Victorian Excel Championship: Title Fight 2012

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Victorian Excel Championship
Title Fight 2012

Well with one round to go in the Victorian Excel Rally Championship the fight for first place in the drivers’ championship couldn’t be much tighter. With crews able to drop their two worst heats the adjusted scores see Viv Dilkes-Frayne currently sitting on 225 points and Andrew Thompson on 214 points.

With 60 points up for grabs at Rally Vic it is anyone’s title. Viv has the upper hand as his worst heats have been at the season opener Begonia Rally where he scored a 3rd place in heat one and a fourth place in heat 2, worth 21 and 18 points respectively. It is worth noting that this was Viv’s first blind rally too. Andrew, on the other hand, started the season off well by winning the first three heats before a roll over in the 2nd heat of the George Derrick at the end of March gave him 0 points and some work to do before the East Gippsland stages a month later. Andrew bounced back well to take the win in both heats of the East Gippsland Stages while Viv took second in both heats. Unadjusted scores saw Andrew leading on 150 points to Viv’s 144 as they headed to Bega for round 4.

After torrential rain leading up to the Bega event the rally was actually 99% dry with only one really slippy patch. Unfortunately Andrew found this spot and slid wide enough on a corner to get bogged just off line and unable to retrieve himself. Viv took the win in both heats with Andrew scoring a 2nd and a DNF in the second.

Hoping to redeem himself at Akademos Andrew was struck by mechanical gremlins in his gearbox but amazingly still managed to finish both heats 5th and 2nd while Viv took another clean sweep of firsts in both heats.

So going into the final round Andrew will have his work cut out for him as he needs to score a minimum of 39 points to be in with a chance while Viv only needs to score 50 points (2nd place in both heats) to put the title out of Andrews reach. Throw into the mix newcomers Rob Mcerlie and the ever improving Matt Leoncini plus a few other new to the Excel series participants and the battle becomes even more exciting.

Catch all the action on Saturday the 17th of November near Warragul in Victoria.
Spectator Instructions

Viv and Andrew in action.


Viv Dilkes-Frayne / Martin Warneke
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Andrew Thompson / Simon Barton-Ancliffe