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Production Car World Rally Championship (PCWRC) Rd.3, Information
Toshihiro Arai keeps progressing for consecutive victories.
He completes Leg2 on top!
Leg2
Event News
10 May 2003
The second day of competition for Rally Argentina opened with a bit cloudy skies. There tends to be more rain this season, but fortunately, it seems that the weekend is gifted with fine weather, not any rain forecasted. There are many spectators gathered at the site, and as Leg2 is held on Saturday, main SS are packed with spectators. The organizers had warned the gallery the safety restrictions for operation. However, the confusion reached beyond control and the organizers were forced to make the decision. The first SS this day, SS14 was interrupted after three WR Car had passed, and the session was canceled. The next SS15 was also crowded with spectators, and was interrupted after the first ten cars had passed. Because of this, none of the PCWRC Cars were to compete in these stages, and an appropriate equilibrated time to the WR Car was adopted to all of the PCWRC Cars.
SS16 started with 1hour 50 minute delay due to the similar confusions. Arai finished SS16 with second fastest time and returned to service park. Arai commented "I only driven one stage, so the car has no problem at all. The handling hasn't changed either, so I feel very safe now. The stage we just cleared had a lot of dust from WR Car in front and it was very difficult to see ahead." Because of the time equalized at SS15, the overall ranking dropped from 12th to 14th, but Arai recovered at SS16 to return to 12th again. Not to mention, he keeps his top position in PCWRC.
Arai is very popular in Argentina. The crowd cheers his name often in stages and service park. Even at the private test the team held prior to the event, spectators gathered to watch Arai testing the course. How did they find out about the test? Who knows. There were even local TV station taking interviews of him, and Arai was bit puzzled at things happening around him. They even have 15 minute special feature of Arai run on TV over and over during the rally week!
Because the schedule had been greatly changed, everything else happening afterwards were rescheduled as well. If the schedule continues 2 hour delayed, the final two stages will be held at night. It has been decided that they will be cancelled as some teams are not equipped for night rally, it will be dangerous for the car, crew and the spectators. The re-run of SS20 and SS22 is to be held prior to the original schedule of the final day instead.
On SS17, Arai took the top time. SS18 had very rough surface, and he fell fourth as he held back. It was Niall McShea (Lancer Evolution) who scored the fastest, finishing 19 seconds before Arai. Arai took back the fastest on SS19, and took 1 minute 53 seconds lead to McShea ranked in 2nd place to lead the rally.
The final stage SS20, was taken by Arai again. The gap between McShea widened to 2 minutes 11 seconds to complete Leg2. And due to cars retired in WR Class, his overall ranking promoted to 11th place. He is even getting close to finishing in overall top 10. There are total of 8 cars remaining in PCWRC class including Arai.
The final day of 11th has 5 SS instead of 3 now, and total distance had expanded to 105 km . Arai said, "I hated when I had to wait for 2 hours in the morning today. But I have the lead, and I want to keep the speed and be careful not to break the car." Co-driver Tony Sircomb added, "Toshi is a clever driver. He pulls back when I feel he should, and if I think he could go flat, he does. So I'm optimistic about any troubles and accidents not happening."
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| 1 |
Toshihiro ARAI |
SUBARU Impreza WRX STi |
3:14:48.6 |
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| 2 |
Niall McSHEA |
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6 |
+2:11.5 |
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| 3 |
Karamjit SINGH |
Proton Pert |
+2:30.7 |
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| 4 |
Daniel SOLÁ |
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7 |
+2:41.2 |
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| 5 |
Giovanni MANFRINATO |
Mitsubishi Carisma GT Evo 6 |
+2:57.0 |
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| 6 |
Alfredo DE DOMINICIS |
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7 |
+13:50.3 |
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| 7 |
Ricardo TRIVIÑO |
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7 |
+21:27.7 |
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| 8 |
Riccardo ERRANI |
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6 |
+35:23.3 |
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