The Rotorua brother and sister pairing of Sloan and Tarryn Cox have started their 2011 rally campaign with a strong second place at the prestigious Whariti Peak hillclimb, held near Woodville over the weekend.
The opening day offered up three runs, with the opening run offering up slippery conditions on the gravel covered road, but 19-year old Sloan managed the second fastest time. A puncture on the second run meant that the Cox Motorsport Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X never made it to the top of the hill, but the third and final run of the day saw Sloan, with a time of 6 minutes 20.4 seconds, back in second place.
Returning the following day, the opening run was drama filled, hitting a fence early on the run although getting away without damage, but only eight corners further up the road, Cox cut another corner too tight and launched the car onto two wheels. After stopping to check a suspected flat tyre, it was found all four were still inflated but over two minutes were lost on the road-side.
In a testing exercise, Cox Motorsport tried a different brand to the usual MRF tyres across the second and third runs up the 7.5km hill, which caused increased oversteer in the car.
Having changed back to MRF tyres for the final run, Cox was straight back on the pace and set his fastest time of the weekend at 6 minutes 12.04 seconds. Backing that up with a time only a second slower assured the Cox pair second place for the two day event.
As well as taking a strong result in an event that Sloan won two years ago, the team have made progress, learning plenty about tyres and giving the Taslo Engineering Evo X a solid shakedown before the opening round of the New Zealand Rally Championship, Rally Otago, on April 8-10.
In the mean time, you can keep up with the latest from Cox Motorsport on the team’s new blog, www.coxmotorsport.blogspot.com, including the final round of the New Zealand Hillclimb Championships, to be held in Canterbury on March 26-27. Cox currently sits second equal in this championship.
– Credit: BB Media.