He was the surprise package at the opening Round of the 2013 East Coast Bullbars, but West Australian Tom Wilde is confident that wholesale suspension changes in his Renault Clio will yield even more impressive results.
Wilde sat in third outright at the end of Heat One at the National Capital Rally and could have been fighting for a podium finish in Heat Two had a last stage off-road adventure not dropped him to the foot of the Top Ten.
“I was surprised to be up there with the front runners so quickly,” Wilde explained. “But I think I surprised the others more than I surprised myself, I don’t think they were quite expecting that sort of pace from me at the first rally of the year.”
“The area I think I can really improve on though is suspension when we get to the next Round in WA.”
The Renault Clio is a highly developed rally car with years of experience around the world, yet like many rally cars massive ranges of adjustment can be made to the car suspension. While Wilde went in one direction with his suspension setup in Canberra, Scott Pedder’s Clio proved to handle the variable conditions in Canberra better and provided a greater platform for Scott to challenge the dominant Honda of Eli Evans.
“I had a very different setup to Scott, and while it wasn’t such a problem on the first day in Canberra when the roads were pretty smooth, it was an area I struggled with on the second day when the roads were a lot rougher, I lost a lot more time to Scott in those conditions,” Tom explained.
“What the time difference will be between Scott and I once we have a similar setup in WA it’s hard to say, we won’t really know until we get into testing, but I suspect we will be pretty closely matched,” he added.
Wilde, whose family farm is within easy reach of the stages utilized by the Quit Forest Rally, believes the front-wheel drive contenders will have a unique challenge ahead of them on the slippery West Australian roads.
“I think it’ll be a lot tougher for everybody, the roads are a lot slipperier over here than we experienced in Canberra,” he said. “The risk is going too hot into corners and just running right off the outside, where is in Canberra at least you had the grip in the corners to pull you up.”
“Eli I think has a huge advantage over the rest of the field as he at least has relevant front-drive experience on the WA roads – time will tell though.”