With no chance of competing internationally, Perth based New Zealander Mike Young is taking the opportunity to compete in his adopted home rally championship in West Australia driving a Maximum Subaru WRX STI.
After winning the last event round by just 0.5 second Young is heading to this weekend’s round, the Make Smoking History Karri Rally with a lot more knowledge of how the Subaru handles, but no prior experience on the fast forestry roads in the Nyamup State Forest.
“I don’t know much about the Karri Rally, but from what I hear it’s mostly in natural bush land, the stages fast and flowing between the trees. Recce will be important, therefore Scott (Beckwith) and I’ll need to write some good pace-notes to ensure we’re on the pace from stage one.”
oung and Beckwith will have some strong competition with current WA champion John O’Dowd starting at number one in his Skoda Fabia R5, Ben Searcy in a Mitsubishi Evo 9, Stephen Oxley and Craig Rando both driving Subaru’s. Adding to the challenge is that the start order for the top five competitors is drawn out of a hat at driver’s briefing.
“I had so much fun driving again at the Forest Rally that I had to do this next round. It’s been good to get behind the wheel again and it’s also important to keep getting seat time, especially in this championship where the other drivers are so fast! I know the car now which is good and the team have made some set up changes to suit my style of driving”.
After gaining maximum points at the Forest Rally Young currently sits 4th in the West Australia Championship, with co-driver Scott Beckwith in second place. The event is based in Manjimup starting mid-day local time, two stages run three times and a total distance of 117 kilometres.
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