News -

11th August - MRT completed only 11km of Special Stage One today.

After battling handling troubles in Heat One, the team were all pumped up for a great result in Heat Two. Unfortunately this was not to be the case.

"The stage had already been run twice on Saturday so as the first stage for Sunday we had an idea of what we were in for" Brett said. The car was dramatically improved, with the previous evenings 2hr service.

Brett and Andrew attacked "Torrent 3" (Special stage one that has the super fast Styx Road) with renewed enthusiasm, the Citibank Ready Credit Subaru taking advantage of its Group A power.

"I was very happy and motivated, the car was like I wanted, I could slide it though the fast 4th gear corners and the new (updated) DBA brakes were working extremely well, until we clipped a hidden rock on a left hand corner. Immediately I knew we had done some damage and we found a place to change the deflated front tyre, caused by the badly bent wheel! After a lightning fast change we were back on the road in less than 3 minutes, but the car was handling really weird. We soon found out why, the rear LH Wheel completely broke off leaving only the hub!

We parked the car in a safe spot and waved to the overhead Helicopter!" Brett added.

With the next planned event for MRT to be the New Zealand WRC a decision was taken to retire, instead of pressing on, the further 11km would have done severe damage to the car.

"After parking the car we also realised the lower trailing arm joint had been smashed, weather this was by the rock or by dragging on the road I don't know" Andrew said.

MRT will now consolidate their plans and prepare for the (much) longer NZ WRC event next month, having had mixed success in the same event last year, they are making every effort to ensure success. www.rallynz.org.nz/

The car will have all the major parts removed and many replaced with new ones to ensure 100% reliability,

They will also have to purchase some new wheels!

"For this event everything must be spot on, a silly 50 cent part can stop success, we don't swap for the sake of it and waste money, but use our experience and knowledge to replace what we feel is needed to ensure reliability" Shane (MRT mechanic) said.

" I will probably work full time on the car for the next 3 weeks to get a head start and the rest of the MRT crew who volunteer their valuable time will come in and help weekly, every Tuesday evening" he added.

The Subaru Safari and the ARC is over this year for MRT, for this event success goes to the Subaru Rally team, however the championship is not over, Mitsubishi still has a mathematical chance of winning, with bonus points on offer at the rally of Melbourne next month.

1	1	Possum Bourne Subaru	N4	0:57:17	0:00:00 (0:00:00)
2	4	Cody Crocker Subaru	N4	0:58:05	0:00:48 (0:00:48)
3	7	Spencer Lowndes Mitsubishi	N4	0:58:12	0:00:55 (0:00:07)
4	5	Michael Guest Mitsubishi	N4	0:58:58	0:01:41 (0:00:46)
5	6	Dean Herridge Subaru	N4	0:59:21	0:02:04 (0:00:23)
6	8	John Goadsdoue Mitsubishi	P5	0:59:45	0:02:28 (0:00:24)
7	20	Mark Walkden Mitsubishi	N4	1:00:23	0:03:06 (0:00:38)
8	10	Scott Pedder Mitsubishi	N4	1:00:49	0:03:52 (0:00:46)
9	22	Steve Winwood Mitsubishi	N4	1:01:48	0:04:31 (0:00:39)
10	14	Craig Neale Mitsubishi	N4	1:01:53	0:04:36

Team News from MRT