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Highs and Deflations for Andrew Bushe on Circuit of Ireland! |
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06-Apr-10 |
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image by Roy Dempster Photography |
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For Lisburn driver Andrew Bushe, the Circuit of Ireland Rally result of 17th overall and first in class, his fourth class win on the Circuit of Ireland sounds like a fantastic result, but in reality it could have been much better, if fortunes had of stayed throughout day one. Driving his Hegarty Metals Citroen C2 Super 1600, Andrew and new co-driver, Monaghan’s Emmet Sherry were competing for prize money in the Citroen Racing Trophy if they could finish in the top 15 overall on the event.
After a distant second in class in Galway, after chronic traction problems with the C2, the former Irish Tarmac 1600 Champion was looking to turn his fortunes around on the Circuit of Ireland.
"Galway wasn’t good for us, but we sent the suspension away for a rebuild and found that it had been seized up. Unfortunately we didn’t get to test the car all before the event thanks to the very seasonal snow, so we went into the first stage not really knowing what the car would be like. Thankfully the car felt good, Emmet was working well on the pace-notes and we were really surprised to be fastest two wheel drive car on the stage."
After stage 2 the crew in the Shannonside Galvanising C2 had moved into 11th place overall, and after stage 3 had moved into ninth overall, amongst some of the Group N Mitsubishi’s in the slippery conditions. By stage 4, conditions had got very wet but further progress was made and they moved into eighth overall, a position they held into second service at Newry.
"We had good clean steady runs on those stages, and I was really enjoying the rally. Over the nine miles on stage 6, we were only ten seconds off the fastest overall time, and I was happy enough with that."
After service it was into two nine mile tests, and the 18 mile night stage as darkness fell, and temperatures dropped.
"We put on a fresh set of front tyres, the same compound for the final stages, but they simply didn’t heat at all. After two nine mile stages the tyre pressures hadn’t budged 1 psi in pressure, and the tyres were stone cold. We lost some time on the first two tests, but still held a very narrow two wheel drive lead into the long night stage."
But fortunes turned for the worse just one mile into the test, when Andrew clipped a rock on a left hander, and with an immediate puncture had no option but to stop and change.
"It was my fault, I just turned in too tight, though I have talked to two other drivers in the top ten who clipped the same rock, took lumps out of their wheel, but their tyre stayed up, but it was my fault I shouldn’t have done it. Then changing the wheel in the dark wasn’t the best! It was demoralising as if we had of stayed in the top ten overall we would have won €4000 Citroen Racing prize money. To add to it when we got going again, I wasn’t concentrating, and slid between two banks getting the car wedged for a few minutes!"
With a time loss of over 15 minutes on the stage, any chance of a good position was gone, but the crew continued on day two to test the reliability of the car, and gain Irish Tarmac Championship points.
The next event for the crew is the Killarney International on May Bank Holiday weekend, and they will have to do some work to establish a good setting for the car, and try and find some more sponsors to help continue the series.
"I would like to thank Shannonside Galvanising, Hegarty Metals, Lagan Motor Factors, Sunoco Race Fuels, Citroen Parts Direct, Lester Engineering- Alloy Wheel Repairs, roydempster.com and All Graphix for their support on this event, and hopefully we will be in Killarney and Donegal to continue the tarmac championship."
Issued by Andrew Bushe Promotions www.andrewbushe.com |
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