Paul 2nd 2WD and 1st Excel at Akademos

Justin Dowel and Matt Lee have signalled their intent for the remainder of the Victorian Rally Championship season taking out the fifth round in convincing fashion on the weekend. As the first pace noted round of the season, Akademos promised a great display of driving and didn’t disappoint despite several big names leaving the slippery roads early in the day.

Dowel and Lee, who are the defending 2006 VRC Champions, are currently sitting second in the championship behind Mark Fawcett however the win on the weekend has put them within striking distance of taking over the lead at the NGK Rally of Melbourne in November.

“We’ve really worked on our pace noting since last year, I’m actually listening to Matt now not just driving to what I see,” said Dowel after the event.

The brother and sister combination of Jesse and Sam Robinson followed Dowel home, the second outright finish a personal best for the duo. The crews of Craig and Carrie Morris and Warren Lee /David Lethlean tied for third outright.

“The car felt really good out there today,” said Jesse Robinson. “We’ve been having some issues with it for the past 12 months but we seem to have finally got that sorted.”

Brian Semmens extended his lead over the 2WD category taking the win ahead of the NEC ARC’s Paul Batten.

Batten, whose regular co-driver Craig Jones was busy building a new car for the NGK Rally of Melbourne, was joined on the weekend by Adam Wright. It was a successful debut for the pair who took out the Hyundai Excel class by a dominate four minutes.

“We had a pretty challenging lead up, Adam did a great job at such short notice, I think he was pretty amazed at the speed you carry into corners in the Excel,” said Batten. "I was a bit wary on the notes for the first few runs after the off in NSW so it took my a while to build up a bit more confidence."

"I drive the Excel quite a bit harder than the Subaru, it's really hard work and while there is a lot more room to improve in the Subaru, I'm really working on my technique in the Excel." 

“I really want to thank Craig and Sarah who have stayed up in NSW to work on the car while I went out and had fun.”

Going into the round the presence of NEC Australian Rally Championship competitors LWR’s Brendan Reeves and Rhianon Smyth had been tipped to deny Dowel of his first Akademos victory however, when they slid off the road on stage three the pressure was lifted.

“We’d just started coming down the hill so we were picking up a fair bit of pace, Rhianon called the note ‘caution five right’ but I didn’t anticipate the road surface to be as slippery as it was,” explained Reeves.

“We slid wide and I got on the throttle but we went over the top of the bank and when I hit reverse it dug in, so we ended up pretty bogged.”

“If we’d been able to get out we could have re-entered; the car wasn’t damaged at all, so it’s a little disappointing as I really wanted some more time in the car ahead of Melbourne.”

Reeves was also joined on the side of the road by fellow NEC ARC competitor KME RS’ Brenton Kaitler who left the road only about 500 meters further down the hill.

“We made a small mistake and just fell off the road, it was fairly low speed to the damage was minimal, just a rear quarter panel,” explained Kaitler.

“Despite the set back I was rapt with out speed over the first few stages, we were on good pace compared to Brendan so that’s good to know heading into Melbourne.”

Liam Dunn and Steph Hillier kept the NEC ARC flag alive, their 10th outright was a great result as it was Steph’s first time in the co-driver seat.

All the teams will now have their sights set on the NGK Rally of Melbourne being held in the Yarra Valley from the 9-11 November. The round will combine the last round of the NEC ARC and the penultimate round of the VRC.

Courtesy www.rally.com.au

All photographs © www.hubblephotografix.com