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D. Higgins is now a 3 Times Champion!
D. Herridge finshed 3rd. TEIN drivers on winner's podium again!
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The third round of China Rally Championship 2007 was held from July 14th to 15th at Ryu Ban Sui, which is a very famous resort area. All 10 SS stages were located in this mountainous area, which were 190km long and tough gravel roads.
This round was the first race competed in full gravel roads. 11 out of 79 machines entered in this race were supported by TEIN. 6 machines used Gr.N dampers to compete in N4 class: D. Higgins, F. Fan and Q. Chang from Wanyu Team with Evo IX, D. Herridge, H. Ichino /Michael Lieu, L. Wei from SUBARU RALLY TEAM CHINA with SUBARU IMPREZA GDB-F.
Sunny sky during the rally week made gravel condition to be dry; however, Herridge and Liew suffered from flat tires in Leg 1. Surprisingly, Liew went off the course and retired in SS5. In such condition, Higgins from Wan-yu team had shown a constant performance and won the championship 3 times in a row since the opening round in Shanghai!
Higgins who didn't start out well caught up and finished in 3rd place. As a result, TEIN supported teams won 2 out of 3 positions on the winner's podium. |
Comments from TEIN engineer (TEIN Overseas Sales Section/Mr. Yasushi Furubayashi)
"Hankook tires were not ready in pretest, so Wan-yu team only tested Higgins' machine. Although the test was only 2 hours long, the results came out well. However, when the rally started, tires of Higgins' machine got worn out just from driving through 2 SS courses. This was adjusted by changing the tires and sway bar, which made a little improvement. The increasing heat in the afternoon and repeating stages, however, made it very difficult to set up the tires. The shock absorbers were not changed, and only damping force was adjusted. Next round will be a tricky stage, so we would like to focus on a set up with good traction." |
| Pos |
No. |
Driver |
Class-Pos |
Machine |
Time |
Diff |
| 1 |
12 |
DAVID ANDREW HIGGINS |
N4-1 |
Mitsubishi Evo9 |
2:23"38.2 |
|
| 2 |
10 |
MARTIN ROWE |
N4-2 |
Mitsubishi Evo9 |
2:23"40.5 |
2.3 |
| 3 |
13 |
DEAN HERRIDGE |
N4-5 |
SUBARU IMPREZA GDB-G |
2:28"12.8 |
4"34.6 |
| 4 |
16 |
Hua Qing xian |
N4 |
Mitsubishi Evo9 |
2:30"34.9 |
6"56.7 |
| 6 |
18 |
Fan Fan |
N4-10 |
Mitsubishi Evo9 |
2:35"19.4 |
11"41.2 |
| - |
7 |
Michael Lieu |
N4-7 |
SUBARU IMPREZA GDB-F |
Retirements |
| - |
19 |
Li Wei |
N4 |
SUBARU IMPREZA GDB-F |
Retirements |
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