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Isle of Man based rally co-driver Rob Fagg continued
his run of podiums in the Canadian Rally
Championship as he contested the third round of the
series, Rallye Defi. Competing alongside former
champion and Subaru Canada driver Pat Richard, the
pairing took runners up spot on the Ste-Agathe,
Quebec based event to maintain their position at the
top of the championship standings.
Having taken victory on the opening round back in
February and second in June, Pat and Robert Graham &
Co Quantity Surveyors/A-dore Furniture supported Rob
were looking to keep their championship challenge on
target with another solid result. Following the
issues with the car overheating last time out, a new
engine had been built and fitted along with a
rebuilt sequential gearbox unit and after some
pre-event testing the team were very happy with the
set-up coming into the latest round.
Prior to the event starting on Friday, the Subaru
Canada pairing undertook a gruelling stage
reconnaissance which saw them leave the hotel at
5:30am and return at around 8pm with little or no
break, but despite the long day they were happy with
the pace notes.
Having been able to pick their road position,
Richard chose to run first in case of any dust
issues and with the majority of mileage for the day
contained in the first four stages the event could
be decided very early indeed. This was to be pretty
much the case, as unbeknown to the Subaru pair on
the way to the start of the first stage the cars
diff controller had gone into a safety mode and made
the car very loose to drive. This would result in a
early deficit of over 30 seconds to main
championship rival Antoine L’Estage and new
co-driver Karl Atkinson in their Mitsubishi Lancer
Evo X.
The remainder of the opening day only contained five
very short stages and no opportunity to claw back
time, leaving Pat and Rob to change tactics and
concentrate on ensuring they finished the event to
keep their lead in the series, something no crew
wants to do as they would rather battle for the win.
As the day drew to a close they found themselves
51.8 seconds back in second with a reasonable
cushion over third but there was still a further 11
stages to go tomorrow.
Day two would continue in much the same fashion as
the previous for Pat and Rob, ensuring they kept out
of trouble and reached the finish of the event and
be close enough to take advantage of any trouble
which might find rally leader L’Estage. He though
would push hard on the opening two stages opening up
his lead to 75 seconds a gap that would have
increased slight by the end of the event despite
Richard and Fagg taking fastest time over the last
three stages as the crews remained in formation to
finish first and second.
Although the result was not the win Pat and Rob had
wanted it was a sensible drive after the early
problems to remain in control of the championship.
“It’s a shame we lost so much time over the opening
stages, we had no idea the diff controller had a
issue but knew something was not right as the car
was so loose” explained Rob. “Once we have rectified
the issue there was not enough length in the stages
to fight back and we had to drive for the
championship, but for sure we will look to chase the
win next time out”.
The next round of the Canadian Rally Championship
takes place at the start of October as crews contest
the Pacific Forest Rally in Merritt, British
Columbia.
Before then Rob will resume his Eurocars Motorsport
Manx Rally Championship campaign alongside
Lancashire’s Arron Newby in the TEG Sport Subaru
Impreza as they contest the two and a half day Rally
Isle of Man event.
Rob is supported in 2013
by Robert Graham & Co Quantity Surveyors, A-dore
Furniture (www.a-dore.us),
Nicky Grist Motorsport
(www.nickygrist.com)
and Fastime Stopwatches (www.astopwatch.com) |
