 It's uncompromising, addictive and often unforgiving with an adrenaline rush like no other. There is no practice, no second chances. It's the ultimate motorsport competition on gravel. It is rally and this is the East Coast Ball Bars Australian Rally Championship. It's round three coming to you from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Run alongside the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship. Last round in Canberra we made history again when Molly Taylor became the first woman to win a round of the Australian Rally Championship. Steve McKenzie's stop-start attack this year continued with suspension dramas robbing him of the first ever ARC he'd win. An aggressive Simon Evans paid the price for monstering his younger brother who was getting in his way, eating his dust, only choked the Honda Jazz. But then Eli looks certain to fail after crashing out in Heat One. He bounced back for a tussle with Molly Taylor and the citrons of Sullins and Coppin both led Heat Two at different stages. In the end it was the non-registered Harry Bates in his first outing who caused the upset, sneaking in front of Sullins allowing Molly Taylor in for the weekend win. So Molly leads the way from Eli Evans after two rounds. Tony Sullins is third with Adrian Coppin fourth thanks to a non-finish from Simon Evans. Steve McKenzie rounds out the five. In the four-wheel drive national series, Mick Patton extended his lead over Justin Dowell with Marcus Wolcombe jumping to third. But things will change after this round in Queensland. It's the best three of four rounds and so far only the Repco Rally team of Mick Patton and Bernie Webb has the consistency to be considered winners. Justin Dowell is MIA this round with business, but Mark Petter is back with the Peugeot Maxi car sorted. He and Dale Moskut have a score to settle. Biteful Bailey is a regular feature on the national circuit and returns with Matt Harriott in the freshly repowered BP Ultimate Evo 9. The man behind Fibre Tech Medical is having a red hot go this weekend too. He might not be the fastest, but consistency is a feature of Gerald Schofield. He and Katrina Kelly are looking for a podium. With eyes on the championship though, it's Eli Evans who wants the top spot. He and Glenn Western know what it's like to win, not be doing what they can to cause an upset in the Citroen DS3. Molly Taylor and Bill Hayes know they must come out fighting. There's no room for complacency and certainly no shivery will be granted to the Peugeot Oil's Renault team. Tony Sullins and Julia Barclay came oh so close to their first win in the championship last round and will be looking for even better things in Queensland, their Citroen DS3. After stumbling at the final hurdle, Adrienne Coppin and Erin Kelly will also be looking to go one better this round. The third of the DS3s has been mechanically overhauled and is ready for action. Stephen Brent McKenzie are hoping their luck has finally turned. An overnight stop in Goondiwindi en route from Victoria saw a smash and grab on their service vehicle and $10,000 worth of tools stolen. Things certainly can get much worse with the Optico team. And let's not forget the man who brought new meaning to sibling rivalry last round after a confrontation with Eli that many had speculated might be coming. His bark was more ferocious than his bite and he and Ben Searsia back with a new engine to square things away out on the road. Simon collected three bonus points for second in the Arboreal STP power stage here this round. Unable to beat Eli who scored maximum points once again. Point eight of a second separated the top three Tony Sullins grabbing the final point on offer. In four-wheel drive, Mark Pedder had the upper hand in the final. Dead heating, the winning outright time and a clear winner over Gerald Schofield who etched out Michael Byatton for second. The rally begins tomorrow in the Hinterland, an endurance round which has subtle differences to a usual heat. Dean Herridge is at the ceremonial start in Caloundra and has the details. So STP and Arboreal power stage has been run and won. Ironically four-wheel drive winner here, Mark Pedder, great run for him to get the maximum points. Now of course we're moving to the rally proper. Ceremonial start here in the streets of Caloundra, electric atmosphere, the chance for the people to get up close and personal with the cars. Here we go, two-wheel drive winner, Eli Evans in the Citroen. So power stage out of the way, now it's about our endurance round. This is the first of our endurance series where the two days count. There's heat points there but it's about the endurance and the speed of these cars. We'll be of course focusing on our outright and four-wheel drive cars. After 100mm of rain in the preceding week, the sunshine coast is beginning to live up to its reputation. The clouds have cleared and life in the sun is returning to normal. But life is far from normal inland in the Mary Valley to the northwest of Caloundra. This will be home to the International Rally of Queensland and the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship. With a handful of drivers breathing down his neck, Eli Evans knows the roads today will be a deciding factor. A lot of the stage is a hard-packed clay. So when it is wet it's very slippery but when it's dry it's almost like tarmac. So yeah it's going to be interesting today. I think it's going to be very grippy, a little bit greasy between the trees. So a little bit of caution in there but you know you've got to go flat out from the first stage. The focus for Eli this weekend is on overtaking Championship leader Molly Taylor but the events of last round with his brother are not far from his mind. You don't want to poke the big gorilla and wake him up do you? So he'll get pretty angry. So we'll see. I think he's going to go flat out from work though, as he normally does. So he's going to be on our toes, be ready for his attack and hopefully hold him off. I'm really looking forward to getting out there. We've gone the 900 option because we're car 13 on the road. We're a bit down the field. It's going to be swept and so we're taking a little bit of a punt but it's a medium compound so I can't wait to get out there. Our championship leader is clear on what's needed this weekend. It's an endurance run. We've still got a long way to go in the championship and as you say that you know Simon and Eli aren't going to back down without a fight. So I certainly don't think it's a you know the time to be you know sort of backing off and you know driving conservatively we still need to push. This is the weekend Tony Sullins must make his move. Coming to the halfway point of the championship he's in a handy third position. His start in the power stage has given him confidence for the rally. I've set up my car based on my strengths which will be the fast stuff. The slow stuff I'll probably be a bit slower on. I'm a bit too stiff on the suspension and lots of stuff but you know if I'm comfortable in the car I should be reasonably quick. He's not quick on the opening stage and knows it. Over five kilometers he slumps to fourth position and 14 seconds behind the lead car. Simon on the other hand is fast. Only three minutes 30 to cover the short sprint distance and leading Molly Taylor by seven seconds. It's Eli who blitzes the field though three quicker than Simon and attacking as he indicated from the outset but attacking means taking chances and he and Glenn Weston have a narrow escape that threatens to end their rally early. After the loss of tools from their service truck Steve McKenzie is focused on turning things around this weekend but he's robbed again this time of a good opening stage time within half a K of the start. After a spectacular start to his ARC career Harry Bates is brought down to earth with a crash as well. The balance between the highs and lows of rallying has come back to back for a young man with rally pedigree in only his second ARC event. SS2 Gibber is traditionally the opening stage to this rally and a familiar one for Eli Evans. It's another clean run and he banks a valuable lead that is wary of the risks. We're a really great stage one I think we're third fast in the APRC so that's really pleasing. A bit of a moment right at the finish line where we nearly rolled it so kind of a request and a bit of a wake-up call got away with it so just pulled it back a little bit for this one and you can see on the toines are a little bit slower. Again Simon is three seconds behind but his strategy is long range thinking ahead to the 22 kilometer speedy contractor stage up ahead he's excited. I'm really happy now the car's meant and we set stage one was pretty tricky and we've gone out on 900s so you know the idea is to have good tyres for this long stage and that's why we're ready. Tony Sullins is third fastest in the Citroen quicker than the Renault this stage but in all a second a kilometer behind Eli. Yeah the first one doesn't suit the way I got the car set up and I'd forgotten all about that stage until we got out there so then I you know it was a bit tentative through it and this one I sort of knew roughly the flow that's still a bit tentative there's more in there I'm sure the car's great and I'm feeling good. The high-tech oils Renault is not inspiring confidence in Molly Taylor. You know there's just a few really rough compressions and it just he's not very happy it's not wanting to slug you so in the stage it was fine hopefully I don't know we've got a gear now so we'll keep going while we've got gears. The rough compressions have taken their toll on Steve and Brent McKenzie they backed off after the massive hit in the opening stage. Service is still two stages away but with all that coolant leaking it's not looking good. Yeah just you know dip kick the car on its nose and yeah it's made a mess of the front so we went limp through that one I'll see what the guys reckon when we get back to refuel. I intended on just taking it easy for the first few but got the red mist and straight into it. No red mist for Adrian Poppen he's 20 seconds off the pace in both short opening stages and has little to explain why. We didn't really get a lot testing. There's a lot of conditions and you know pull my finger out of me. In the four-wheel drive national series Mark Pedder's arrival with the all-new Peugeot Maxi car is overshadowed by Nick Patton the series leader giving no ground after a disappointing overall STP power stage. I had a really good sleep yesterday afternoon and last night so yeah got all the nervous energy out yesterday the power stage on the jump start. He and Bernie Webb set fastest times on the opening stage to be followed home by the power stage wildcard Kent Lawrence. Lawrence is also using the first two short stages to settle in and prepare for the longer speedy contractors stage. Yeah look we had a really good run it was clean it was tidy it was um better than expected so we relaxed and just enjoyed it. Handling issues stopped the Pedder's suspension Peugeot from matching the Repco Evo but somehow Mark Pedder does beat Lawrence back to third through Gibba. We just can't control the back of the car so it's quite scary to drive so I'm not sure what has happened between the power stage and here but we're gonna do something because we just can't keep it on the road. Yesterday's other finalists have to be content for minor stage placings Scofield and Bailey settling into a race of their own. Yeah goods drying out just trying to keep it nice and neat keep ahead of Gerald if we can all day so that's going to be the battle of the of the day I reckon. Speedy contractors is the longest stage of the event and it's coming up right after the break the international rally of Queensland. Back to the east coast Bullbars Australian rally championship it's Evans the Evans through SS3 Speedy contractors Simon has better road position running behind the APRC field but Eli is showing good speed racing between bursts of sun through the trees. He and Glenn Weston use a life and manage to continue. Open to the 70 then care. Tighten sparse one in then pass back to Bailey. Simon on the road behind them isn't so lucky. Broken control arms and driveshaft mean Evans and Sisi are out for the remainder of the day. There's a third outright contender in trouble through this 22 kilometre stage. While Eli Evans made it through the water crossing Tony Sullen's does not. Almost the same driving line for Coppin and Kelly but their engine air intake is not the same as Sullen's and it makes all the difference. By the time Sullen's engine drives the start amount breaks and he's forced to hold it in place while Julia attempts to restart the car. Molly Taylor is next on the road she's 15 seconds slower than Eli but the high tech oils Renault has no issues with water. Sullen's and Barkley finally get started but now it stalls forcing a repeat of their unorthodox starting procedure. Steve McKenzie is struggling on trying to make service. Speed is not an issue for him at the crossing and Sullen's is still trying to get going. Things have gone from bad to worse. Now the DS3 won't come out of gear. It's time to call it a day. Another clean run through Fordon for Eli. An easy win from Molly Taylor and Bill Hayes by more than a second decay. And danger. In a desperate effort to go faster, Adrian Coppin changes suspension settings between stages but it doesn't help. Into braking slope. Bad jump. With that and all the temporary withdrawals Ashley James grabs the chance to bask in some glory. Despite his own handling issues he's third fastest in his VW Polo. Through Kandanga North Eli and Glenn Western suffer their own water problems in the factory DS3. With Simon sidelined even a 37 second lead is not much when it involves a citron and creaks. It's Molly's moment and she wins the stage by three seconds. Her niggling gearbox issue caused by a lot of vacation since Canberra. We've actually raised the engine up a little bit to try and give us a bit more clearance and it just means that just the angle of it is slightly different so sometimes when you're stopped it's a bit more difficult to locate the gears but in the stages it's no problem. The problem for Citroen is clearly water crossings. It's very vulnerable right down there in front it's like a big scoop. You can put a flap on it to try to redirect it. On the world rally cars they actually have a cut-off flap which is controlled by the co-driver to block the water intake. One suspects an area of modification very soon for the DS3. After stopping before he'd hardly started Harry Bates might be considering modifications of his own in the Corolla. 800 meters in the stage one and we lost drive and we've since found out it was both drive shafts that we've done so looking to get back out there this afternoon and rejoin but disappointing for sure. Even former champions have been sidelined today Simon Evans can't believe how little damage was caused by his pace-noting error. Made a mistake in recce and I just wrote the wrong note. We went off in fourth gear and the next thing we're going backwards down the road and I'm like what happened and we still had a car it was amazing a broken drive shaft and that was it we couldn't continue you know so. Mark Pedder's chance to show off the new gen four-wheel drive is dashed while trying to clean the windscreen of motor. The washer bottle is missing a vital component and the wipers just smear reducing visibility. Kent Lawrence is up to second in stage and overall behind the flying Repco machine. Through hoarding with a clean screen Pedder gets the wind from pattern with Lawrence relegated to third. Mike Bailey loses time to Schofield through speedy but grabs the stage wind back through SS4 and keeps their personal battle alive. Through five and Bailey beat series leader Mick Patton but for very good reason. Not a lot of movement. We family only had third gear so we sort of got to the end and limped out as best we could. Did a little bit of stuff on the side of the road and got it one three and five but it's all a bit sloppy in there at the moment so the boys are here getting it all sorted lost a fair bit of time in that last one but still held on the lead I think by 10 seconds at the lunchtime service. Can the boys fix the car to keep Nick in the game. We'll find out in just a moment. Welcome back to the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship from Queensland. The afternoon stages of leg one are the repeat of this morning. With no Simon Evans or Tony Sullins Eli again opens up an advantage over champion cheerleader Molly Taylor but by the end of SS7 the high tech oil's Renault is steaming away. They will make the refueling nimble but a time delay to repair a blown radiator hose will cost them a massive four minute penalty. Then slow down short left eight straddle through rough dip. Earring on the side of caution Eli Evans takes care through the SS7 creek crossing. Still the Citroen miss fires. With turbo boost back Steve and Brent McKenzie beat Molly to the end of Gibba but the Opticoke Fiesta is far from ideal. It's actually pulling now intercoolers still no sorry the radiator is still leaking so we're still topping it up the rear beam is bent so it's very nervous and fast stuff on right handers especially they're very hard to just keep in a straight line. The brothers from Victoria do well enough through the repeat of Speedy second to Eli Evans who has no problems with his creek crossing this time. A sticking throttle in SS8 does little for Molly Taylor's confidence in her Renault and she and Bill Hayes drop 40 seconds to the lead Citroen. Having already inherited second out by 8 of them is somewhat the Stephen Bradbury in by his own admission a day of very average driving. I like to get the most out of them they only work when they're sort of about 100 percent so that's sort of I think probably a bit of the problem as well but yeah I've just just got to sort it out and get on with it and stop winching I think. For Eli it is the end of a very big day of rallying and he continues to prove just how formidable a team he and Glenn Weston are. It's a bloody tough and Citroen DS3 it's you know I've thrown everything at it I've put in the trees, bounced off some banks I've had it on two wheels three or four times I've put it through water splashes and it's just come through so it's a brilliant little car I love driving it. Mick Patton's lunchtime gearbox issues are resolved but not without penalty and as last round we have a change in leader between stages. That means on debut in the ARC Kent Lawrence is leading the four wheel drive national series. Patton and Mark Pedder beat him through the first repeat but Lawrence is in the fight and hips the Pedder suspension maxi for second through the next stage hanging on to his 16 second advantage. Regular ARC competitor Mark Beard swapped his classic Corolla for his naturally aspirated RS this event and was never going to be a threat to the front runners. The Subway Suby is the only car not to go sub four minutes. He and Jim Pleason in service early with a broken driveshaft. The Repco Evo storms back through SS7 jumping Michael Bailey to third outright even with the two minute penalty but the drive of the day is between the iLab Evo 8 topping it out with the Pedder suspension 208 through three stages. Lawrence and Wilson steadily losing their buffer but Pedder and Moskut have been having their own dramas they're distracted on the final stage start with fuel issues and Moskut fails to plug in his intercom. Without notes Pedder presses on while Moskut struggles for nearly a minute before he can communicate with his driver. Steel Bay snatch the lead from Lawrence in the dying moments of the heat by three seconds and are now under the watchful eye of screwed nears eager to ensure their leaking fuel is sorted ASAP. There's nothing Kent Lawrence can do. Look I'm hoping we've held second. I know we're fighting there with Pedder in those last couple of stages and the gap is getting shorter but well we go about everything we had through there in the last stage so let's see where that puts us. Plenty of ups and downs in league one a bit like the rally itself. Dean Herridge has an ECB insight into the highs and lows the international rally of Queensland. Plenty of highs and lows in rallying and this is a prime example rally Queensland the highs being the jumps and the crests that you have to tackle and of course the lows being the dips and the water crossings it's anonymous with this event very difficult to judge it almost comes down to wrecking and experience on how to pick the right pace of course over the jumps you've got to try and make sure the car lands nicely not sacrifice too much speed alternatively with the dips slowing down enough that you get through them safely not damage the car and of course add water add a lot of rain here make sure you get through there without doing too much damage the water ingested into the engine so plenty to think about apart from just the lefts and the rides and right now we have a clean break before the final leg of the ARC from Imble the sunshine coast in Queensland all that right after the break the sun rises well after cruise to part Caloundra for the pristine dairy country of the Mary Valley mist swirls around the trees interrupted by shards of light splintering through the leaves that signal a new day day two and after dramatic day one anything can happen in this event Eli Evans a commanding lead in outright and two casualties of day one Simon Evans and Tony Salons will rejoin their best hope however is obviously leg points four-wheel drives have a much closer three of our main contenders within a minute anything can happen in this event still 100 kilometers to go for the overnight four-wheel drive national series leader it's a near thing his maxi car had to be pushed into park for me last night after it wouldn't start following service we're not sure what it is you know we had a at a fuel leak obviously at the end of the last couple of stages and we might have been super super lucky and the things run out of fuel that's it's landed in service but or it could just be a pressure thing so the boys are checking all that now and as you probably saw we had to push it out of park for me but um look with this crew i'll get it done i'll be back out there with mechanics crawling all over the 208 her show it eventually fires and pedder does make the start ss 11 is the reverse of speedy contractors 22 kilometers including that infamous creek crossing pedder's problem begins long before the water though a frosty morning temperature a steamy mix with engine heat the windscreen demister won't clear the condensation and the creek crossing doesn't help either stop stop stop vital seconds tick by and they surrender the leg lead back to mic pattern things get worse when the handbrake jams on handbrake stuck on locks on it how do you get the lock off in overall rally turns lorence is now in front there was certainly some dust and some sunny spots in there that made it very interesting but a bit of an excursion at the water creek but nevertheless just we got back into it and kept going meantime mike bailey is losing his battle with gerald scofield the turbo hose sounds like it's come off about 10k so i was peddling like buddy barney rubble there up some of those hills nothing glint stone about pedder and mosquits charge back up the leaderboard every stage they peg back more and more time with the pressure on lorence has a narrow escape in the six kilometer woodland stage and the oil cooler has been bent in the previous million stage at the new jump another win for pedder over pattern through ss 13 mike bailey is up to third in stage with the turbo hose now secure but a flat in the previous stage didn't help his corpse pattern extends his leg lead over four-wheel drive round leader lorence after a win through the reverse run kandanga south he beats pedder for the stage victory by 0.9 but the pedder suspension machine is in the wars we've got no no brakes then in kandanga we um had no well we had no handbrake and then lost rear brakes had an overshoot and then no clutch so managed to drag the thing back here and fingers crossed the boys can get that right and we can head out this afternoon and try and peg back the 27 seconds i think it is to keep we've had a strong morning so we went out hard and and we're keeping it in there so we'll keep focusing now for the last loop and see what we can bring home but pedder needn't worry about lorence after a spectacular entrance to his debut arc event qualifying for the power stage and leading the four-wheel drive national series kent lorence departs the event the same way through speedy north no harm to either himself or james wilson but plenty of work required to the i-lab evo 8 remarkably despite their own drum as the event lead now falls to the pedder suspension maxi 208 mic pattern is still in the hunt for a leg win that too is put to the test in the same stage pattern and webb struggle through the final three stages but a force to trailer back to imbo to be at least officially counted as leg finishes and six right titans four through water stay to the right the day of dramas continues mike bailey drowns his bp ultimate evo in the creek crossing through speedy shortening his rally that's deeper than before after two days of crossing this creek water is certainly causing more problems beards problem is the gears in his car third and fourth go a wall with two stages to go but he and jim blison are a rare breed this rally and will make the finish gerald scottfield is another keeping his nose clean he wins his personal battle with mike bailey and will make a podium in what's become a weekend of carnage in four-wheel drive for pedder and mosquit it's hardly been a clean run this weekend the finish is almost an anti-climax after the events of this rally it's been a well-deserved win boys have done outstanding job with the car like to keep this thing going with all the dramas we've had and you know we've got a bit up yeah so mic pattern still leads the four-wheel drive national series with justin dowel needing to get back into the fight to stay in contention mark pedder and gerald scottfield joined the chase for points in the best three of four events from the 2015 season still to come the final leg of the outright championship coming up right after the break you're watching the east coast bullbars australian rally championship from the sunshine coast of australia the events of day one in the outright competition saw everyone in the wars simon evans crashed out and tony sullens washed up before the end of leg one the good news is they're all back to start leg two of the international rally of queensland rally leader illy evans is upbeat about the new day it's two of the biggest stages today are actually the reverse of the stages we did yesterday so there's really only two new stages and then two in reverse direction so the new stages will be a little bit looser but the repeat stages are going to be rough hard swept and fast so we'll see it's it's rally queensland it's normally like this so it's what we expect and um to keep it clean this morning illy's moe this morning is to ignore his opposition especially his older brother who will be hunting him down simon can't change the weekend result and the points bag that goes with it so illy needs to focus on the big picture and not worry about today's leg as much as the overall result he and glenn weston decide to ignore simon's times until the midday service ss11 speedy nor is a clean run it is too for simon and ben seasy despite an intermittent misfire in the engine and with a heart and mouth moment when simon wonders whether there might be a stray wild pig at the back of the herd they trail the citron by 5.8 seconds after 22 kilometers adrian coppen is third but a full minute behind the fastest two cars due to the screen fogging up and that after a very cautious creek crossing the slow approach for tony sullen's in leg one didn't work so he decides on a speedier approach but the creek is deeper and it's in the reverse direction the result speaks for itself and he and julia barkley spend the next two minutes restarting the ds3 in a part of the forest they're becoming very familiar with you've got to be joking steve mckenzie continues on for leg two suffering with loose tissues in the opticoat fiesta now with no sump guard to protect the engine he's more cautious he and brent a fifth they do beat molly taylor but she has issues at the creek crossing as well she and bill haze lose more than a minute get into the finish their demise is harry baits good fortune the standard corolla sportivo records the fourth fastest time across the day's longer stage but that's where his good fortune ends you know we had a good run yesterday afternoon and a good stage this morning unfortunately this is it for us we have no more spare drive shafts but we'll be back and yeah it's still been a good weekend i think tony sullen's finally gets some runs on the board he's fast and neat over new million third fastest behind the emiss brothers it's simon though who's quickest this time upstaging his younger brother by three seconds even with the misfire while highlights of this rally seem to be focused around drive shafts and water crossings tires play a critical part in this equation as well dean caught up with elie evans after the new million stage we've spoken at previous rounds about the kumo combinations here you get 16 per round how do you use those different wits compounds etc another thing that you factor you don't just bought them on and leave them on elie evans here just finished one of the stages here in queens then going into another elie you're checking some pressures pretty important part of the job for the driver and the coder i want you out in the field yeah it is um that's really hot now we've just finished the stage now we've had 500 meters transport and we sit here for 10 minutes and just in the two minutes we've sat here my tires have gone down two psi just with the uh with them cooling down so you know tire pressures they're everything if your tire pressure is too high um your tire doesn't move around as much and you feel like you're getting less grip and you feel like the car's not in the road you bring them down a little bit all of a sudden suspension everything works better and the car is in the road and gives you confidence but of course not too low because i've you know that can cause an issue in regards to punches and also it's a bit of a guarded secret between drivers on exactly what you find is an optimum temperature isn't it yeah and look at varies between cars as well like if i was running a four-wheel drive turbocharged car i might be a couple of psi higher but in this little citron ds3 which weighs 1150 it's it's a couple hundred kilos lighter so we run the tire pressures a little bit lower generate a little bit more heat and get a bit more out of them it's not just about driving a co-driver is it no there's a bit of an art to it and um tire pressures well they only they're the only things touching the road um so it's pretty important and if you'd like a chance to take on the world with kumo tire and win a trip to round four of the east coast bullbars australian rally championship in september then just check out the website rally dot com dot au forward slash promotions for all the details as it turns out today elian blend weston are carrying two spares for safety a bit of extra weight but cheap insurance in the long run ironically tony sullen's punctures next stage and drops 30 seconds worse still he now has no spare for the remaining two stages before service one second separates the evans brothers this time it's elie stage but both are committed simon carries that commitment over into the final stage before service kandanga south is the tank for a honda stage by seven seconds the normally reliable citron falters reset the ignition elie is forced to reset the ecu on the run through the 11 kilometer stage eight seconds ahead of molly taylor in what she admits is her favorite stage tony sullen's is desperately trying to make something of an otherwise very average weekend he's fast in the citron but several factors have been running against him this event you've got to take the positives otherwise you just give up more weight in this sport i think so um yeah the positive is i'm not slow and the car's good um yeah molly taylor has been struggling all weekend gear linkages heater hoses and the windscreen to mister she's resigned to making the most of a bad situation frustrated by that obviously um but you know we're in third for the the event and that's you know as long as we don't make any mistakes that's that's gonna be the case um but you know we've still got 21 seconds behind adrian going into the afternoon for this heat so that's that's still on our radar and with coppen's performance so far it should be on her radar though things are on the improve for him today steve mckenzie has been driving conservatively all morning without a sump guard he's stiffened up the suspension in the front and is backed off just to make the finish and whatever points he can salvage you've got to pick where you're going to push and um in this rally as you know it's quite rough in a lot of spots so there aren't too many spots you can actually have a bit of fun and um yeah pull back some time leg leader simon evans has finally worked out his engine misfire issue but it took three stages and the problem came back halfway through the stage so me being a dumb didn't do anything about it did another stage with the the miss the whole time and i thought i might just disconnect the gear shift which has got the engine cut in it so it disconnected that perfect speedy is his by four seconds but clearly it isn't sullen's this time without the airbox that's been feeding water directly to the engine he's confident the car will be fine after the best part of three rounds ashley james is beginning to get things sorted in the vw polo at the moment i like the car is driving me i don't feel confident in it or and um it's not set up right so my confidence is not going to come until we can get the car sorted out at service they fixed the throttle position sensor and he's well over a minute faster than his first pass on the same stage simon continues to lead but through woodlands elie hits back to close the gap to six seconds coming into the final stage simon is fired up he's not in contention for the outright weekend win but bragging rights are his with a stage victory here and he makes it clear it's his tony sullen's is on the road ahead of evans running in amongst the aprc field but his weekend is still not looking any better even with the finish line in sight the ds3 still seems to have an attraction to water reset the ignition the ecu and elie citron cuts out again in exactly the same place as this morning and they perform another reset without stopping is it off again yeah it's good still five seconds quicker than previous is far from concerned for us to be fast at six seconds down after about 70 or 80 kilometers it's pretty impressive so um you know i'm really proud of proud of that and i'm proud of our speed all rallied was just uh just proved to be too consistent for all the other competitors big brother is not too unhappy either pushing right to the end for a leg win i was driving hard you know the honda jas is just loving it and i've got to compliment the kimos man they kept hanging on and hanging on that was good you know like the car was just brilliant boys they were smart as well gave me a fantastic car gotta love it as an endurance round you must finish every stage so no simon evans in the overall results adrian coppin steve mckenzie and ashley james all proved this weekend the consistency and reaching the finish brings rewards our stp standout to this rally let's see what four times australian rally champion neil bates has to say stp standout kent lorenz he's a state competitor he qualified for the power stage he led the rally for one and a half days unfortunately crashed out but definitely my stp standout the kumo tire spirit of the rally award goes to steve mckenzie doing everything he could to stay in the race despite their issues on and off the road and even just getting to this event with the rally one elie evans takes over the lead from molly taylor with adrian coppin and steve mckenzie both jumping tony sullen's by consistently finishing stages not all meet again at coats higher rally australia on the cost coast in september the fourth round of the east coast bullbars australian rally championship we hope you can join us september 10 to 13 for everything you need to keep up with the world of rally let's go to rally.com.au until then i'm greg rust bye for now today's coverage is made possible by kumo tire better suspension stp no time can am palaris and our supporting partner east coast bullbars world's best alloy bullbars