The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : No stopping Cody Crocker

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 18, 2006
ePaper

Sport

Sport - Racing : Motor

No stopping Cody Crocker

D. Ravi Shankar

MAKASSAR (INDONESIA): Australian Cody Crocker of Les Walkden Rallying teamin his Subaru Impreza WRX sealed his Asia Pacific Rally Championship title (provided he starts in China) on day two of the Gudang Garam International Rally Indonesia 2006 and kept his slate clean with five wins from five starts while Team MRF's Jarkko Mettinen finished runner-up for the second successive time.

Toshihiro Arai had the satisfaction of taking the overall title beating Crocker by 52 seconds.

In hot pursuit

Team MRF's Mettinen went into the second day with a slender lead but Crocker was in hot pursuit right from the first stage. The special stages at the Billi Billi Lake resort were more to Crocker's liking and by the end of the first stage (special stage 9th overall) had regained the lead.

Team MRF's driver from Finland just could not match pace with Crocker who had either the fastest or second fastest timings (Arai clocked faster timings in some stages) for the five rounds on Sunday.

Mitsubishi's chances of wresting the manufacturers' title also came to nought as the Subaru Impreza WRX teams finished first and third to widen the points difference in its favour.

There were two dropouts for the day with both the cars from the Wan Yu Racing team (Fan Fan in car no 7 and Brain Green in car number 9) failing to finish the stages.

The Provisional results (after day two): APRC round: 1. Cody Crocker (Ben Atkinson) Subaru Impreza WRX (3:21.07.0); 2. Jarkko Mettinen (Mikko Makkula) Mitsubishi Evo IX (3:21:37.4); 3. Hiroshi Yanagisawa (Yoshimasa Nakahara) Subaru Impreza WRX (3:24:30.0); 4. Katsuhiko Taguchi (Mark Stacey) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX (3:28.16.9); 5. Rifat Sungkar (M. Herkusuma) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII (3:30.21.1).

Overall winner: Toshihiro Arai (Tony Sircombe) Subaru Impreza WRX (3:20.14.9).

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

Sport