Winning Drive comes to Cruel End for Rodda

At last weekends ASP/Cut Price Adelaide Hills Tarmac Rally, 19 year old Driver, James Rodda and Co-driver, Marcus Piristi started strongly and showed outright pace from the word go.

Rodda, Piristi and the Rally Power Motorsport team led the South Australian Rally Championship (SARC), for the first time, throughout the Saturday Stages based out of Victor Harbor, and had climbed inside the top ten placings in the Australian Tarmac Championship section.

“We were thrilled with our progress, leading the SARC field for the first time. On the first pass of the Hindmarsh Tiers stage, being less than 10 seconds off Kevin Weeks in the Supaloc Lamborghini, and setting equal 4th quickest time on stage, along side last years event winner, Andrew Burnard, was amazing” stated Rodda

Rodda and Piristi had climbed to 6th outright in the Australian Tarmac Championship and were leading the SARC by close to 2 minutes until extreme bad luck struck crossing the finish line on the final stage. The Rally Power Motorsport Wrx had developed a major engine problem. With victory in sight the pair had a big task ahead to try and get the car from the end of stage, to the finish at service park at Penny’ Hill Winery, about 50kms away.

After travelling 20kms at a very slow pace, the engine gave up, and any hopes of winning their first SARC round quickly disappeared with it.

“We couldn’t believe our luck, to be leading the event by such a large margin all day and then having to face a problem just getting the car to the final finish control. We had nothing to lose so we drove the car on, basically a blown engine, but unfortunately after 20kms it wouldn’t go any further. I think the most devastating part of it was after a few minutes of trying to restart the car, truly realising that the car wasn’t going any further and, it was all over” commented Rodda.

Rodda had also entered in the Australian Tarmac Championship section, for a discounted entry fee, due to being a graduate of the Southern Districts Car Club’s CAMS Junior Development Program. He was looking forward to continuing his charge on the Sunday’s stages and further improving the 6th outright placing. Whilst very disappointed at not being able to take out first place for this round, Rodda was philosophical in his approach. “We have shown we can consistently achieve fast stage times, winning nearly all of Saturdays stages in the SARC. Now we have to spend some time getting the engine rebuilt before Rally of South Australia on 26th-27th June, then show we can do it again!”