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Winning the Championship of Tarmac Opening Round!
TEIN supported driver, D. Higgins won his first championship for this season
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 The opening round of China Rally Championship 2007, also known as Shanghai-Jinshan Rally, was held from Mar.23rd to 25th, in Jinshan District. The stages were on private roads and farm roads, with simple layouts mixing long straight courses and corners in right angle. This makes the top speed soar up to 200km/h, and with many jumping points (which are actually small bridges over canal), there were quite a few machines that crashed after a bad landing. In addition, more than 70% of the road was a very slippery concrete surface.
9 out of 62 machines were TEIN Supported machines for this opening round: D. Higgins, F. Fan, Q. Chang (MITSUBISHI LANCER EVOLUTION IX) from Wan-Yu Rally Team, T. Kamata/N. Kase from SUBARU RALLY TEAM CHINA, 6 machines from N4 class such as H. Ichino (President of TEIN) /Michael Lieu and L. Wei, 3 machines from N2 class entering from China.
Leg 1 started out in a wet road condition, which caused many machines to crash. Despite such condition, Higgins, the ace driver of Wan-Yu team, won the overall championship. Kamata, ace of SUBARU RALLY TEAM CHINA, went off the course and receded once, but recovered to 6th place with his persistent driving. |
In this opening round of CRC, teams from Great Britain, Finland, New Zealand and Japan all came to win, bringing the top drivers of their country. SUBARU RALLY TEAM CHINA had Kamata, and Wan-Yu team, Higgins. Both were TEIN supported teams, and they chose Shanghai Tianma Circuit for the pretest.
The stage conditions, however, were not as expected, and in Leg 1 held on the 24th, the teams suffered from a wet condition. As a result, Kamata who marked 4th in SS1 crashed in SS2, and his teammate, Lieu, hit a tree and retired from Leg 1. Many of Wan-Yu team's owners and fans also went off the course in SS4 and ended up greatly behind.
In such an unpredictable race, Higgins had shown a great driving in Leg 2 on the 25th, winning the first championship of this season. Kamata finished 6th, and fast learning Chang finished 8th. Among the many drivers who crashed in landing, TEIN supported drivers had shown a stable and strong driving, winning the top positions.
The schedule of next round has been changed and will be held from June 15th through 17th in Beijing. Last year's champion team, KST, will be competing as a TEIN-supported team. Former British champion M. Rowe and a famous P-WRC driver, A. Teiskonen, are also warming up for this event. It sure will be a very competitive and exciting battle. |
| Pos. |
No. |
Driver
Co.Driver |
Car |
Time |
Diff |
Remarks |
| 1 |
12 |
D.Higgins
I-L.Thomas |
MITSUBISHI LANCER Evo 9
CT9A |
1:19:58.3 |
|
TEIN Gr.N Damper |
| 2 |
8 |
Xu Lang
|
MITSUBISHI LANCER Evo 8
|
1:20:12.7 |
+14.4 |
|
| 3 |
11 |
Jarkko Mietinen
Mikko Pekka Lukka |
MITSUBISHI LANCER Evo 8 |
1:20:12.8 |
+14.5 |
|
| 4 |
10 |
Martin Rowe
Dale Moscatt |
MITSUBISHI LANCER Evo 9
CT9A |
1:20:19.2 |
+20.9 |
|
| 5 |
14 |
Richard Vallance
Sara Louise Randall |
SUBARU IMPREZA
GDB-F |
1:20:53.7 |
+55.4 |
|
| 6 |
13 |
T.Kamada
N.Kase |
SUBARU IMPREZA
WRX STI |
1:23:01.0 |
+3:02.7 |
TEIN Gr.N Damper |
| 7 |
6 |
Tu Rongzheng
|
MITSUBISHI LANCER Evo 9
CT9A |
1:23:32.2 |
+3:33.9 |
|
| 8 |
16 |
Hua Qing xian
|
MITSUBISHI LANCER Evo 9
CT9A |
1:24:48.2 |
+4:50.0 |
TEIN Gr.N Damper |
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