11th March, 2002 Evo VII debuts in fine style
Mitsubishi
Ralliart Australia's new
car, the Lancer Evolution VII, has made a flying start in Australian
championship competition, with Ed Ordynski and Iain Stewart winning the
new Harbour City Rally in Sydney. Ordynski, of
Adelaide, and Stewart, of Brisbane, scored a commanding victory in the
eight-stage first heat, then followed up with a hard-fought 10-second
win in the four-stage second heat. They were thrilled
with the Evo VII, which Sydney-based Ralliart Australia built in little
more than a month for the new-look national championship, in which
production cars (Group N) have become the premier category. Ordynski
said the Evo VII's active centre differential produced fantastic turn-in
response. "The car has
been very good straight out of the box," said Ordynski. "It is a real
credit to the Ralliart crew how well they have built and prepared the
car in such a short space of time. This is a dream start to our
championship campaign. Now we've just got to do what we've done in this
rally 10 more times (in the remaining five rounds of the series, with
the next being the Forest rally at Busselton, Western Australia, on
April 6-7)." The Harbour City
Rally created enormous interest in Sydney, with capacity crowds at the
1.1-kilometre super special stages at the city's Wharf 8 on Friday and
Saturday nights and big attendances at the forest stages in the Watagan
Mountains on Saturday and Sunday. Ordynski and
Stewart came away from the event with 41 points in the driver's and
co-driver's championships to the 32 of Subaru rivals Cody Crocker and
Greg Foletta. Mitsubishi already has 66 points in the manufacturers'
championship to Subaru's 46. Eight of the top
10 finishers in both heats of the Sydney rally were Mitsubishis.
|
