Burns blazes to the lead
BRITISH rally champion Richard Burns, driving a Subaru Impreza, set the pace when he took the early lead after two stages in the 555 Hong Kong to Beijing Rally which began on Stonecutters' Island yesterday morning.
After a three-hour blast across the border past thousands of spectators into Guangdong province, Burns capitalised on some anxious driving by rivals Kenneth Eriksson of Sweden and fellow Subaru World Rally teammate Possum Bourne who spun twice during the day.
On the first corner of the second stage near the thermal-springs resort of Conghua, Bourne swung wide on slippery dust and damaged the passenger side of his Impreza.
Eriksson was also lucky to survive the stage through the tea plantation. He had a rear puncture in his Mitsubishi Lancer five kilometres from the end of the stage and again two kilometres from the finish.
He eventually lost the tyre all together, crossing the line on the wheel rim.
Burns' lead after the first of seven days of competition is six seconds, useful but unlikely to worry his adversaries with over 3,000 kilometres before the event finishes in Tiananmen Square on Friday.
Bourne, third last year and one of the favourites for this year's title as the reigning Asia-Pacific Rally champion, had the worst possible start.
Just seconds after coming off the grid as the first driver to start, Bourne spun out on the first hairpin corner.
He restarted without any problems but he had lost valuable time - about 10 seconds.
Asia-Pacific Rally leader Swede Eriksson made no such mistake as he drove his Mitsubishi around the two legs of the 1.1-kilometre circuit to perfection and in an excellent time of two minutes and 0.5 seconds.
Thirty-eight cars cars lined up for yesterday's race held at the newly-reclaimed military site at Stonecutters Island off the Kowloon Peninsula for the first time.
About 500 guests attended the start of the race which was closed to the public.
Organisers had to re-route the course after strong winds caused an advertisement board just behind the VIP stands to topple over.
Although nobody was hurt, the immediate area had to be cordoned off with the debris cleared by military personnel within half an hour. The race went ahead as scheduled without a further hitch under blazing sunshine.
The winner of the 3,800-kilometre race will earn a handy lead going into the final leg of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship in Thailand in December.
Eriksson and Bourne are the only two drivers who can win the Asia-Pacific Championship and both would have to finish ahead of the other to have a strong chance of winning the overall championship.
Kiwi Bourne is currently nine points behind Eriksson, who is racing in Hong Kong to Beijing Rally for the first time.