Chee Hong Takes Second In Aprc Debut
Local rally ace Kan Chee Hong and Bernard Chin made a stunning debut in their maiden Asia-Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) event with a brilliant second position at the Rallye De Nouvelle Caledonie 2005.
Driving in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII for the Wanyu Rally Team, a China based team, the pairing finished a healthy 3 mins 35 seconds ahead of favourite Geof Argyle who put in a stellar performance despite the trying and often tricky conditions.
Apart from the incessant rain that fell throughout the opening and part of the second day that made driving conditions extremely slippery, Chee Hong had to face roads that were very different from what he had been used to in Malaysia.
“The roads were extremely wide, fast and flowing, very unlike the mainly tight square junctions we see a lot of in local rallies. It took a while to get used to tackling some of the curves at speeds in excess of 150km/h,” he said.
The rally was run in two legs on the Pacific island on unsealed main village roads where speeds attained on some stretches were in excess of 180km/h. However, the rainy conditions meant that the stages were often tricky and some teams were caught out in the very slippery conditions including championship contender Brian Green who put his Silverstone-backed Evo VIII into an embankment and into retirement.
“We are elated with the results considering the strong competition in the race and the fact that we were driving for the first time in this event,” added Kan.
Winning his second consecutive APRC event was Finn Jussi Valimaki who commented that driving on the muddied tracks in New Caledonia were akin to driving on Monte Carlo¡¯s icy roads using slick tyres.
His MRF Tyres team mate Katsuhiko Taguchi who had been leading the rally on the first day fell victim to a swollen river crossing when the impact of hitting the water at high speed broke a cooling fan that subsequently pierced the radiator forcing him to retire with an overheated engine.
Kan who was in third at that time then had to fend off a determined charge by Argyl who was out to repeat the second position he achieved in the opening event in Canberra last month. Chee Hong however put in a solid performance throughout the day to deny the Kiwi driving a similar Mitsubishi the bridesmaid¡¯s position. Kan¡¯s team mate Fan Fan of China put in a consistent drive to finish fourth and give the team valuable championship points.
The APRC consists of eight events this year with points from the best six events counting towards the title race. ¡°Although we do not want to put pressure on ourselves in our debut season, the position we achieved in New Caledonia despite the unfavourable conditions has motivated us to see just what we can achieve in the next event next month in New Zealand,¡± said Kan.
