Story: Evan Rothman
Picture: Proton
With a host of international rally crews contesting the International Rally of Queensland this weekend, Australia’s best will be looking to outpace their rivals over the event’s 18 stages.
At the top of this list is Simon Evans and co-driver wife Sue Evans (Subaru Impreza WRX STi) who are the reigning Australia Rally Champions. Last was twelve months ago that Evans powered their way to a storming win in this event to take the overall honours in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) category by one minute and the Australian Rally Championship (ARC) category by two minutes!
Having won the ARC three times in the last four years, and his virtually unassailable lead in the ARC title race of 64 points over his nearest rival Scott Pedder, Evans will be hard to beat this weekend.
The nature of this event lends itself well to his driving style: flat-out! The rally is located in the popular Queensland tourist destination of Sunshine Coast, with rally action taking place in the adjacent forest roads. The Sunshine Coast is about two hours north of the city of Brisbane.
Competitors line up on Friday to start the rally of 18 stages: all but two are gravel, as the two tarmac tests will be run as Super Special Stages to attract the spectators to this popular event. This year also marks the 42nd running of this prestigious event with its service park set for the town of Imbil once more as was in 2009.
In fact, the event route remains largely unchanged from 2009 so all drivers will be familiar with this fast rally.
In the APRC fight, the two Proton R3 Rally Team cars of Chris Atkinson and Alister McRae will be in fighting form and looking for their elusive win. Expect Katushiko Taguchi, Guarave Gill, Hayden Paddon, and Hiroshi Yanagisawa to fight for podium positions too.
With this two-day event counting for both the ARC and APRC, many drivers will be eager to score strong results and bags of points.