The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : Cody Crocker leads after first leg

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 09, 2006

Sport

Sport - Racing : Motor

Cody Crocker leads after first leg

P. Satish Kumar

OBIHIRO (JAPAN): The weathermen got their predictions wrong. There was not a drop of rain, though it was cloudy for most part of the day and the sun played hide and seek as the drivers heaved a sigh of relief.

The first leg of the fourth round of the APRC Rally Championship, comprising eight stages (four special stages run twice) went off quite well, on Saturday. There was just a minor incident with Hiroshi Yanagisawa (co-driver Tadashi Misaizu) of Team Cusco Racing encountering a puncture towards the end of the day.

Yanagisawa is breathing down the neck of Cody Crocker, who is on top at the moment in the APRC standings. That just 47.3 seconds separates them at the end of Leg 1 is ample evidence of the fact that Yanagisawa has done really well despite the setback he suffered. Yanagisawa in his Subaru finished with a timing of 1 hour, 30 minutes and 53.3 seconds.

The Japanese though unhappy about the puncture said: ``We suffered a puncture towards the end of the day. But overall, it was a good day and we did pretty well.''

Living up to expectations

Crocker once again lived up to expectations clocking 1:30: 06.0 after the end of Leg 1 and stands first among APRC registered drivers.

The Australian was quite pragmatic when he said he wanted the bonus points but it would not be an easy task. ``We have to keep up the same pace tomorrow (on Sunday) because Yanagisawa is very quick. He's pushing hard. We may have got some time on him this afternoon, but I think he'll be pushing hard tomorrow. Also we want to get the bonus points, so we need to stay in front. It's not an easy task.''

Taguchi in third spot

Team MRF's Katsuhito Taguchi is in third spot with 1:31:21.6 and is behind Crocker by more than a minute. He felt he could have done better but he made a wrong choice of tyres and accepted that it was a mistake.

``I made a mistake with the wrong choice of tyres leading to loss of time. I picked the medium tyres when I should have opted for a combination of two medium and two hard.''

The day's best timing was clocked by a non-APRC driver, Toshihiro Arai, the local boy who drew applause as he passed through the various special stages.

The provisional overall standings (APRC drivers, top five): 1. Cody Crocker 1: 30:06.0; 2. Hiroshi Yanagisawa 1:30:53.3; 3. Katsuhito Taguchi 1:31:21.6; 4. Jakko Miettinen 1:32:02 and 5. Eli Evans.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport