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D. Higgins Has Become an Incredible 4-Time Champion!
D. Herridge also finished 2nd. TEIN drivers finished up in 1st-2nd place!
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The fourth round of China Rally Championship 2007 called "Rally Kaiyang" was held from Aug 4-6th in Kaiyang, Guizhou province. Super SS held on the 4th was competed on a mixed course of gravel and concrete, and from the 5th the battle took place on a full gravel stage. All the SS courses were very twisty in the mountainous area of Kaiyang, and rhythmical corners were the keys to win this race.
M. Lieu from SUBARU RALLY TEAM CHINA skipped this event because damage to his machine in the previous event in Ryu Ban Sui could not be repaired in time. His teammates, D. Herridge and L. Wei/H. Ichino, entered with SUBARU IMPREZA GDB-F. Also from Wanyu team, D. Higgins, F. Fan and Q. Chang entered with Evo IX, all using Gr.N dampers for N4 class.
In the pretest, Herridge had mission troubles and Wei/Ichino had turbo troubles on their machines; however, they were soon repaired and performance went well in test programs. Higgins, who challenged a new setting had good feelings, too. In the race, TEIN supported drivers constantly drove and achieved satisfactory results. Higgins who started out well won the championship 4 times in a row, and Herridge followed in 2nd place!
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Comments from TEIN engineer (TEIN R&D Section/Mr. Tomoaki Himeno)
"We had heard that the condition was a rough gravel, but the road surface seemed to be smoother than in Ryu Ban Sui. So, we made a soft setting for Impreza from RALLY TEAM CHINA, as wellas for Fan and Chang from WANYU TEAM with EVO, in order to have better traction performance. On the other hand, we tried a new setting for Higgins. Although there were troubles for Herridge and Wei, the suspension setting went well. In SS3, understeering movement was seen due to the course characteristics; however, everything else seemed to be fine. In the next round, we are planning to try the new setting we made for Higgins, thoroughly going over with the drivers." |
| Pos |
No. |
Driver |
Class-Pos |
Machine |
Time |
Diff |
| 1 |
12 |
DAVID ANDREW HIGGINS |
N4-1 |
Mitsubishi Evo9 |
1:50"34.0 |
|
| 2 |
11 |
DEAN HERRIDGE |
N4-2 |
SUBARU IMPREZA GDB-G |
1:51"43.4 |
1"09.4 |
| 3 |
2 |
Liu Caodong |
N4-3 |
SUBARU IMPREZA STI9 |
1:53"25.7 |
2"51.7 |
| 7 |
16 |
Hua Qing xian |
N4-7 |
Mitsubishi Evo9 |
1:55"45.8 |
5"11.8 |
| 9 |
18 |
Fan Fan |
N4-9 |
Mitsubishi Evo9 |
1:58"55.4 |
8"21.4 |
| 11 |
19 |
Li Wei |
N4-11 |
SUBARU IMPREZA GDB-E |
2:02"07.6 |
11"40.2 |
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