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Edition

Australia
Race report

McRae takes Race to the Sky win

Alister McRae took a popular win in the re-born New Zealand hillclimb in the very car that the late Possum Bourne drove to victory at the same event in 2001.

 Alistair McRae

Alistair McRae

Uncredited

Overall winner Alister McRae
Ian Ffitch
Brett Hayward
Alister McRae of Proton R3 Malaysia

It wasn’t a straightforward day for the Australian-based Scot, whose ex-WRC-spec Subaru WRX suffered an engine failure on the morning’s first run. Following some swift work from the Possum Bourne Motor Sport team McRae was able to have a trouble-free afternoon run, setting an unbeatable 8m17.616s to claim outright honours.

"To stop on today’s qualifying, well, I’ll not tell you what I said to myself because there’s kids here but obviously I was very, very disappointed," said McRae.

"But then you think, well, hold on, we’ve got a spare engine. The time to change that was very tight, but the Possum Bourne Motor Sport boys did a tremendous job. I know what Possum means to the motorsport community here so to do that in his car, it’s been a great weekend."

McRae’s biggest break of the day came when Nobuhiro 'Monster' Tajima crashed out of the event. The eight-time Race to the Sky winner was favourite to win in his 670 horsepower 'Super 86' hillclimb car, but was sent flying off the road when the car suffered a failure.

Australian Brett Hayward went on to finish second in his self-built open-wheeler, while quad bike rider Ian Ffitch finished third, and won the Possum Bourne Memorial Trophy for being the best-placed New Zealander.

 

 

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Edition

Australia