MOTORSPORT: Two rallies for price of one

Almost 100 cars from overseas and around Australia, and a few motorbikes, will compete in Queensland's international rally that is part of several championships

Midweek motorsport report
May 11, 2011

Best of Asia-Pacific and Australia on Sunshine Coast
It's a big weekend for Australian rally fans, with the country's top rally drivers and a swag of internationals competing in one event, although not strictly against other.

It's not Rally Australia at its new Coffs Coast location just yet (although the route for that World Rally Championship round in September is seemingly, at last, close to being announced). No, it's the Rally of Queensland, or more properly, the third International Rally of Queensland, and there are almost 100 cars entered.

It's the biggest field in the 43-year history of the event, with twice as many overseas entries (16) as last year. It's round two of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship and the second round of the Australian Rally Championship, as well as part of the state championship, the Australian Junior Challenge and the Australian Classic Rally Challenge. And there's a new motorcycle section, called Forest Moto.

The rally starts Friday evening with two short 'shootout' stages at Caloundra, 100km north of Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast.

Saturday there are eight gravel stages in the Imbil State Forest in the Mary Valley, inland near Gympie and Cooloola. These are followed by two more 'shootouts' at Caloundra that night, then seven more forest stages  in the Mary Valley on Sunday.

The ceremonial finish and presentations are Sunday afternoon in the timber town of Imbil, venue for the event service park.

Participants who finish will cover more than 730km, with 231km of  competitive stages on gravel (the longest stage is 34.4km) and 9km on bitumen.

The rally brings together the works Proton Satria Neo Super 2000 cars from Malaysia -- driven by Australia's top rally driver, Chris Atkinson, and Perth-based star Alistair McRae -- against Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions run by teams from Japan, Australia, China, India and Indonesia.

Then there's the Australian field headed by Toyota Corolla Sportivos, one of which the Sunshine Coast's Ryan Smart drove to victory in the opening round of the ARC in Western Australia last month.

Smart's Toyota, a restricted production rally car, and the cars of other Australians running unrestricted turbochargers (under the first of progressive rule steps over three years to reshape the ARC) could well be the fastest in the field. These include the Mitsubishi Evo IXs of Mark Pedder and Justin Dowell and the Evo X of Queenslander, Steve Shepheard.

The question is whether they can drive them anywhere near as quickly as former, or at least absent, stars Simon Evans, Neal Bates and Scott Pedder (now the ARC chief executive).

There will be separate ARC and APRC winners, although history suggests the Asia-Pacific victor could be slower than the national winner.

The overseas drivers and 16 cars come from 10 countries, including China, India and Britain.

Atkinson is the drawcard for the fans. He drove for the now-disbanded Subaru World Rally Team with a best finish of second in a WRC event. He has more recently resurrected his career with the British-run Malaysian Proton team in the APRC and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge in Europe. 'Atko' won the opening round of this year's six-event APRC in Malaysia at the start of April.

The Proton team's other driver McRae is a former British rally champion and brother of late world champion, Colin.

Among the foreign top guns are another British champion, Mark Higgins, in a Mitsubishi Evo X; Malaysia's Karamjit Singh, winner of the Production WRC, three APRC titles, his country's championship 10 times and the Thailand championship, driving a Proton Satria Neo; Japan's two-time APRC champion Katsuhiko Taguchi and Indian champion Guarav Gill in India's Team MRF's Mitsubishi Evo Xs; and Indonesian champion Rifat Sungkar in a Mitsubishi Evo IX.

The unfortunate absentee from the entry list is Cody Crocker, the four-time Australian champion and four-time APRC champion, whose deal to drive a Subaru Impreza WRX this season for Japan's Cisco team, with Atkinson's brother Ben as co-driver, has foundered for lack of sponsorship.

Websites to follow the rally's progress on are Rallyqueensland.com.au, APRC.tv and Rally.com.au.

Meanwhile, the route for the September 8-11 Rally Australia on NSW's Coffs Coast is finally close to being unveiled.

It due to be made known in February but there have been a series of delays, although electronic media this week reported that it now "could be announced in just a few weeks".

Rally Australia general manager Michael Masi told the ABC the route, stretching from Nambucca to the Clarence Valley, was undergoing the final, "polishing" touches but that it was trickier than what it may seem.

"We've got an ecological impact assessment being undertaken … cultural heritage assessment, dust, waste, noise, mitigation plans, spectator points where people will be able to view from," he said.

"So whilst there's the rally cars and the competition component, there's all of the other flow-on impacts which we need to take into overall consideration when planning an event of this magnitude.

"It would have been nice to have this confirmed a couple of months ago, honestly, but the importance of that community consultation has been very critical.

"I would like to think that, and I know I've said this a couple of times recently, but no later than the end of this month we'll be in a position to go out there with what will be pretty much the final course," Masi said.


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