Ove Andersson Dies in Road Accident
70 year old Ove Andersson, Swedish born founder of Toyota Team Europe and a rally driver who won the Monte Carlo, Sanremo, Acropolis, Safari and Austrian Alpine rallies died today in an accident on a classic car rally in South Africa. The crash happened near Oudtshoorn in Western Cape when the Volvo P444 he was driving was hit head-on on a blind bend by a taxi which was overtaking a truck. This was close to the holiday resort ranch he had recently acquired, to manage as his retirement occupation. As a rally driver he drove for many companies including Lancia, Ford, Nissan, Peugeot and of course Toyota, but he gained his most important wins at the wheel of a Renault Alpine. He ended his rally driving career in 1982 to work full time in the management of the Toyota rally team, moving on to work with the new Formula 1 team until he retired in 2003. He later moved to South Africa.

Chatsworth's Championship Garden Party
British rally championship promoters celebrated their fiftieth anniversary at the Rally Show last weekend at the Chatsworth stately home in the Derbyshire Dales. The climax of the two day affair in which all aspects of British rallying was portrayed was the presentation of many of the champions over the last half century including Ari Vatanen and Stig Blomqvist. There was also an almost nonstop series of special stage competitions around roads which were used some years ago when the Chatsworth estate hosted a special stage on the RAC Rally. A special guest was Stuart Turner, the BMC and Ford team director who in earlier years had been the champion British codriver in 1958 and 1959, the first two years of the series, while Guest driver was Marcus Gronholm.

Surprise Win for Bebenek
32 year old Michal Bebenek seeded number 19 led the Polish Rally from stage three to the end, scoring a victory that took everyone by surprise. Helped by favourable surfaces conditions his borrowed Mitsubishi took over from original leader the Subaru of Tomas Kuchar and the Peugeot of reigning champion Bryan Bouffier. Bebenek comes from Bochnia, near Krakow, and was a protege of the late three times national title holder Janusz Kulig. He dedicated his victory to his old mentor at the finish. Super 2000 cars disappointed, only winning two of the 14 stages, Kosciuszko crashing his Peugeot heavily on the second day and former European rally champion, now European Member of Parliament Krzysztof Holowczyc had a troubled run in his Kronos team Peugeot. Patrik Flodin, guest driver in the Subaru Impreza N14 normally driven by the injured Leszek Kuzaj, struggled to finish sixth overall. Corrado Fontana, the winner from Croatia, swopped his usual Fiat for a Mitsubishi but retried when the car caught fire. The Impreza of Sebastian Frycz also caught fire. The current ECR leader Luca Rossetti, absent at the Salento Rally in Italy, still heads the European series and the maximum points in the ERC were scored by Michal Solowow.
Overall drivers ERC (4 rounds 10): Rossetti 32p; Solowow 27p; Fontana 21p; Isik 21p; Travaglia 19p; Donchev 14p, etc

Paddon Wins the Biggest Prize
Chris West was the overall winner on the Whangarei Rally, third placed Cody Crocker won the APRC category but 21 year old second place Haydon Paddon won the best prize! Round 3 of the FIA's Asia Pacific series was held in the North Island of New Zealand, on roads popularised in earlier years by the world championship NZ Rally and counted as a trial run for the one-shot APRC Pirelli Star Driver award to be held later in Malaysia. Two under-27 runners on this event earned sponsorship to travel to Malaysia, selection based on the number of fastest stage times in the event for the eligible drivers, irrespective of whether or not they finished the event. The result is that Paddon to be accompanied to Malaysia by Brad Ayling who failed to finish the event. NZ championship driver Richard Mason crashed on stage two of the event and APRC contender Takuma Kamada retired when his Impreza N14 had engine failure. Australian Crocker who had decided to run a more reliable old model Impreza for the rest of this season has taken the lead in the APRC from Mitsubishi driver Katsuhiko Taguchi.
Overall drivers Asia Pacific - APRC ( 3 rounds of 7): Crocker 32p, Taguchi 30p; Herridge 26p; Green 13p, Pedder 12p, etc

Nasser's Five Minute Win
Nasser Al Attiyah won 12 of the 13 stages in the Syrian Rally, third round of the FIA Middle East series at the wheel of a latest model Subaru Impreza N14 car. He shrugged off problems which afflicted many of these cars on the Acropolis Rally the weekend before, but fellow N14 driver Michel Saleh retired with engine failure. The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX of Abdullah Al Qassimi trailed over five minutes behind while 20 year old Nicos Thomas, winner of the Cyprus Rally, was the highest placed Pirelli Star Driver candidate, finishing fifth on his first desert rally. Bader Al Jabri was the highest placed driver in the new Abu Dhabi Junior team, at the wheel of a two wheel drive Ford Fiesta ST. The next MERC round is the Rally of Lebanon (27 – 29 of June), the only all-asphalt event in the series.
Overall drivers MERC (3 rounds of 7): Nasser Al-Attiyah 28p, Misfer Al-Marri 19p, Nicos Thomas 14p, Nizar Al-Shanfari 12p, Nick Georgiou 9p, etc

3mmm
photo 1: Ove Andersson
photo 2: Mitsubishi Bebenek
photo 3: Subaru Al Attiyah