Shepheard Takes Commanding Lead in QRC

The third round of the Queensland Rally Championship ‘Philcomm 2007 Rally Benarkin’ was played out in the forests of Nanango and Benarkin last weekend with some 31 crews in the QRC & Clubman section competing.

The rally encompassed over 160km competitive utilizing 5 stages each run twice over Saturday afternoon and evening. With 3 of the stages run twice at night the crews certainly faced some big challenges throughout the night runs. Severe drought in South East Qld meant that dust was a huge problem on the six night stages and with four minute gaps being extended on the second run through the stages crews still struggled with the dusty conditions.

The Nanango stages being fast & technical caught out a number of crews; Shaun Gill & Jasmine Both just left the road and found themselves down a bank unable to extract the car, while Clunes/Weiland found a tree (head-on) and Macdonald/Gerathy lost a wheel!

In the Clubman section Al Kelly/Erin Kelly again had no luck in their very special Alpine Renault after clutch problems left them high and dry at the start of SS1 while Wass/Agius broken wheel studs bought a premature end to their day. Several crews debuted new cars this weekend with Darren Kurzok in a newly acquired Impreza RS and Steve Allmark in a newly built Renault Clio.

The Clubman event was a hard fought battle over 5 stages with Ross Cox/Gerard McConkey the eventual winners from Ovenden/Kelly with Ryan & Rebecca Smart in third.

Meanwhile the QRC competitors fought on into the remaining night stages with Shepheard/Smith showing the field a clean pair of heels. Contending for a podium position Knowles/Knowles were firming in the running until brakes failed on SS6 forcing them to miss SS7 and receive an allocated time, re-joining to finish the balance of the stages their podium position slipped away. As did the chances for Menzies/McGowan also with brake failure and then a broken axle on SS6.

This left Brinkman/Richardson, Van Tuinen/McNab & Tonna/Greenwood to fight out the remaining positions.

In the end Steve Shepheard had no rivals with an impressive 3 minute win over Brinkman/Richardson and Van Tuinen/McNab taking third outright. The balance of the top 5 was Stephen Tonna & Lorelle Greenwood in fourth and Erik Johnsson/John McCarthy finishing a creditable fifth.

Congratulations to all competitors as Brisbane Sporting Car Club put together a very challenging and varied event.

Teams head to Rockhampton during July to compete in the fourth round of the Championship at Rydges Capricorn Rally.