News - Rally New Zealand - Leg 2, 22nd September 2001

Team News from MRT

Rally New Zealand - Leg 2, 22nd September 2001

Photo by Stuart Bowes

After yesterdays gearbox problems, the MRT Group A WRX Team clawed their way back to respectability today despite the continuing slippery and extremely dusty conditions. They finished the day 35th on the leaderboard.

Cody Crocker and co-driver Greg Foletta charged into the day with great promise only to DNF 7.1km into the final stage by crashing heavily. Although taken to hospital, both were reported to be fine but very disappointed to to have seen a possible Group N win allude them.

Possum Bourne had his share of problems with a less than ideal choice of tyres on SS11 that held him back to 13th fastest on the stage, engine problems on SS14 and with his front brakes ON FIRE at the start control of SS15 requiring the use of an on board fire extinguisher to subdue.

Leaderboard after Leg 2
1. Richard Burns Subaru Impreza WRC 2:56:03.6
2. Colin McRae Ford Focus RS +0:42.6
3. Harri Rovanpera Peugeot 206 WRC +1:05.2
4. Carlos Sainz Ford Focus RS +1:27.5
5. Marcus Gronholm Peugeot 206 WRC +1:42.5
6. Didier Auriol Peugeot 206 WRC +1:43.0

14. Possum Bourne Subaru Impreza WRC +7:11.3
35. Brett Middleton Subaru Impreza WRX +23:01.2

First car was out at 7am, our later start position gave the team a "late" start compared to Fridays although the late finish from Fridays Super stage meant most of us were lucky to get 6 hrs sleep.! With cars starting at 1 minute intervals we were somewhere around 50....grrrr!

Full of motivation we prepared for the "Northern" stages of the event, based out of Ruawai, ("ru away") to warm us up this time we had the longest SS in the World Championship, 59km, fast, tight, tricky and it was all mixed into one...Again we erred and ran medium tyres, only to find again most crews were on softs, but we were still going and the spare (Synchro) box was making some weird noises but holding up.

SS10 was 19km, SS11 12km, SS12 16km, SS13 12km...the km's were adding up and we were not half way yet!

I was having fun on the stages we found to our liking and Andrew was doing his usual great job of reading the notes and keeping me under control. Up front all the WRC's (World rally Cars) were still going, Frances Delecor in the plain white Focus had a roll and rejoined the road in front of Possum Bourne and Craig Vincent in their Impreza WRC. I am sure the literally hundreds of "go possum" signs kept him motivated, as without doubt the favourite for the event, and local, the team certainly had plenty of support!

The leading WRC's were playing cat and mouse with the variation of stage times effected heavily by the position on the road, Burns in his Impreza was pushing hard to gain a lead that he would ultimately capitalise on later in the event.

Makinnen had a flat tyre that would effect the end result, McRae and Sainz (Fords) were in their usual committed style, making me and every other (non WRC) crews look plain boring!

S14 21km, SS15 26 and SS16 10 went without incident but I was becoming more concerned with some weird noises coming from the gearbox. The team was pumped up the many spectators were cheering us on, with only a few Aussies in the event we had great support.

We had brought with us a new batch of rally car stickers..these were handed out and disappeared fast!
Cody Croker and Greg Foletta (Impreza) were swapping times for the Group N honours with Manfred Stohl in his Lancer, unfortunately it all went wrong for Cody on a later stage, a fast uphill sweeper resulted in the crew leaving the road and damaging the car quite bad, luckily they were both ok, with Cody having a broken Cheek bone and cracked rib. I am sure they will be back in The OZ WRC event in to renew the battle and show that an Impreza is faster than any Lancer!

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