The fight is on at Lance East Exotics Tarmac West – Day 2

Day 2 of Lance East Exotics Tarmac West today headed into the Perth Hills with morning stages in Parkerville and Kalamunda before Kalamunda’s Haynes Street was closed off and turned into a service park for a one-hour service and lunch stop.

Hundreds of spectators took the opportunity to get up close to the rally cars as crews furiously carried out repairs, maintenance and the usual checks and balances.

In the afternoon, competitors tackled the notoriously tight Zig Zag stages, twice. Two Kalamunda stages were cancelled because of delays, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of competitors who were mostly all smiles on a beautiful 28-degree sunny day.

Since the close of competition yesterday where competitors raced 18.9 competitive kilometres on seven stages in Whiteman Park and Ellenbrook, the leaderboard has changed and there’s a good fight going on at the pointy end.

At the end of Day 2, leading T200 Class of Lance East Exotics Tarmac West is Brett Morse and Rodney Ng in their 2019 BMW M2, 12 seconds ahead of Heuson Bak and Roger Tan in their 2017 Lotus Exige.

Morse finished the day’s six stages, 46.5 competitive kilometres, in either first, equal first, second or equal second with Bak who similarly finished every stage first, equal first, third or equal third.

Morse said it feels good to end the day with a good result.

“Today’s stages are more suited to our car, more so than yesterday – but tomorrow’s another day and it all starts again,” Morse said.

“After the Kalamunda East stage, we came across some really nice spectators who asked for a selfie, they were having a wine and enjoying the rally action in the sun.

“We’re plugging along doing our thing, and a few things have fallen our way with competitors who’ve had issues,” Morse said.

One competitor with issues today was Will White, who started Day 2 in equal second place. On the first stage, the intercooling pipe came loose on his 2018 Nissan GTR Nismo and he lost over 3 minutes.

Once the issue was fixed, White and co-driver Matthew Thompson had great pace, finishing the final four stages either second or third fastest to end Day 2 in 12th place outright.

In second place outright, Bak said he is happy with today’s stages.

“The car feels really good, it likes the fast, flowing stages and these are some of my favourite stages in the whole event,” Bak said.

Rounding out the top three is the lone EV, the 2019 Tesla Model 3P+ with Jurgen Lunsmann behind the wheel and his wife Helen calling notes, sitting 56 seconds behind the leader, Morse.

Jurgen Lunsmann said the key to driving rally cars is to go fast on stage, try not to break anything, fix issues in service, then quickly top it up with fuel on the way out.

“With the EV, the first things are the same – go fast on stage, the only things we’ve had to use in service is use a rag and a squeegee, and pump up the tyres,” he said.

“The difference is that we follow the ABC – always be charging – whenever we are stationary, we are topping up the charge,” Lunsmann said.

Nipping at the heels of the EV is Mark Cirillo in his 2022 Toyota Supra with co-driver Adrian Burney, just 5 seconds behind.

In fifth outright, 25 seconds behind Cirillo and 1:29 minutes behind the leader, is the classic car of Nathan Ellement, a 1985 Chevrolet Corvette C4, with rookie co-driver Stephen Mackinlay calling the notes.

“It’s been an awesome day and it’s so great to be back and doing these stages again,” said Ellement.

In the T165 Class, Aaron Williams and co-driver Geoff Duckworth were challenged in their 2002 Mitsubishi Evo 7 but were able to extend their outright lead to finish 1:02 minutes faster than their nearest rival.

Winning one Zig Zag stage and finishing just a second off the pace in the other, David and Anna Hodges in their 2013 Holden VF SSV ended the day in second outright with a buffer of 1:25 seconds ahead of Dan Adams and Jeremy Edwards in their 1994 Honda Civic who finished third.

The rally cars made their way to Perth’s CBD for a Show and Shine in Forrest Place.

It’s serious Saturday tomorrow, Day 3 of competition, when drivers, co-drivers and crew endure the biggest day of racing featuring long flowy stages and technical sections around Toodyay, Chittering and Bullsbrook.

The marathon day includes 12 stages, racing the clock over 120 competitive kilometres and driving a total distance of close to 450 kilometres.

Tomorrow’s aim for every team is to get a good lead and finish faster than the rest so they can go into the final day on Sunday without the need to push on the shorter city stages where clipping a kerb might end a rally.

Spectating is free at Lance East Exotics Tarmac West.

For more information including spectator maps, visit armacevents.com.au/our-events/tarmac-west/.