Third title for Cody Crocker

By D. Sampath Kumar

Whangarei, New Zealand

June 8: Riding high on Saturday’s impressive performance, the defending champion, Cody Crocker of Australia, won the New Zealand leg of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship for the third successive time and kept himself in contention for a hat-trick in the overall APRC championship.

Crocker (co-driver Ben Atkinson) hit the road first on the second day in his new Subaru Impreza WRX STi for Motor Image Rally Team, raced to an unassailable lead in wet conditions as the dry gravel turned into a soft track due to intermittent rains on Sunday.

The Subaru driver held nearly a two-minute advantage over his closest rival Katsuhiko Taguchi (co-driver Mark Stacey) of Team MRF in a Mitsubishi lancer EVO IX.

At the end of three legs, Crocker tops the APRC points table with 32 points from his two wins in the Australian and New Zealand legs. Crocker had skipped the first leg at New Caledonia. He was closely followed by Taguchi (30) and Dean Herridge (26). New Zealand’s Brian Green was a distant fourth with 13 points and Team MRF’s Scott Pedder (co-driver Glen Weston) was fifth with 12 points.

Herridge (Chris Murphy), driving Subaru Impreza WRX STi for Team Cusco Racing, who led at the end of the New Caledonia and Australian legs, was relegated to the third spot as he struggled to deal with the heavy gravel and wet conditions.

Crocker maintained his dominance in all the seven stages on Day II as he sped through the Millbrook valley and Walpu caves. "The advantage of driving upfront on the wet track has helped me a great deal as the car had a good grip over the wet gravel. It was a very good win," he said.

The Subaru driver expects a tough competition from Japan’s Taguchi at his home leg and wants to give his best to maintain his lead. "We want to maintain consistency and win as many points as we can at every leg. We want to make sure we don’t commit mistakes to avoid being relegated in the points table, he said.

MRF’s Taguchi felt they could have given tough fight to Crocker, had they opted for suitable tyres to negotiate the heavy gravel. "We used hard tyres yesterday and struggled to drive on the heavy gravel. We performed better today as we used better tyre compound (soft tyres) for the slippery tracks. It gripped properly and I could drive through comfortably,’’ said Taguchi. "But we could not catch up Crocker as he had an unassailable lead."

The Japanese ace driver promised a better race next year. "This was our first race in Whangarei. We could not do well as we were unaware of the conditions and track here. Hopefully, we will do better next year,’’ said Taguchi.