MOTORSPORT: D-day looms on Mazda rally car

One last hurdle before twin ARC comebacks
Multiple national rally champion Simon Evans has given the new Mazda 2 in which he and the make will return to the Australian Rally Championship a tick after an initial test, but confirmation of a start in the weekend's Rally of Queensland won't come before midweek.

The first test of the car built by Rallyschool was on a rally stage north of Sydney but another run in the forests at Imbil in Queensland's Mary Valley on Wednesday will determine whether it makes its competition debut immediately.

"We don't want to run the car unless both the team and Simon are 100 per cent happy with it," Rallyschool team principal Mick Ryan said. "It would be silly to run it if we discover some teething or development problem that might set the program back.

"Having said that, we are confident that the test will be very positive and the car will be right to run on the weekend."

The Mazda has been built to ARC rules which are making two-wheel drive cars the premier category of Australian rallying. It will enable Evans, who has concentrated on his family's business for the past 18 months, to compete against his younger brother Eli, who drives a Honda Jazz in the ARC and leads the G2 category after the first two rounds.

The Mazda is powered by a normally-aspirated 2-litre MZR engine mated to an Australian-designed and built Hollinger six-speed motorsport gearbox. The car has MCA suspension all round, sits on Speedline Racing wheels from FSport with Kumho rally tyres and Project Mu brakes.

MCA Suspension principal Murray Coote was the last driver to win the ARC in a Mazda -- a 323 Familia in 1988. Coote has played a key role in the development of the Mazda 2 over the past five months.

Four-time champion Evans said he had been excited to test the car and it had been "very good straight out of the box".

"I was sick of talking about it -- I just wanted to drive it," Evans said. "Mick Ryan and his team have done a fantastic job.

"The car is a credit to them... Mick has brought together some of the best rally car engineering expertise in the country -- and it shows.

"The last time I drove on gravel was Rally Victoria last year in the old Subaru, and since then it's all been tarmac in a Mazda 3 MPS on Targa Tasmania and various tarmac events, so it was great to be back on the slippery stuff in this exciting little car."

The Mazda project has been headed by engineer Dave Loftus, who has extensive experience with front-wheel-drive race cars, and was built at Darren Williams' DashSport workshops in Dural near Sydney.

Former Ford works fabricator and mechanic John Gray handled much of the build with Gareth Stokes and the DashSport crew.

Mick Ryan said he felt "very privileged" when Evans agreed to join the team, and "particularly privileged" that he was the first to drive it.

"Simon has driven in small family-run teams as well as having been the number one driver in factory-backed outfits and has fitted into our team extremely well," Ryan said. "He has won Australian titles driving Toyotas, a Mitsubishi and a Subaru.

"Perhaps his fifth Australian championship crown could be with our team in a fourth different brand."

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at the carsales mobile site