Victory for Brendo on his rally return

{mosimage}Brendo has had an awesome return to rallying with a victory in today's Akademos Rally held near Alexandra in Victoria.

The event was round 6 of the Victorian Rally Championship and had attracted a quality field including many VRC regulars as well as ARC competitors Justin Dowel and Matt Lee, and Brendo's brother, Nathan, who, with Scott Spedding, has taken out the last two rounds of the Tasmanian Rally Championship.

 

With Rhianon still recovering from her broken legs, Brendo invited Ben Atkinson to call the pace notes for the rally, and the pair had an excellent event.

After a solid day's recconnaissance on Saturday, Brendo went into the event with plenty of confidence.  He won the event last year and was familiar with the roads, and was back behind the wheel of his Subaru STI that he last drove competitively in Rally Queensland where he took the Australian Pirelli Star Driver title.

The rally was run in beautiful conditions with very little dust but Brendo admitted at the lunch time service break that he was finding it a little difficult to get back on the pace after his accident at Rally South Australia two months ago. He was, however, only 11 seconds behind rally leader, Justin Dowel after the first four stages.

With the morning's stages repeated again in the afternoon, Brendo grew in confidence and stepped up the pace.  The afternoon's stages were a battle between Brendo and Dowel, and when the Mitsubishi driver punctured six kilometres from the end of the final stage, Brendo was in the right position to take the victory.

"It's fantastic to win on my first rally back," Brendo said.  "We were a little lucky that Justin punctured, but I'm happy to take a bit of luck!"

"Ben did an awesome job today.  I can't thank him and all my team enough for their support.  It really was a great day with Nathan finishing third, and to have Rhianon here watching in my first rally back was awesome.  I know she was wishing she was in the co-driver's seat!"

VISIT BRENDO'S PHOTO GALLERY FOR PICS FROM THE AKADEMOS RALLY