Antoine is Out, Pat leads at Defi

Posted on 06. Sep, 2008 by Dean in Rallye Defi 2008

The second day of action at the Rallye Defi 2008 sees the event move south and west of Mont Tremblant to the towns of Montpellier and Ripon. The second day also sees pressures mount as stages get longer and more demanding through the day. The rain forecasted settled in overnight and did not lift all day. As teams began to push, many suffered.

Through the Montpellier and Ripon stages, run mostly on tarmac, teams and cars started to have trouble.

After an event ending crash on the Montpellier stage last year, Mark Williams vowed to take it easy through the challenging stage and move on to the more demanding stages of the rally. After braking too early for a corner, Williams adjusted his line and the car lost grip, sliding off the road. The Subaru suffered no damage, and Williams and co-driver Jeff Secor were pulled out, and continued on, well aware of how slippery the conditions had become in the rain.

Westerners Eric Grochowski and Leanne Junnila awoke to find their Group 2 VW Golf had developed a problematic starter. After pushing the car to start it, the pair were running fine until a radiator fan quit, causing the car to overheat.

“We didn’t want to run the car and have it overheat,” explained Grochowski, “but we couldn’t shut it off with the bad starter.”

After trying to troubleshoot the issue, the pair forgot to pin the hood down and had it fly up, smashing their windshield. Eventually, they were able to get the fan working, and soldiered on. If they can finish the rally, the pair will have secured the national Group 2 championship.

Norm LeBlanc and Keith Morrison perhaps had the worst luck on this morning stages, suffering a transmission failure. The team was unable to make repairs and the pair were forced to retire.

After the second service, teams ventured out to take on the longest gravel stages of the event so far. It was at the end of the Jarnac Est stage that things would take a turn at the very front of the pack.

Antoine L’Estage, who had been trading times with Pat Richard yesterday and through the morning today suffered some sort of engine problem on the Jarnac stage. Upon starting the transit, he could clearly hear something was not running correctly in the car, and drove to service, hoping that his crew would be able to keep him in the rally.

After inspecting the car, John Buffum gave the bad news that the engine was finished, along with the rally.

“We ran in 2006 and 2007 with no problems with the car, and now this year it has been bad for reliability.” said Antoine. He and Nathalie Richard were forced to retire at the Rocky Mountain Rally in Calgary in late May after losing a wheel early in that event. “It’s very bad for the championship, because Pat already has such a big points lead.”

After the second pass of the Jarnac stage, Richard was disappointed by the retirement of his main rival. “It’s too bad Antoine is out.” No doubt Pat Richard is happy to be leading the Championship, but he clearly is after strong competition he feels Antoine can provide.

Fortunes for the L’Estage family were not all bad. Mathieu L’Estage ran strong all event, finishing Friday night in the top five. After trading times with Bill Bacon, L’Estage moved in front when Bacon had a spin and suffered some minor mechanical issues. The Mitsubishi of Bacon was repaired in service, but Bill said he was having trouble getting back into the rhythm of the event, and was not looking forward to the long stages.

With six stages remaining, Mathieu L’Estage was sitting in third place, just one second behind Andrew Comrie-Picard. The two are both very close in the Canadian Rally Championship, and the Mitsubishi Cup, Mathieu holding a slight advantage. If Mathieu can catch Comrie-Picard, L’Estage will gain valuable points to expand his lead over Comrie-Picard.

Further down the order, another driver was not looking forward to the long stages still ahead. Gord Olsen has been working to learn how to make the most of his car, but with such stiff competition in Quebec, Olsen is sitting down the order, behind the likes of Bruno Carre, Rejean and Simon Losier and Craig Henderson. Also in the top ten was David Legault. Legault has been getting extremely fast in the last year, and shows no sign of slowing, even against the tough competition at the Rallye Defi 2008.

Mark Williams, who had narrowly avoided a repeat of last years accident was thrilled to still be in the event, and has set out simply to survive the rest of the event and make it to the finish.

Jan and Jody Zedril, in their Production Three Mitsubishi Lancer were trying to run consistently but made a bad choice in tire earlier in the day. After changing tires at service, the pair were back on the road, and far happier with how the car was behaving.

Jim McClelland has been running right at the back of the pack all day, struggling with the RWD Toyota MR2 in the muddy conditions. After the second group of gravel stages, Jim was smiling at the great time he was having – no wonder after rebuilding the car over the last month. At a US event earlier in the season McClelland centre punched a tree with the Toyota, leading many to feel the damage was irreparable. Despite this, McClelland, along with the help of many others, was able to get the car competition ready once again.

Half of the Flatovercrest.com team is now at the finish in Ripon, awaiting the cars from their final group of stages. The competitors have a group of six stages before the finish, with no further service. We will have photos and the conclusion of the Rallye Defi 2008 later today

Tags: Antoine L'Estage, Canadian Rally Championship, Mitsubishi, Montpellier, Pat Richard, Rallye Defi, Ripon, Subaru Rally Team Canada, VW