MOTORSPORT: Rallying at the double

Rally Queensland has long been a double-header, as a round of both the Australian and Asia-Pacific championships, and – while the sport remains low-profile – there’s a whole lot more about it to get interested in this time.

This weekend’s event features a world champion – a 24-year-old who was the junior world rally champ two years ago and now leads the Asia-Pacific championship for a serious Skoda factory team.

And there’s the new sensation of Australian rallying, the 27-year-old woman who won the previous ARC round in the ACT and leads the season’s national title chase.

The world ace is Pontus Tidemand, a Swede who was a two-time champion in his home series. He and his countryman co-driver Emil Axelsson won the Asia-Pacific opener in New Zealand two months ago in their Skoda Fabia S2000 and more recently were on the podium in the WRC2 category at Rally Portugal in the debut of Skoda’s new Fabia R5.

The local heroine is Molly Taylor, for so long known mostly as the daughter of Coral Taylor, multiple national champion co-driver to Neal Bates. Now Coral is identified more often as the mother of the increasingly famous young rally driver daughter in the Renault Clio in which Scott Pedder won last year’s ARC.

“There’s a lot more in me, and the car too, so I’ll be out there going as fast I can from the very first stage this weekend,” Molly Taylor has vowed.

Her co-driver, former WA policeman Bill Hayes, said success had given Taylor greater confidence and her aim was to consistently match multiple national champion brothers Simon and Eli Evans.

Hayes said Taylor’s greatest strength was the way she tackles the ARC’s toughest surfaces.

“She’s ridiculously brave, especially in the rough stuff,” Hayes said.

“The only thing she lacks is experience with the car – and that will only come from doing more miles in it.”

Bates’ 20-year-old son, Harry, is another rising star. He was on the podium in Canberra last month too in his debut as an ARC driver, in a Toyota Corolla Sportivo.

There’s plenty of other talent too in a field of almost 55 cars for this weekend’s 18 forest stages around timber town Imbil in the Mary Valley, with the Queensland championship round really making the event a triple-header.

The ARC cars have already had a Power Stage in the bush and there’s a ceremonial start late this afternoon on the Sunshine Coast at Caloundra.

Tidemand’s regular Skoda teammate in the long-running rally operation backed by Indian tyre maker MRF, with the cars prepared by WA’s renowned Race Torque, is vastly-experienced Guarav Gill, a three-time Indian champion and winner of the Asia-Pacific title two years ago – yet never a winner in Queensland.

Gill’s co-driver is Australian Glenn Macneal and together they won the second Asia-Pacific round this season in New Caledonia a month ago.

Only three points separate Tidemand and Gill in the driver standings. Gill has a new engine for this round, and both will run fresh gearboxes.

But Gill will have to re-adapt to the S2000 car after winning the second round of this year’s Indian championship in a diesel-powered SUV.

A third Fabia is to be driven by New Caledonia-based Frenchman Jean-Louis Leyraud.

New Zealand’s race-driver production line was evident again last weekend with Hayden Paddon second at WRC round Rally Italy, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley in the first two cars to finish the Le Mans 24-Hour, while Shane Van Gisbergen, Fabian Coulthard, Scott McLaughlin and Andre Heimgartner are racing V8 Supercars in Darwin this weekend.

A 22-year-old Kiwi, Mike Young, is the APRC’s youngest driver in a Subaru Impreza run by Japan’s Cusco team.

Another leading entry is that of Indonesian Subhan Aksa with Italian co-driver Nicola Area in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X.

Four Australian entries have opted to run in the Asia-Pacific field – the Citroen DS3 R3s of Eli Evans, Tony Sullens and Adrian Coppin and the 1.6-litre turbocharged Peugeot 208 ‘Maxi’ of Mark Pedder, whose co-driver Dale Moscatt is a veteran of 300 rallies.

The Aussies in the APRC are eligible for ARC points as usual, but the earlier start times and road positions by running in the Asia-Pacific field are often painted as beneficial.

However, Sullens said that was something of a misnomer.

“The nature of the roads in Rally Queensland is that they sweep pretty well and get grippier, so there is an argument that maybe those guys starting further down the running order will have more grip and therefore will be faster,” he said.

And Sullens, winner of a heat at the National Capital Rally, added that, with recent rains and more predicted for the weekend, “it doesn’t matter if you’re car one or car 20, it’s going to be slippery”.

Taylor’s main opposition in the ARC round is likely to come from Simon Evans in a Honda Jazz with a fresh engine after a blow-up in the ACT.

Canberra’s Mick Patton has been another star of this year’s ARC, winning two rounds of the four-wheel-drive category in a Race Torque-prepared Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X after the trials of campaigning his own front-wheel-drive Volkswagen Polo last season.

Missing this time though is 2011 national champion Justin Dowel because of business commitments after debuting his light new Hyundai i20 prototype in Canberra.

One of Australian rallying’s legends, Ross Dunkerton, will drive a Datsun 1600 in the Queensland clubman and all-comers series with wife Lisa as his co-driver, while Neal Bates and Coral Taylor will spend the weekend keeping an eye on their kids in action rather than competing in their classic Toyota RA40 Celica on the gravel roads.