|
Penrith
rally driver Paul Bird saw his hopes of victory on the Trackrod
Rally Yorkshire National event evaporate when a broken driveshaft
cost him time on SS3 of today’s event.
Driving
the VK backed Stobart Subaru WRC, Bird and co-driver Andy Richardson
from Kirkby Stephen were making their comeback to the forests for
the first time since March on the Pickering based event and after a
good run through the opening stages in Dalby Forest, Bird was hoping
to close the ten second gap between himself and chief rival Steve
Perez.
However
half way through the seven mile Gale Rigg stage Bird slid wide into
a ditch which cost him some time, but in extracting the Subaru he
broke a driveshaft which meant he had to contest the remainder of
that stage and the following high speed test in Cropton with
transmission problems.
The
TEGsport team rectified the situation in service but the two minutes
time loss proved too much for Bird to claw back on the final three
stages and as a result he had to settle for second place behind
Perez.
Paul
Bird: “I’m not too
disappointed given I felt very rusty today. It’s the first rally I’ve
done since May and my first time on gravel since the Border Counties
in March so it was always going to be a tough challenge. We had a bit of an off which
cost us about a minute and then breaking the driveshaft cost us
another minute by which time Steve had disappeared off into the
distance.
“I’m
not too unhappy to finish second to Steve, I’m more concerned that
it’s my turn to buy the champagne yet again!”
Result
1,
Steve Perez/Stephen Mcauley (Ford Focus WRC)
1:07:04.4
2,
Paul Bird/Andy Richardson (Subaru Impreza)
1:09:28.3
3,
Steve Petch/John Richardson (Hyundai Accent WRC)
1:09:43.0
|
