February 23rd...Testing With The Middleton Rally Team!

Team News from MRT

February 23rd...
Testing With The Middleton Rally Team!

With the start of the 2000 Australian Rally Championship only 5 weeks away Brett and the team tested their new Group A Subaru Impreza WRX in the hills surrounding Wyong, NSW.

"Our aims for testing are simple, I firstly need to learn to drive the car confidently and as fast as possible but sensibly, and second both the team and myself need to learn how to set the car up."

The location chosen by the team proved ideal for the new car, a mix of both fast and slow corners and a huge array of road surfaces would stretch both machine and driver to the limit. The section of road used had a good combination of different surfaces, ranging from gravel sweepers to clay, sandy and rough crests and corners. It certainly wasn't everything we will face doing the ARC rounds, but it gives us a good grounding in how the car will run and Brett's driving.

As proven by Cody Crocker and Team Subaru Australia in 1999, (it won Group the Group N Championship), Middleton's Impreza WRX is a winner even in factory trim, the team deciding to focus largely upon the handling and electronic management of the car rather than the engine and drive train.

The car was scary to drive at first as the suspension was all over the place! Once we got it heading in the direction I liked I became more confident, and pushed it hard at the same time we started to turn the wick up a bit and it really started to perform.

The team also received expert assistance from James from Possum Bourne Motorsport who had been flown over from New Zealand to help with the set-up of the car. "As with any new piece of equipment we wanted to make sure the car was properly set-up before we tackled the first round of the Super Series. James' expertise in all aspects of the car, especially with the set-up of the Possum-Link ECU, was invaluable, I feel even more confident in the car now!" enthused Brett.

From testing the team plan to run the car at the upcoming opening round to the SGI NSW State Championship, the 2GO Wyong Rally.

"We expect to do well in the Wyong 2GO Rally in a couple of weeks time (march 11th and 12th the closest rally to Sydney for the year) , but we will mainly be focusing on fine tuning the car and getting used to rally servicing rather than just testing or in the workshop," commented Chris Meyers.

HOME