Leg 2 win for Brendan at Rally Australia

The battle for honours in the ECB Australian Rally Championship (ARC) has again hotted up with Brendan Reeves and Rhianon Gelsomino taking victory on Leg 2 of Coates Hire Rally Australia today in their RallySchool.com.au Mazda2.

Leg 2 consisted of two gravel stages each repeated twice and two runs of the custom-built Super Special Stage in Coffs Harbour, a total competitive distance of just under 120 kilometres. Reeves jumped out of the blocks early, taking a convincing win on the opening stage of the day, the 49 kilometre Nambucca stage. After the disappointment of a broken camshaft yesterday, Reeves was eager to claw back valuable championship points from his main rivals Scott Pedder and Dale Moscatt (Renault Clio) after their Leg 1 victory.

Reeves relishes the longer stages and beat Pedder by 9.7 seconds on the first run of the Nambucca stage today. He then increased his lead with a three second victory on Valla 1.

After a service break in Coffs Harbour, crews repeated the morning’s stages, with Reeves again winning Nambucca. Pedder spun on the stage and lost three and a half minutes to Reeves but he pushed hard on the repeat of Valla, and the rivals finished the stage with an equal time. Going into the evening’s Super Special Stages, Reeves held a lead of three minutes and forty three seconds over Pedder.

On the 1.56 kilometre Super Special Stage in Coffs Harbour, Pedder, who had the advantage of running the stage last night, narrowly beat Reeves by 0.2 of a second on the first run and 1.6 seconds on the second.

Reeves earns 20 valuable championship points for today’s Leg win and is aiming for a similar result on the final day of Coates Hire Rally Australia on Sunday.