Rally Turkey comes to a close
New Zealanders Dave Holder and Jason Farmer have finished Rally Turkey, the final event of their debut FIA Junior World Rally Championship (JWRC) season, with two stage wins, the honour of being the fastest JWRC crew for Sunday, and a seventh-place finish in their class for the rally.
“It was a pretty successful day for us being the fastest JWRC crew for the day and winning the last two stages. Jason and I are really happy with that, but can’t help thinking about what could have been if we hadn’t had the three punctures on Friday – we would have lead and won the rally, but that’s just part of it all,” says Holder.
The September 13-19 running of Rally Turkey delivered on its promise of rough, rocky stages and high temperatures.
Holder said Friday was one of the best day’s rallying they’ve had all year, despite three punctures in quick succession.
“It was a promising morning, a nice consistent run, and the times were good. They are really, really rough conditions, even on the first pass; it was Russian roulette what was going to be around each corner. It was definitely a matter of dodging the big rocks, but our pace was nice and easy, and thought we managed the car quite well. So we were quite happy to finished sixth in the morning [in a JWRC field of 12] but still in touch in with the leaders.”
They made the most of Saturday’s 130.62km of competition, setting two second-fastest stage times in their class and they were third-fastest on the combined times for Saturday’s six stages.
With just four stages on Sunday, the pair wanted to get to the finish safely – which they did while also securing their first class stage wins on a WRC event.
“We did have one small incident in SS15,” Holder said. “I say small because a bunch of our competitors had big incidents in the same spot. We touched a bank and rolled on our side, whereas there were a couple of very big crashes from the JWRC boys, so we were fortunate to only lose about 20 seconds and then carry on.
“All in all, one mistake for the event in pretty challenging conditions isn’t bad. I don’t think I’ll drive in stuff like this again in my career, but who knows – but very valuable and positive experience.
“We’re just really thankful for the people who have helped us to get here this year. It’s been pretty tough and a huge learning experience. We’ve got a lot of experience and knowledge to take away from this year and build on for future years. We’re really happy where we finished up, just a shame we couldn’t put it all together like this earlier in the year. Now we focus on next year!”
With his first international season of competition now complete, Holder is already working on plans for 2019.
