L’Estage was having trouble of his own when the differential on his Mitsubishi broke, turning his formerly four-wheel-drive car into a two-wheel-drive machine. Te broken differential ultimately dropped L’Estage to second, nine seconds back of Richard. “We were lucky to make it to
service,” said L’Estage. Te second day proved no bet- ter for either the Mitsubishi crews of L’Estage and Nathalie Richard nor Pat Richard and Leanne Jun- nila. Richard’s chances looked grim after suspension problems in the morning forced him to slow down, but trouble was waiting around for L’Estage too. With a three minute lead and another victory almost assured, L’Estage’s Mitsubishi developed transmission problems. Tanks to Richard’s troubles, L’Estage’s crew opted to put in a new gearbox and despite losing almost all of their three minute lead, the swap al- lowed the reigning champion to push the pace in the final stages on his way to a 20 second victory. “Tis rally I owe to the crew. Tey fixed the differentials on Fri- day and then today they replaced the transmission in record time,” said L’Estage, who was marking his 100th career start as a driver. “Tere’s no way, without them, that I could be here at the finish.” Despite all their mechanical is-
sues, Richard and Junnila still managed to finish in second, but it was a frustrating result. “It’s been a hard rally. So many things went wrong, but things went wrong for other teams as well,” said Richard, who was frus- trated at the small margin at the finish. “I think of all the places we could have made up time over this rally, and for sure there’s 20 sec- onds out there. We got points, which we needed, so that’s okay, but not the result we wanted.” Simon Dube and David Berube had an exciting battle for the Two- Wheel-Drive class win. Berube led Dube for much of the rally, but like the overall battle, mechanical issues played a big part in the final result. A broken suspension cost Berube time in the closing stages, which allowed Dube past for the Two-Wheel-Drive win.
Continued on Page 12 2011 RALLY OF THE TALL PINES 11
Pat Richard (top) struggled in the first four events of the year. The Zedril brothers (middle) won their second straight 2WD title. “Crazy” Leo Urlichich (above) has been a regular visitor to the CRC podium.
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