News - Rally New Zealand - Day 1, 21st September 2001

Team News from MRT

Rally New Zealand - Leg 1, 21st September 2001

Photo by Stuart Bowes

The dry weather has provided extremely dusty and slippery roads, the lead drivers clearing a faster line for the trailing drivers.

Both Bourne and Crocker struggled over the early stages, Bourne’s Impreza World Rally Car suffering from minor brake problems which effected the Kiwi’s confidence over the fast and flowing stages while Crocker spun on SS1 and then struggled with severe under steer and turbo problems in his Group N WRX.

Brett and Andrew battled through a tough first Leg, driving the MRT Group A WRX as high as 35th Outright before the gearbox became jammed in second gear on SS6, the 16.62km Te Papatapu II stage.

Leaderboard after Leg 1
1. Kenneth Eriksson Hyundai Accent WRC 2:56:03.6
2. Marcus Gronholm Peugeot 206 WRC +0:16.5
3. Carlos Sainz Ford Focus RS +0:20.5
4. Colin McRae Ford Focus RS + 0:30.4
5. Freddy Loix Mitsubishi Carisma GT +0:44.6
6. Francois Delecour Ford Focus RS +0:47.4

10. Possum Bourne Subaru Impreza WRC +0:50.2
16. Cody Crocker Subaru Impreza WRX +2:50.8
42. Brett Middleton Subaru Impreza WRX +9:16.9

A publicity start in the centre of Aukland had plenty of the public in attendance to see the cars drive over the (rotating) start ramp, little did they know we simply drove around the corner and parked the car/s for the night for a (very) early 6am start.

Friday we faced the first of many long transport drives (over 2hrs) down to the Southern town of Raglan, the central service of the days stages.

Te Aku, SS1 was 32 km, a reasonable stage to get things warmed up! As a driver I was faced with the difficulty of being on the pace as well as driving for a finish, which was the teams overall objective.
The time was "very average" running on medium compound tyres was a mistake when all other teams were on softs...Anyway the car was unscratched and we had over 1600 km to go!

The team adjusted the rear DMS ride height to get more traction as it was plain scary to drive and it was a fitting reminder of how sensitive a Impreza is to suspension set up. The rest of the day was made up of S2 6km, SS3 17km, SS412, a regroup and service prepared us for the famous Whaanga Coast (pronounced "fonga"), SS6, 30km and the first 20 we rarely were able to get out of 2nd or 3rd gear!

Very hard on the car with numerous hairpin corners and sheer drops on narrow roads. The stage finished very fast and 4th and 5th gear straights. Towards the end of the stage we lost 3rd gear, later to be diagnosed as a preparation error, however we continued to complete the stage with a reasonable time. Out of 80 odd cars we were setting stage times of the mid thirties, not bad with 25 World rally cars in front of us!

The next stage we started ready to short shift and get on with the event. Unfortunately the gearbox jammed in 2nd gear not long from the start (due to the loss of third) and we completed the stage in 2nd gear and tumbled down the results..... The 25 km back to service was a nightmare and ensured the engine was run in well and truly, having to drive the car between 60km/hr and 100, by accelerating hard from 60km/h to 8000 rpm limit and coasting we managed to make the Karcher wash down and book in for a major service.

The team were prepared to fit the spare gearbox and they replaced it in 25 minutes, with 20 to spare to do the "usual" rally maintenance. All the team were impressed with the time to do the swap and many spectators watched as 6 guys managed to work on the gearbox at once!

135km was the transport back to Aukland and the Manukau Super special stage that we would do twice. Back near Aucklands amusement park, Rainbows End, for the super stage we were against a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 5 in the usual match race for the huge crowd, being cautious off the start line we gave away a car length in the 200m odd "drag" straight prior the first corner, this happened on both runs and both runs we were beaten by a car length!

Hey we were still going and I had not crashed, rolled or scratched the car yet!

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