New South Wales rally driver Molly Taylor has upstaged a class field to win last weekend’s Southern Safari and become the first woman driver to win a round of the Tasmanian Rally series.
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The 28-year-old daughter of three-time Australian Rally Champion co-driver Coral Taylor teamed up with the very experienced Bill Hayes of Western Australia in the Les Walkden-prepared Subaru WRX STi.
The pair won the eleven-stage event by thirty seconds.
Right from the outset the event proved to be a battle of two.
The 2015 ARC four wheel drive champions Marcus and Scott Walkem set the pace in their Evo 9 Mitsubishi Lancer winning the first four stages of heat one.
Taylor and Hayes bounced back from a puncture on stage four to win the final three stages of heat one, and the gap was down to fourteen seconds in favour of the Walkems.
Keith Abblitt and Adrian Hodgetts were third in their Subaru but over a minute and a half further back, while a very strong early performance by Eddie Maguire and Michael Potter in their Evo 9 Mitsubishi Lancer came to nothing when they had issues on stage seven.
The second heat was run in the dark over four stages.
Taylor/Hayes went on a mission, blitzing the field to win the by 44 seconds from the Walkem’s who had no answers while this time round Maguire/Potter were a solid third.
Abllitt/Hodgetts finished fourth in the heat after a good battle with Maguire/Potter in the final two stages but still finished third overall for the event while fourth place overall went to Kurt Wylie and Steve Glenney in their Subaru.
Lee Peterson and Daniel Willson put in yet another giant killing performance in the front wheel drive Nissan Sunny GTi.
The duo finished fourth in heat one and sixth in heat two, to finish fifth overall, and take out the two wheel drive class.
The Nissan team still lead the series with 85 points after three rounds, and that is probably the longest time that a two wheel drive car led the series since Peterson and Marcus Oates in 1987 in a Mazda RX2.
Despite missing the first round, the Walkems are second on 78 points, and Marcus no doubt would love to win a Tasmanian title with his brother having won the series in 2013 and 2014 with Damien Grimwood.
Just four points behind in third place is the Abllitt/Hodgetts combination while Maguire/Potter are pretty much out of contention on 51 points.
The final round of the series will be the Mountain Stages Rally to be run by the Motor Sports Club of Tasmania on October 29.
