NEW RICHMOND, Quebec – A two-day, see-saw battle for the lead between Yokohama teammates finally tipped in favour of the defending Canadian rally champions, giving Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard a narrow victory in the annual Rallye Baie-des-Chaleurs.
The win was the third in three events in the 2011 Canadian Rally Championship for L’Estage/Richard and the sixth consecutive win in the series for the pair.
The Mitsubishi of driver L’Estage, of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, with co-driver Richard, of Halifax, and the Subaru of driver Pat Richard (Squamish, B.C.) and co-driver Leanne Junnila (Calgary) swapped the lead of the rally in a back-and-forth battle that featured mechanical problems that very nearly sidelined both teams. Pat Richard ended the first day with a 9 second lead over L’Estage.
Both teams would suffer mechanical problems in an event-filled second day that saw the Subaru team’s lead disappear on the second stage when a suspension piece failed. While that gave L’Estage/Nathalie Richard a commanding lead, the margin evaporated before the last stage when the Mitsubishi suffered transmission problems.
The outcome of the rally had to wait for the completion of the final competitive stage before L’Estage/Nathalie Richard were declared winners with a 20-second gap over second-place Pat Richard/Junnila. Third went to the Subaru of Leo Urlichich of Thornhill, Ontario, and Martin Brady of Ireland.
The victory gives the L’Estage/Nathalie Richard team 66 series points and a formidable lead in the Canadian Rally Championship over second-place Pat Richard/Junnila (30 points) when the championship resumes at the Rallye Defi on September 9, 2011. Both teams use specialized Yokohama competition tires for summer events like Baie-des-Chaleurs but adopt Yokohama’s popular Ice Guard IG 20 consumer winter tires for ice and snow events.
The six-event Canadian championship has been televised nationally on TSN and RDS since 1993, and is made available on multiple media platforms, including TSN 2, as downloads from iTunes, on-line on Flat Over Crest (www.flatovercrest.com ) and to 80 million homes in Europe on MotorsTV.
Yokohama Tire (Canada) Inc. markets and distributes a full line of tires for high performance, passenger car, light truck, and commercial truck applications, as well as off-the-road tires for mining, forestry and construction applications. It maintains distribution centers across Canada to serve more than 700 independent tire dealers and more than 2,000 retail locations.
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