Pat Richard and co-driver, Alan Ockwell, continued their winning ways this weekend at the 2008 Rallye Defi.  With the win, the Subaru Rally Team Canada duo take a seemingly insurmountable lead in the championship with two events remaining this season. True to form, Defi was a test of car preparation and endurance, with the long stages towards the end of the rally claiming numerous victims.

“It’s great to have won of course, but I was really looking forward to battling with Antoine (L’Estage) on the longer stages — so in that sense it’s a bit of a disappointment.” said Richard, adding that the car took a real beating but ran well.

L’Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard were the favourites coming into the event, but midway through the Day 2 action, they suffered an engine failure in their Hyundai Tiburon that put them out of the contest.

“This is a really disappointing result for us, after having such a reliable car for the last two years.” he said.

Second place went to Bill Bacon and Peter Watt in their Mitsubishi EVO IX. Bacon and Watt both have a wealth of rally experience and stayed calm in the face of the difficult final stages of the rally.

“We just tried to take it easy and not push too hard,” said Bacon. “People started dropping out, so we let them do that and made it to the end.”

Craig Henderson and Lyne Murphy of St-Constant, Quebec employed the same strategy, keeping cool heads to round out the podium in third place. 

The local team of David Legault and Pat Levigne impressed many with their speed and determination finishing fourth in an event that caught out many with much more rally experience. At the final service, the crew, led by David himself, were in the mud under the car frantically trying to replace the rear subframe.  With seconds to spare, the final bolt was tightened and they jumped in the car, ready to tackle the final stages.

Another local team, Sylvain Bazinet and Patrick Piche, finished as the top two-wheel drive entry in their VW Golf GTI in tenth place overall, while Ted and Lise Mendham drove a steady event to finish as the top production car in their 2002 Subaru Impreza WRX.

Simon Losier and Maxime Losier finished sixth overall to claim the lead in the Mitsubishi Cup.  The Mitsubishi contingency program has been a huge success this season, with a large swell in numbers of Mitsubishi competitors.

The challenging event saw fewer than half the teams who entered cross the finish line. Among its victims were Mitsubishi veterans Andrew Comrie-Picard and Marc Goldfarb.

The duo had come to Rallye Defi 2008 hoping to gain some valuable points in the championship after suffering mechanical problems at previous rounds. However, the team was forced to retire on Saturday after taking an impact to the front of the vehicle that caused the engine to overheat. 

Also retiring before the finish were Erik Grochowski and Leanne Junnila, who had travelled all the way from Alberta in hopes of securing the Group 2 Canadian Rally Championship in their VW Golf. Initially the event was going well, but the car began to suffer from a slew of mechanical problems on Day 2, and the pair was forced to retire late in the day.

Next up is the Pacific Forest Rally in Merritt, BC in October, and Flatovercrest will also have daily updates from Targa Newfoundland from September 12-21.

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

Competitors awoke to heavy rains this morning, which has continued through the day so far creating slippery and soggy conditions.

The first two stages – each run twice – were the infamous Tarmac
stages and claimed a few victims. John Vanos and co-driver Ryan Huber
blew their motor on the first stage of the day. Mark Williams and Jeff
Secor went off the road at a tricky gravel-to-tarmac junction, but
received a quick pull back onto the road a few cars later. Soon after,
the team of Raphael and Oliver Guité pirouetted onto their roof in the
same location. An eager crowd quickly had the car on it’s wheels and on
it’s way.

Norm Leblanc’s Subaru was missing on the recent pass through SS12.
We are filing this report from the field via iphone so we don’t have
any updates at the moment, but Dean and Erik are at today’s service
stops and will have full reports as they are available.

Although stage mileage is short on the first day of the Rallye Defi 2008 – less than 15kms – there is always some action. The old adage that this is where teams can lose the rally holds true. One mistake on these early stages can knock a competitor down the order or out of the event completely. Extremely dusty conditions forced crews to drive very much to their notes for tonight’s stages.

Martin Losier had the shortest run at this rally, breaking the propshaft on his Mitsubishi EVO 6 on the start line of the first stage.

John Cassidy also had trouble early on after the car was filled with bad fuel. Thanks to the efforts of his crew as well as many others, the fuel tank was drained, and fresh fuel was put in the car. Despite this, Cassidy and stand-in co-driver Jen Daly may be declared max late. The pair continued to run all the stages and John hopes to plead his case with event organiser B Gilles Lacroix.

“I am hoping I can chat with B Gilles and convince him to let us keep running,” smiled Cassidy.

Things were all smiles one spot over in service, with Eric Grochowski. He and co-driver Leanne Junnila are in position to secure the Group 2 Canadian Rally Championship at Defi. After a DNF at this event last year, the pair are excited at what has been a trouble free run so far.

At the top of the order, Antoine L’Estage and Pat Richard have each named the other as their biggest competition this weekend, and at the end of the night, only one second separates the pair, with L’Esage in the lead.

“I drove really badly on this stage,” said Pat, referring to the first pass on the Palomino stage. “I missed a couple of shifts and botched some corners.”

Andrew Comrie-Picard suffered a boost leak and lost 17 seconds to his competition. Both Mathieu L’Estage and Bill Bacon capitalized, and at the end of the night L’Estage is sitting in second with Bacon a close third.

Gord Olsen and Norm Leblanc have both dropped down out of the lead pack of drivers. Olsen is driving his Open class Subaru in dry conditions for the first time.

Craig Henderson had intended to drop out of the event earlier this week after damaging his rallycar at a regional event three weeks ago.

“I did a lot of damage to the front end and blew the motor. On Wednesday, I was going to withdraw but my sponsor at Kosmic Speed Shop helped get everything together. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be here today.” explained Henderson.

Martin Gauvin and co-driver Daniel Duchesneau have upgraded their Subaru WRX to Open class, and Gauvin is busy learning how to drive with the additional power now on tap in the car. Without any testing time before the rally, today’s stages served as a test before the rally really gets going tomorrow.

Tomorrow, teams start out at the familiar Montpellier tarmac stage before heading to a few more short stages and the final long stages at the end of the afternoon. Dust has been a big problem today, with drivers being forced to commit to notes, unable to visually confirm the road ahead. While there have been requests to run two minute intervals tomorrow, no indication has been given as to whether that will happen. Even rain may not keep the dust away.

“Some of the stages have trees growing almost overtop of them. There is no wind, and the rain doesn’t get through, so they might stay very dusty.” commented Antoine L’Estage.

A unique reseed will be done for the start order tomorrow, with each team dropping their worst stage time of today. This should result in Antoine being first on the road tomorrow. If conditions stay dusty this will be critical. L’Estage feels whoever is first on the road, if it is dry tomorrow, will have the advantage and likely win the event.