MOTORSPORT: Australian Safari 2009 - Day One

Australian Safari veteran Des Harrington has taken the lead of this year's event after the opening day of proper competition. He guided his Nissan Patrol to a 15 second advantage over the similarly equipped Adrian Parker across 100km of first day stages.

"I'm very surprised to be leading," Harrington said. "I'm really pleased though; we had a fantastic day with no car problems, so it's shaping up to be a great event."

But with six more days and over 3000km of competition to go Harrington knows not to get carried away with the early result.

He'll be all to aware the defending race winner Steve Riley is well placed, finishing the day in third only 20 seconds behind the top spot.

"It's been a good day today," Riley said. "I made amends for yesterday's slow time on the prologue. There was quite lot of deep sand which made it quite interesting today, and a few guys seemed to have clutch and overheating problems, but our car held up well.

"We caught up to a couple of guys but couldn't quite get past them, and the navigation was pretty tough, so having a good navigator really pays off."

The Holden Colorado driven by former V8 Supercar driver Paul Weel and navigated by his father Kees dropped a spot over the day but still held down fourth place.

Day Two will see the field cover two stages totalling over 350km of competitive distance.

Standings after Day One:
1. Des Harrington/Richard Harrington, Nissan Patrol, 1h19m37s
2. Adrian Parker/Alan McGilvray, Nissan Patrol, +15s
3. Steve Riley/John Doble, Mitsubishi Pajero, +20s
4. Paul Weel/Kees Weel, Holden Colorado, +1m02s
5. Terry Pinson/Richard den Brinker, Ford Falcon, +2m42s

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