All-Japan Rally
Championship
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Canadian Rally Championship |
|
|
|
||
 |
Canadian Rally Championship |
||
|
|||
|
RICHARD AND SUBARU CLINCH CANADIAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP
WITH FOURTH WIN
Rally of the Voyageurs
Canadian Rally Championship round 7 September 27-29, 2002 
PARRY SOUND, ONT. (Sept. 29/2002)- Pat Richard became Canada's new rally driving champion on Saturday as he took his fourth win of the year on the Rally of the Voyageurs in the Georgian Bay area of Ontario.With two events remaining, the 28-year-old driver from Vancouver now has an insurmountable lead of 43 points, 105-62, over second-placed Sylvain Erickson in the Subaru Canadian Rally Championship, presented by Yokohama. Driving a factory Subaru Impreza WRX, Richard won Saturday's Parry Sound, Ont.-based event comfortably after his main competition ran into trouble. Erickson, of Gatineau, Que., Richard main competition for the Championship this year, knew he had to win this event to stay in the hunt. Unfortunately, his bid for a title was cut short, when his Mitsubishi was sidelined early when the transmission brokeafter just four of 14 special stages. He was running third at the time. 
Even with Erickson out, Richard still had to win to wrap up the title and Andrew Comrie-Picard, the year's top-ranked rookie, did his best to stop him.
"I was having a great battle with Andrew," said Richard, "but I had to drive in his dust all day. On the final turn-around stage, I drove flat out, and was sure I could close the gap (only 19 seconds seperated them), but then I saw him parked at the side of the road just near the finish." "It's not how I like to win," he added. "I feel bad for Andrew after such a great drive."But with just two stages to go, the Lancer indeed was done for the day, when it suffered an engine failure, allowing Richard to cruise to an easy victory, over six minutes ahead of Thomson in his WRX. Richard, with Ian McCurdy, of Whistler, B.C., as navigator, stretched the gap to six minutes, 34 seconds, by the end. He completed 158.36 kms. of special stages in one hour, 27 minutes, 32 seconds. This is Richard's first overall championship title, although in 2000 he took both the Canadian and North American crowns in the production class for showroom stock cars without modifications. 
Subaru Imprezas filled the top four positions. Thomson matched his best-ever finish by taking second. Sylvain Vincent, of La Plaine, Que., was third, his best result of the year. John Paynter, of Dartmouth, N.S., took fourth place and top production honors.Joel Levac, of Riviere-Beaudette, Que., rolled his Impreza, but he had already clinched the 2002 production class title. Other notable retirements included Jon Nichols, of Lachine, Que., who was in a tight battle with Thomson until the transmission broke on his Impreza with four stages to go. Rejean Losier, of St-Sauveur-des-Monts, Que., was the top non-Subaru driver at the finish, taking fifth place in just his second outing in a newly acquired Mitsubishi Lancer. Peter Reilly, of Brampton, Ont., was sixth in a Ford Focus and took the class win in Group 2 for modified two-wheel-drive cars. The smaller-engined production classes were won by U.S. visitor Ted Mendham, ninth in a Nissan Sentra; Yavor Klostranec, of Newmarket, Ont., 14th in a Nissan Pulsar; and Jean-Sebastien Busque, of Toronto, 15th in a Suzuki Swift. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
