Australian Subaru driver Cody Crocker scored his third successive maximum Asia Pacific Rally Championship points on the Hokkaido Rally in northern Japan, the fourth round of the series. Chased hard by the Mitsubishi of Katsuhiko Taguchi he was holding a lead of around a quarter minute during day 1 when the Japanese driver had a puncture, then trailing Crocker into second place for the rest of the event. Last year’s winner Toshi Arai again contested the rally as a non championship entry, took the lead on the opening superspecial but went off the road at high speed when the steering failed. On the first orthodox stage the Indian Mitsubishi driver Gaurav Gill took the lead, and he also left the road.

Both Arai and Gill were able to restart on day 2, when Arai scored several fastest times. This event was a qualifying event for the APRC Pirelli Star Driver system, the winning candidate from this event being 24 year old Suguru Kawana at the wheel of an older Group N Subaru. As 2009 is the world championship Rally Japan rotational gap-year, Rally Hokkaido was the country’s most important rally of the year. It was again based at Obihiro and ran in the area used in earlier years by the world championship event. Fortunately the weather stayed mainly dry but later drivers reported the forest tracks became badly rutted. With three more events to run, Crocker is on his way to winning the title for a fourth time, currently leading Taguchi in the series by 13 points.

Fumio Nutahara led the national category of Rally Hokkaido in his Evo X from start to finish, his third gravel rally victory of the season.

3mmm

Final classification
1 Crocker/Atkinson      Subaru Impreza N14         2h15m05.9s
2 K Taguchi/Stacey      Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX   2h16m15.8s
3 Yanagisawa/Nakahara   Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X    2h17m49.7s
4 Gilmour/Smyth         Subaru Impreza N14         2h19m02.0s
5 Katsuta/Adachi        Subaru Impreza N12         2h21m38.9s
6 S Taguchi/Ikeda       Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX   2h26m25.4s