All-Japan Rally
Championship
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Japanese Alpine Rally |
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Japanese Alpine Rally |
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Subaru keeps 1-2 at Leg 1!
Leg1 - October, 19 2002
The Leg 1 of The 20th V-RALLY International Japanese Alpine Rally started at 6:45 am under the clowdy sky. 109.38 km rally from SS1 to SS12 had started. The morning was damp in the mist, and the track condition turned dry during the day. It changed again quite abruptly, as it started to rain in the late afternoon. Still, Impreza was so impressively fast when Toshihiro Arai continued to remain overall leader and Possum Bourne followed immediately.
Toshihiro Arai maintains Top Position At Ease
Out of all 36 cars, Toshihiro Arai is the only WR car with Impreza WRC 2002. He has plenty of experience in WRC, and is been paid the most attention among all the drivers in this event. And for this, he should be facing so much pressure. On SS1, he kept to safe and steady drive, but as the condition turned dry, gradually he promoted his pace. Obviously, all the stages he drives, he scored the best time.
"The car has no problems, so I want to keep the good pace. The best time?" Why not? ( Quote by Toshihiro Arai )
"I chose the dry tires because it wasn't raining by the time I left the service area. The track is very slippery and is dangerous. On SS11 and 12, I decided not to push to hard."( Toshihiro Arai ) Tomorrow, we expect more rain. How would Arai perform under difficult condition?
Possum Bourne Follows in 2nd Place!
Possum Bourne has more experience on the gravel, and has been 15 years for him to rally on the tarmac. He was first bit puzzled at the narrow and twisty tarmac, but on most stages, he managed to score 2nd fastest time to follow Arai. The more he drove, the more experience he gained. The gap between Arai was 2'51".
He refers to this gap as follows;
Survival Rally
8 cars out of 36 entries had retired on Leg 1. Among them was Katsuhiko Taguchi (Team Mitsubishi Rallyart) who was considered the rival of Arai and Bourne. Taguchi crashed immediately after the start of SS3. It was very unfortunate for him. Tomorrow, the Leg2 will be from SS13 to 24 with 65.64 km.
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the time for 2nd and below are the gap from the winner
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However, as he left the service area after SS8 the rain started to fall and by the time he started SS9, the condition was totally wet. Arai had to drive the last 4 stages with the dry tires. He still managed to score fastest on SS9 and 10, but on SS11,12 and 14, he backed off to 4th place.
