THE FINAL RESULTS

2003

Well the 2003 NSW State Rally Championship has ended with a bit of an anti climax, as the last round has been canceled due to a wash out at ACT last weekend. This was also a poor ending, after the round before was cut short due to a huge crash by a fellow competitor, who is recovering, and the shortening of the rally due to bad weather again.

The year started slow, as this was our first year in the CAMS State Rally Championship (my first full season at rally!). All year I have been developing the car, and my driving is getting better with more confidence in the roads, and how to read them.

The preparation on the car has paid off, with us completing all rounds of the State Championship, also driving within myself, as we never put a mark on the car.

The local round of 2GO was where I really got into a rhythm, and we were setting top 5 stage times, this wasn't the knowledge of local roads doing this, as the last round at Port we were also setting top 5 stage times in a 2WD, against turbo 4WD's.

In Port we were sitting 4th outright after SS2 and then the rain come down by the buckets, I stayed on the std wide tyre's when I really should have taken a narrow mud tyre, we lost near 30sec on that 25km stage and put us down to 6th. The next stage was canceled due an accident, and then two more after that were washed out.

This left us with only 2 stages left, one of which was a repeat of the 25km stage that we ran earlier, this time I took a mud tyre and it was now very dark and wet. We still took 7 seconds off our time while the rest of the field went 20-30seconds slower due to the darkness which is normal, if only we had taken that mud tyre earlier, the result at the end of the year might have been better, as we only lost 1st in our class by 17sec, this was worth 2 points outright and would have moved us up 1 place outright.

The 2nd we got at this round gave us enough points to win our class (over 2lt 2WD) for the year.

The last round was to be held at ACT and was also a State and Clubman round, we stood a chance of getting 1st outright in Clubman and we had enough points to win our class in this.

The end results for us in the 2003 NSW State Rally Championship series is, 4th outright, just 1 point off 3rd & 1st in class. (P4 over 2lt 2WD)

The results from the Clubman Series are, 2nd outright, just 2 points off first, and 1st in our class.

Overall for my first season at rallying I have to be happy with that!

I would also like to thank Shane and MRT http://www.mrtrally.com.au for their support and dyno, which was a very important part of my engine development, which allowed me to build a 320hp rocket.

Support from Race Brakes Sydney and Brake Distributors of Australia, http://www.brakedistributors.com.au has been great, Trevor and Greg have all the answers for brakes, and have kept me stopping all the time every time.

Also Allworth Homes, http://www.allworthhomes.com.au

Next year doesn't start until March, so I have plenty of time to keep developing the car and can then start the season with all guns drawn.