Australia Subaru driver Cody Crocker has won the Asia Pacific rally championship for the fourth successive title, when he clinched the 2009 series with one event still to go. He led the very hot two-day Rally Indonesia from start to finish, heading Mitsubishi Evo IX driver Katsu Taguchi, while in third place came Crocker’s teammate, the New Zealander Emma Gilmour. Indonesian drivers took the next three places. Mitsubishi Evo X drivers suffered many problems: Hiroshi Yanagisama had gearbox troubles, fellow Japanese drive Yuya Sumiyawa had steering and gearbox problems and Gaurav Gill lost time with a broken turbocharger pipe and then had gearbox failure as well. Gill continued on Day 2 and scored fastest times on four of the six remaining stages. This was the second outing for the official APRC Proton Satria Neo team, this time with Alister McRae behind the wheel. After lying fourth in the early stages his car impacted a rock and the damage stopped him. The car was repaired and restarted on Day 2 but then retired for good with power steering failure. Indonesia remains an event on the FIA’s list of candidate rallies for the World Championship. The final round in the APRC series will be held in China, in which the subsidiary Asia Cup series will be decided between Crocker and Taguchi.

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Final classification Indonesia Rally
1 Crocker/Atkinson         Subaru Impreza N14         3h17m07.5s
2 Taguchi/Stacey           Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX   3h18m36.5
3 Gilmour/Mole             Subaru Impreza N14         3h27m09.4s
4 Sebhan Aksa/Mboi         Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX   3h28m42.5s
5 Sadikin Aksa/Wibowo      Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX   3h38m19.0s
6 Rifat Sungkar/Beckwith   Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII 4h17m24.6s

Photo 1: Subaru – Crocker