Last year’s Flanders International Rally Challenge (FIRC) championship winners, Andy Rowe and Cat Lund, showed their class again on this weekend’s ORC Canal Rally with an emphatic FIRC win and a fine sixth place overall against some fierce competition. The crew were FIRC favourites, seeded to start as car number seven in their Mitsubishi Evo III.
As in 2010, Melissa Debackere won the rally after a fierce duel with Mathias Viaene in the Skoda Octavia WRC and Paul Lietaer in the Subaru S9 WRC. Viaene was clearly the fastest, but halfway through the rally was given a one minute road penalty. Ultimately, Viaene finished just 10 seconds behind Lietaer. Kris Cools in his Evo X and Chris Van Woensel were fighting throughout the rally for fourth place, Cools finally winning the battle by 8 seconds from the Nissan 370Z GT car.
FIRC champion Rowe had to fight hard for his sixth place in the Evo III with Bert Coene in his EVO X and local driver Kurt Braeckevelt in his BMW M3 E36. The three friends were constantly swapping very close stage times with Rowe ultimately finishing three seconds ahead.
Rowe dominated the FIRC class by over 4 minutes, with Andy Thompson and Rich Vincent extremely pleased to finish second after all their mechanical woes last season. Dutch challenger Martijn Broekhuizen in his Evo 6 TME finished as third FIRC, a further 18 seconds behind Thompson’s Ford Focus.
Overall Results:
1. Debackere/Cokeleare – 32min 05sec
2. Lietaer/Pattyn +26sec
3.Viaene/Van Malderghem +36sec
4.Cools/Vangheluwe +1min 49sec
5. Van Woensel/De Bosschere +1min 57sec
6. Rowe/Lund +2mins 34sec
7. Coene/Thores +2mins 37sec
8. Braeckevelt/Messelis +2mins 39sec
FIRC Results
1. Rowe/Lund 34mins 39 sec
2. Thompson/Vincent +4mins 17 sec
3. Broekhuizen/Teunissen +4mins 35sec
4. Borgers/Van de Wardt +4mins 50sec
5. Legg/De Groote +5mins 04sec
6. Beve/Dechildre +5min 07sec
7. Smith/Graham + 5mins 45sec
8. Van Middendorp/Koordes +8mins 18sec
For further information and full results please visit www.orc-rally.be or www.firc.be.
More information on Andy Rowe/Cat Lund and their Evo III can be found at www.fastestcat.co.uk.