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MITSUBISHI
RALLIART PRESS RELEASE
October 31, 2005
MITSUBISHI
RALLIART BOSS AND DRIVER SEE PLENTY OF POSITIVES FROM 2005 RALLY SEASON
- Team Mitsubishi
Ralliart principal Alan Heaphy and driver Scott Pedder have taken many
positives out of the 2005 Globalstar Australian Rally Championship despite
the disappointments of the weekend’s final round at Bathurst.
It has been
a season that has seen the new-look TMR, in its first year as an outright
contender, win one round of the championship, on Mitsubishi’s
home ground in South Australia, finish runner-up in another, in Tasmania,
and in the top three in seven of the 12 heats with its Evolution VIII
Mitsubishi Lancer.
- By the penultimate
round in Melbourne TMR’s Scott Pedder, in his first year as a
factory driver, was the only man still with a chance of denying Cody
Crocker another title. Going
into the final round at the new event that incorporated a super special
stage at Bathurst’s famed Mt Panorama race circuit Pedder was
still second in the championship. An
unfortunate crash on the last forest stage of Saturday’s heat
put paid to his and TMR’s aspirations of securing that runner-up
position for the season.
- However, despite
“tweaking” his long-troublesome back in getting out of the
car after the crash and requiring precautionary X-rays at Bathurst Hospital
on Saturday night, Pedder was back in the Dodo-sponsored Lancer on Sunday
and finished a creditable fourth in a rain-shortened final heat of the
championship. The
TMR crew had worked past midnight repairing the Lancer after its crash
and they too were on duty again by 6am Sunday, despite losing another
hour’s sleep with the start of daylight saving.
- Ultimately Pedder
wound up fourth in the drivers’ championship, which he found disappointing
after his mid-season results but still something of which to be proud.
“The
car has been pretty much faultless and we have been the only ones to
take an event off Cody this year,” Pedder said. “I
think I had a nervous start to the season, a good middle, and the last
two rallies have been unfortunate. “However,
there have still been a lot of positives at these last two events. “We
got a third on the Sunday in Melbourne and a fourth on the Sunday at
Bathurst, which I felt was pretty good in the circumstances. “I’d
give myself a six or seven out of 10 for the year.”
- Heaphy - the former
top touring and sports car engineer and team manager who worked with
the likes of Mark Skaife, Craig Lowndes and Wayne Gardner, as well as
leading international drivers - put a positive perspective on the year.
“The initial feeling about the season was disappointment, but
considering that we started from scratch with the Evo VIII (after last
year’s clean sweep of the GARC’s Australia Cup with two
automatic all-wheel-drive Mitsubishi Magna VR-Xs) there is a lot to
be pleased with,” Heaphy said.
- “We had a
very competitive car from the outset this season and it ran in the top
four all year. “That’s
not bad considering we have four full-time crew compared with the much
bigger numbers of our opposition, and that our budget is nowhere near
as big as those of our rivals. “We
had the speed to match the best out there in the most competitive Group
N (showroom production) rally championship in the world. “The
car has hardly missed a beat. When we’ve finished we’ve
finished extremely well. “Sure,
there was the capability of coming away with more at the end of the
year. “We
lacked consistency – that’s all that was missing. “But,
for a first year together, I think we can hold our heads high. “We
were ‘new boys on the block’ among factory teams. “The
guys in the crew have done an excellent job with the car and it’s
been a valuable learning year for Scott and (co-driver) Glen Weston
in their first season in a factory team. “Scott
and Glen have worked very well together and they will be much better
for the experience. “Certainly
there is potential there for all of us to go on to bigger and better
things. “We’re
upbeat and I intend to start development on the Evo IX Lancer immediately.”
- Mitsubishi-supported
Jack Monkhouse finished the season third in the GARC’s Pivateers’Cup.
Like Pedder, Monkhouse had a difficult weekend at Bathurst in his Evo
VII Lancer. A rollover early on Saturday put him and co-driver Rebecca
Cochrane out of the first heat but
they finished 12th in Sunday’s second heat, in which half the
forest stages were cancelled after heavy rain made the roads in the
Sunny Corner State Forest too slippery.
- “We ended
the day with a bit of fun on the final run of the super special stage
at Mt Panorama, which was a really good way to end what had been a tough
rally for us,” Monkhouse said. “We’ve
fought really hard this year, learning a new car, the new rallies and
trying to keep up the pace of development needed in this championship
to be competitive. “We’ve
achieved a lot and got some really strong outright results (fifth outright
in Queensland and Tasmania) and gained a lot of experience for the future.
“We
didn’t win the Privateers’ Cup (fellow South Australian
Steve Glenney did in a Subaru), but we gave it a really good shake.”
- Outright honors
at Bathurst went to Crocker and Dean Herridge in the factory Subarus
with Simon Evans third in a Toyota.
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