Speaking on his web site, Pedder is keen to finish the season on a positive. “I am really really looking forward to Indonesia. We showed some good pace again on Sunday in Japan against quality opposition pushing hard for the outright event win and locals that have driven many times over the roads.”

Apart from Rally Whangarei, mechanical failures or minor mistakes have thwarted Pedders APRC campaign. A small mistake in New Caledonia put him off the road on the infamous Katrikoin stage, while differential and gearbox dramas stopped him in Australia and Japan. New Zealand has been the only event to provide any joy, with a solid third behind championship contenders Cody Crocker and Katsu Taguchi.

But like all the all the APRC rounds this year, apart from Rally Canberra, the Makassar-based round will a completely new event for Pedder and co-driver Glen Weston.

“Indonesia is another rally that is relatively unchanged from previous years so we are at a disadvantage with experience and knowledge. But MRF won here last year and we know that the MRF Tyres work very well in hot and sandy conditions. With the Cusco Subaru team not present it will be a three-way battle between us, Crocker and Taguchi with local Rifat Sungkar also a chance. Let’s hope the car can hold together and we can be in a position to push of for the win of Sunday.”

Rally Indonesia kicks off this weekend, with full podcast coverage here on APRC Live.

Source: www.scottpedder.com.au
Photos: www.linear-photographs.com

Currently the only Super 2000 version of the Fiesta, the S2000R was developed in Melbourne by Britek Motorsport and rallied in Pirtek colours last year by former WRC competitor Michael Guest and West Australian Darren Windus. The Ford Pirtek team closed their doors at the end of last year, with Guest moving back into a Subaru group N. But Windus has been using a privately entered S2000R for selected rounds of this years Australian Rally Championship.

FIA homologation means the car is eligible to compete in domestic championships in the Asia-Pacific region that allow Super 2000 cars, as well as all APRC events, and rallies Japan, and New Zealand and Australia (which form part of the FIA World Rally Championship).

“Britek is delighted to have the Fiesta S2000R homologated for competition in the Asia Pacific region,” said Britek Motorsport Manager Marcus Clarke.

“Along with CAMS we first presented the two rally Fiestas, plus a complete kit of parts, to President of the FIA Technical Commission Jacques Berger and Director General of the FIA Manufacturers Commission Gabriel Cadringher in November. The goal now is to get people in the Fiesta S2000R and onto the podium!”

CAMS FIA delegate Garry Connelly was also pleased to see the Fiesta complete homologation. “Whilst the homologation is initially for the Asia Pacific region, when a quantity of 10 ‘build kits’ can be completed FIA worldwide homologation may be applied for. It would be great a feat for a manufacturer in Australia to achieve this, particularly as Super 2000 will soon be a base of the FIA’s new World Rally Car regulations.”

Source: rally.com.au
Photos: www.pirtekrally.com.au

Up until the Indonesian leg of the series, APRC ‘07 had seemed to be entirely for Cody Crocker’s benefit. He’d dominated in New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Malaysia and was well on the way to clinching a second APRC title. But Indonesia proved to be a stumbling block for him, and while Jussi Valimaki and his MRF Lancer sailed away to handy lead by the end of day 1, a heavy landing by Crocker late in the day left him struggling to make it home.

Check out the Rally Indonesia ‘07 video on the left of the web site (just click it to play the video) for all the action of what is a unique and tough round of the APRC.

We reported earlier this year that an S2000 version of the Satria was under development by Mellors Elliot Motorsport (MEM) in England, the team who ran Proton’s APRC and PWRC teams.

It’s now understood the new car has completed FIA homologation, with MEM employing former Mitsubishi and Hyundai WRC driver Alister McRae to test and develop the car. And McRae has been quoted in Autosport (UK), saying his involvement may extend to an APRC campaign next year.

“I’ve been talking to Chris Mellors for a while about this. It’s an exciting project, it’ll be good to help develop the car and an APRC programme makes sense when I’m in Australia. I’m on the right side of the world.”

There’s no official word from either Proton, nor MEM, but we’ll bring you more information as it becomes available. And for more photos of the S2000 Satria, check out paultan.org.

Sources: rallybuzz and paultan.org.

They were competitors in the APRC last year, but for 2008 Kumar landed a drive in the Production World Rally Championship with Team Sidvin, while Valimaki returned to his native Finland to defend the national Group A championship title.

Rally Finland is run over roads near Jyvaskyla in central Finland, just over 100 kms from Valimaki’s home town of Tampere. And local knowledge rally helps at Rally Finland, with Valimaki upstaging many of the P-WRC regulars after being given a ‘wild card’ entry for the event.

20th outright at the end of day 1, Valimaki continued to climb through the field on Saturday after both Juha Salo and Jari Ketomaa crashed on stage 16. That elevated him to 3rd in P-WRC, behind fellow Mitsubishi drivers Juho Hanninen and Patrik Flodin.

And even though he was just over a minute behind Flodin, Valimaki pushed hard on the final morning to try and finish one place better. “Halfway through Lankamaa (SS22) we suffered a puncture in the left front tyre…our jack is broken so we weren’t able to change it. I was trying hard to catch Patrik and hit the same stone as him.”

The gap was too large to make up and Valimaki settled for third of the P-WRC entries. “We didn’t have much time to prepare for this rally and to get here is fantastic.”

However, during post-event scrutineering, Flodin’s Lancer was found to have an illegal turbo restrictor fitted to it. Consequently, he was excluded from the final results, elevating Jussi into 2nd place, with Jari Ketomaa taking the final podium spot.

Meanwhile, Narens first visit to Rally Finland wasn’t been so happy, forced to retire after stage 10 due to an undisclosed engine failure. With just two stages to complete day 1, Naren was placed 14th in the P-WRC field (45th outright) and had maintained a steady pace on the fast and unfamiliar Finnish roads.

But the engine in the Team Sidvin Subaru failed at the end stage 9, and problem severe enough that a day 2 restart was out of the question. Not the way he would have liked to finish the event, but the Kumar was upbeat about this first visit to Rally Finland. “We did pretty OK in the morning today. The route is straightforward in patches, then there are jumps and sharp curves. It’s difficult to judge and that’s why I couldn’t push for more. We took the jumps easier. I rate our performance today as reasonably good.”

For Naren, he and the Team Sidvin crew will pack up and prepare for Rally New Zealand, which begins on the last weekend of August, the same weekend Jussi contests the next round of the Finnish national series, SM Uusikaupunkirally.

Photos courtesy of www.jussivalimaki.com and www.teamsidvin.com .

German-born Weiss splits her time between Switzerland and Dubai, and has experience of both European and Middle Eastern rallying. But next months Rally Indonesia will be the first time she’s competed in the APRC, and is looking forward to the challenge.

“It’s a new challenge for me, which I like! I’m look forward to getting some new experiences. I’ve competed in motor sport events all over the world, but these countries are completely new to me.”

The Lancer Evo 8 she last rallied in the United Arab Emeriates is currently in transit to Indonesia, and she’ll be joined by Hokkaido-based Aussie expat Ross Burbidge as team manager.

Photo courtesy of www.edith-weiss.com.

It may have been hard work for the crews, but at least they were inside!

It was a great battle to the finish between Katsu Taguchi and Hiroshi Yanagisawa, and in this podcast we catch up with them and all the other APRC drivers. Plus we go on-board with Taguchi as he battles through some of the worst conditons the series has ever seen.

(Special thanks to Ross Burbidge for information from the stages).

At 30 kilometres it turned into a mud bath with all APRC competitors making it through, but number one on the road Cody Crocker had to push his way through the slush loosing over a minute to Taguchi and stage winner Yanagisawa, who ran the last 10km with a rear wheel puncture. Cars further down the order benefitted hugely with less water on the road, including Indian driver Gaurav Gill who moved into 2nd place - a position the MRF driver held until the final morning when his gearbox broke.

Taguchi’s win means he re-takes the championship lead for the first time since round 1. He now sits on 43 points, just 3 points clear of Cody Crocker, while Dean Herridge remains in third place on 32 points.

A full event report will be available from www.aprc.tv soon, while the Rally Hokkaido podcast from APRC Live will be ready within a couple of days.

Source: Brian Young - APRC.TV

The rain has been so heavy that stages 3, 7 and 8 were all cancelled, the roads nearly impassable, with unconfirmed reports the zero slid off the road while making the final safety pass of stage 3.

Spectators at the event say there is an enormous amount of standing water on the roads, and this worked against series leader Cody Crocker who was first car onto Saturdays five stages. Crocker had lost some time during the day to both Katsu Taguchi and Hiroshi Yanagisawa, but was still within 25 seconds of Taguchi at the start of stage 6, the stage that proved to be the final stage of day 1.

A thunderstorm dumped massive amounts of water just before the start of stage 6, with Crocker fairing the worst and dropping 3 minutes over the 30km test. In fact, all the leading cars suffered, with Yanagisawa and Indian champion Guarav Gill jumping into first and second places, Taguchi hanging onto third and Dean Herridge maintaining 4th place.

But at least Crocker was still in contention. Scott Pedder’s season of bad luck has followed him to Japan, the MRF driver sidelined after stage 1 with gearbox failure, while Yuya Sumiyama suffered early suspension damage and Takuma Kamada rolled on stage 2.

In the overall standings, Toshi Arai is way out in front with a 1:37min lead to Yanagisawa.

The crews have been re-order for Sundays ten stages, meaning Yanagisawa and Gill will have to contend with conditions that are not expected to improve.

Unofficial Standings After Day 1 (APRC Crews Only)

1 H. Yanagisawa
2 G. Gill +15.8 sec
3 K Taguchi +5.9
4 D Herridge +22.0
5 C Crocker +68.3
6 R Sungkar +1:31.3

Photos courtesy of www.rally-hokkaido.com .