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Pirtek Rally
Team's Michael Guest and David Green have finished seventh in the
second heat of the Rally South Australia, round #4 of the NEC
Australian Rally Championship.
In what proved a tough weekend for
the Ford Fiesta Super 2000 team, Guest completed the opening leg in 20th
place, while teammates Darren Windus and Jon Mortimer had their weekend
end on stage #4 with engine dramas.
Guest set quick times, including
second fastest on the longest stage of the event Eden High, but was
hampered with clutch issues in leg #1, while a broken rear-suspension
link in the middle of heat #2 took away any chance of a finish well
inside the top 5.
"Encouraging and disappointing
at the same time," said Guest.
"The Fiesta clearly has the
speed, but when you are developing a car like we are it's not a
surprise to have some technical issues.
"Importantly we completed all
but two short stages on the first day and that's critical as we
continue to develop this car.
"We really tried to take it to
the opposition with the Fiesta topped-out at well over 180km/h
throughout the event. I was especially pleased with our time on the
longest stage of the event.
"Next up is my home rally at
Forster on the New South Wales mid north coast, I'm looking forward to
showing the true form of the Fiesta at that event."
Darren Windus was disappointed to
have had his rally end early on Saturday morning.
"We had just set the third
fastest time and the car was excellent," said Windus.
"The engine lost power and I
shut it off straight away in the middle of the next stage.
"It's disappointing as we
could have been inline for a good result. All we can do is look
ahead."
Pirtek Rally Team Chief Engineer
Marcus Clarke has already started to prioritise the job list ahead of
the next event.
"There is a lot to look at,
but we are continually developing these cars and learning all the
time," said Clarke.
"The engine in Darren's car
appears to have dropped a valve, but we'll fully asses it when we are
back in the workshop.
"The broken clutch for Michael
was unfortunate, but in regards to the suspension issues we have
already started to look at improving that design.
"The car is clearly a
developing package, but we are sure that we are heading in the right
direction."
The Great Lakes Rally outside
Forster will be run on September 15-16.
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