All Japan Rally Championship has reached its 7th round this season with championship title in everyone's focus, "Monterey 2002" was staged around Akagiyama in Gunma prefecture. "Monterey" celebrates its 18th event, and is famous for bringing out JRC "Gunma Specialists" such as Yukihiko Sakurai, Haruo Ohshima and Toshihiro Arai. Monterey rallies through two legs in two days, but this time, all courses were changed to tarmac roads. Under misfortunate rain (it is more like a tradition for Monterey rally to be under rainy conditions) the rally started, and as the powerhouses like Masashi Ishida and Fumio Nutahara backed off with problems, the Impreza drivers Hiroshi Yanagisawa, the rookie Hiroya Sumiyama and the veteran Yujiro Nishio had fought to reach the top. After two days of intense battle, Katsuta had upset victory with 1-2-3 finishes by the Imprezas.
The Monterey rally started and carried on with much of ups and downs; Masafumi Ishida, ranked top in the series slowed down with his mechanical problems, and Nutahara, who battled with Yanagisawa until the middle, backed off on SS 6 with burst tires. Yanagisawa leaped up to top, and Katsuta followed right behind. Sumiyama, who had a good start and went up to 2nd place in the beginning, followed Katsuta, and Nishio was in 4th. This makes four Imprezas leading the entire rally. Yanagisawa was dying to get his first win, and Katsuta had battled through out the rally, and the rainy wet first day ended with Yanagisawa on the lead with 7.2 seconds margin from Katsuta.
Leg 2 on second day was sunny with dry and great condition, quite different from the previous day. Katsuta scored the best time on the first SS 10, where much experienced Ayabe ran off track and retired. Katsuta's gap between Yanagisawa on top had reduced to 1.9 seconds. He also got close as 0.8 seconds on SS 11, the Gunma Cycle Sports Center. Yanagisawa, instead of striving to shake him off, he switched to not to take the risk of losing everything by making further efforts. On SS 12, which is the same course as SS 10, he decided to keep his position. Katsuta then upset his position over Yanagisawa, and won the rally, second this season and promoting his ranking to 3rd place.
Yanagisawa was the close 2nd, but his drive was impressive enough to show the arrival of the new hero, to follow Katsuta. Sumiyama, on the other hand was forced to retire when he ran off track on SS 12, but did prove he had grown so much. Nishio may have been overshadowed by the conspicuous young driver, but he too finished the rally successfully in 3rd place. As the conditions changed from wet to dry, and the courses being high-speed, the team of Imprezas proved its high efficiency of handling, to conclude the rally with 1-2-3 finishes.
Much is expected from Katsuta, now leaping up to rank three in the championship, will challenge Nutahara and Ishida. The next rally is the final round; The Rally Highland Masters staged around Takayama city of Gifu prefecture.
"After I goaled from leg 1, I knew that if I don't fill the gap between Yanagisawa (on top) for more than 3 seconds at leg 2, I wouldn't have a chance. On leg 1, it was the wrong choice of tire that made it difficult for me to improve my time. On leg 2, the road condition and the tires matched well and I had the best feeling. I did expect Yanagisawa to make his best attempt, so I did too from the first one. With this, I was able to improve my time for 5 seconds, so for the other three, I really had to go for it. It's true that in rally, the game is easier when you're in the pursuer. If I was the pursued, a great deal of pressure could've been on me (laughs)."
