niggling problems, but the car went well and Ben (Atkinson) and I quickly got into a rhythm. A great start for the championship - lots of points and its always good to establish a lead early on. It was very demanding in the heat today, which is a good taste of what is to come in many of the rounds in the rest of the Championship".
Crocker's win was complemented by his young team-mate Eli Evans who finished a fantastic second on his debut for the Les Walkden Rally Team. Subaru's took first -second and third with Japan's Yanigaisawa bringing the Cusco Subaru home in third after some initial problems, including a major roll-over during testing.
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Katsuhiko Taguchi |
Katsuhiko Taguchi in the MRF Mitsubishi looked like making a promising start to his Asia Pacific campaign, holding a comfortable 2nd over-night, but then on the first stage of the 2nd leg dropped from 2nd position to 4th with turbo problems. "We are lucky as we had a turbo problem and our engine oil is almost gone, but we made it back to service. The mechanics did a great job to change the turbo in a 20-minute service break - perfect job. We lost a lot of time and dropped from 2nd to 4th position, however we still picked up 7 points for the weekend - lucky seven!! Mark (Stacey) and I worked well this weekend, the car went well and we're looking forward to next event in New Caledonia".
Rifat Sungkar from Indonesia bought his Mitsubishi home in 5th on his Asia-Pacific debut." Our goal was to finish and learn and we have achieved this and we're looking forward to the next events. Its so fantastic to drive on such fast roads". Sungkar's young team-mate Subhan Aksa was one of two retirees. Aksa over-shot a corner on the slippery first stage and couldn't extract himself from the sand. However he was able to restart on Day 2 and get valuable mileage.
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Rifat Sungkar |
For Finland's Jarkko Miettinen in the 2nd MRF Mitsubishi it was a debut and event to forget - yet for all that, Jarkko showed he could be a contender for the APRC crown with some very fast times on unfamiliar roads, a new team and new tyres. Near the end of day Miettinen was only 26 seconds away from Crocker and had beat him on stage 4, the long and fast Millpost 1. But then on stage 6 Miettenen disappeared off the time sheets - a gear-selector broke and he was left on the side of the road with no drive. After repairs he was re-entered for Day 2 to get some bonus points and slotted into the running order behind his team-mate Taguchi. When Taguchi was slowed by his turbo problems he created a blanket of dust, that Miettinen quickly caught. Early morning sun, dust and no wind meant pockets of zero visibility and that's what caught Miettiene out, catapulting over a steep bank after completely missing a fast corner. " We were probably going abit too fast and missed the corner" said a dejected Miettiene to the TV cameras. Considerable damage was done to the car, but Racetorque are hoping to have the car fully repaired and on the boat to New Caledonia."
The next round of the championship is next month on the tropical island of New Caledonia at Easter weekend. PHOTOGRAPHS: http://www.linear-photographs.com/aprc2006/Canberra/index.asp
TELEVISION FOOTAGE: Available from APRC.TV email brian@power-pictures.com
Subaru Rally of Canberra - APRC results - Sunday March 12, 2006
1 CROCKER, Cody (AUS), ATKINSON, Ben (AUS) Subaru Impreza WRX (N4) 2:27:18.6
2 EVANS, Eli (AUS), McADAM, Matt (AUS) Subaru Impreza WRX (N4) 2:32:58.5
3 YANAGISAWA , Hiroshi (J), MISAIZU, Tadashi (J) Subaru Impreza WRX (N4) 2:36:26.6
4 TAGUCHI, Katsuhiko (J), STACEY, Mark (AUS) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII (N4) 2:38:54.1
5 SUNGKAR, Rifat (RI), HERKUSUMA, M. (RI) Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VIII (N4) 2:42:43.8
Asia-Pacific Rally Championship calendar 2006
10-12 March: Subaru Rally of Canberra
14-16 April: New Caledonia (not competed by LWR)
26-28 May: New Zealand
7-9 July: Hokkaido, Japan
18-20 August: Malaysia
15-17 September: Indonesia
24-26 November: China |
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