Scott Pedder and Dale Moscatt (Renault Clio R3) have won Heat Two of the Quit Forest Rally, the second round of the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship (ARC), however, the result wasn’t enough to take the event victory with Eli Evans and Glen Weston (Honda Jazz) taking back-to-back titles in Western Australia.
Pedder/Moscatt and Evans/Weston traded stage wins throughout the day and with two stages to go were tied for the lead on equal time. Pedder was able to race away with the Heat victory with two impressive stages to finish the event, but a first in Heat One and second in Heat Two was enough for Evans to take his eighth consecutive ARC event win.
“It’s a nice little milestone, eight in a row, but it’s not something you really think about as a driver, you don’t really even think a rally ahead it’s just the next corner, next stage,” Evans said.
“I’m only 11 points up in the Championship, it sounds like we’re dominating but it’s not really the case so we’ll go into South Australia and try and extend our lead again and hopefully by the end of the year have a nice points buffer but it’s not easy to break away that’s for sure,” he continued.
Local favourites Tom Wilde/Bill Hayes (Renault Clio R3) didn’t trouble the two leaders too much throughout the day but won a hard fought battle with the brother and sister combination of Brendan Reeves/Rhianon Smyth (Mazda 2) for third.
“I had a great weekend, a great amount of fun, it was a pretty hard fought battle out there,” Wilde said. “The competition was harder than last year, with the 4WD, so I wasn’t expecting to come out and win it straight away so to be in third position after my second rally in the Clio I’m pretty happy with that.”
Consistency paid off for Dylan King and Lee Tierney in the West Australian Rally Championship, second in both Heat One and Two were enough for him to take the event victory with Heat One victors Alex Stone/Hanna Drury unable to complete Heat Two and Heat Two winners Leigh Hynes/Stuart Percival not finishing Heat One.
Mark Davies and Greg Flood finished the event in second with John O’Dowd and Ben Searcy in third.
The Side-by-Side (all terrain) competition was won by Cody Crocker and Greg Flood ahead of Nathan and Les Chivers in second and Iain Hughes/Adam Barnes in third.
Ben Grabham lead the Moto field from the opening stage of the event and took victory in the Quit Forest Rally Moto.
Rounding out the main categories at the event Mark and Angelina Travers won the Clubman Cup and Stephen Horobin/Nick Ryan won the Classic Rally Challenge.