London
to Sydney Marathon
5th June - 4th July 2004
Day 2 - St Malo
to Poitiers
McANDREW OFF -
KEITH CALLINAN TAKES THE LEAD
In a bold bid to increase his lead Joe McAndrew
tried a bit too hard and flew off the road on the first stage
in France. Unable to get back on course he was forced to sit
and watch the entire field race by. His penalties relegate
him to 19th place.
Keith Callinan in his V8 Monaro scorched
through the stage in record time to take over the lead by
a scant one second ahead of Simon Glover in his classic Escort.
Ten seconds back in third place is Jimmy McRae who sits just
two seconds ahead of team boss Graham Lorimer in their Toyota
Corollas.
So the battle between the classics and the
mods hots up with a pair of classics in the lead with a pair
of Corollas hot on their tail and just 25 seconds cover the
leading five runners.
Aussie Peter Lockhart in his Proton Satria
had a modest argument with what he describes as a pile of
badly placed logs requiring a touch of panel beating dropping
him back to 27th place.
Shane Murland in another of the Kiwi McAndrew
Hondas had a mild excursion going off and stranding himself
in a small ditch dropping back to 22nd place. Not a good day
for the Kiwi Hondas. Joe's new found grasp of the French vocabulary
starts with 'Merde'.
Of yesterday's three walking wounded Callinan
and Shaver did make it to the Portsmouth ferry. American Chip
Johns and Brit co-driver Jim Hurman weren't so lucky, they
were delayed and had to hightail it Dover to catch the 03.00hrs
ferry to Calais. Then it was a pre-dawn cross country dash
to rejoin the rally, bleary eyed and unshaven, before the
first stage of the day.
Lessons learnt today by some of the front
runners….. too hard, too fast, too soon. more...
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out daily reports:
5th
June to 4th July 2004 day by day
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