Toyota Wins in Paraguay
Alejandro Galanti scored a rare unusual international rally victory in a Toyota when his Corolla Super 2000 won the Codasur championship Trans Itapua Rally. The event was run in his native Paraguay and based at Encarnacion, the town on the banks of the giant Parana River, opposite the Argentine city of Posada. Galanti was not registered for the Codasur series and it seemed the top scoring driver who therefore be the second placed Subaru of Gustavo Saba. During the muddy event, however, he discarded his mandatory Pirelli tyres for another supplier, so the third place Mitsubishi of Victor Galeano took maximum points!

Karamjit Returns to International Rallying
Veteran 47 year old Karamjit Singh, FIA’s inaugural Production Car World Champion and three times Asia Pacific champion, returns to international competition on his home Malaysia Rally this weekend (15-16 August). The long time works Proton driver will compete this event, and two remaining Asia Cup events at the wheel of a Proton Satria Neo S2000. This event will be the fifth round of the FIA’s Asia Pacific series, and the second round in the mini Asia Cup series. It will be based at Johor Bahru in the south of Malaysia on the borders with Singapore. Top favourite is Australian Cody Crocker, winner of this event for the last three years and APRC series leader, whose Motor Image team is based in Singapore. Crocker and his Subaru teammate Emma Gilmour will again face the MRF Mitsubishi team drivers Katsu Taguchi and Gaurav Gill. After the distressing accident the previous weekend when Emma’s codriver Rhianon Smyth suffered leg injuries on the Rally South Australia, Emma will be codriven on the event by Claire Mole

Other news
In Northern Ireland, Kenny McKinstry won the Lurgan Park single venue stage rally for the eleventh time, driving a Subaru Impreza WRC. Based at Clonmel in County Tipperary in the Republic, Matthew Wilson drove the M-Sport development Fiesta R2 on the Stonethrowers Rally. He was in line for a top ten result but crashed on the final stage.

Catalunya Rally will run their shakedown as part of a stage used during the actual event, by special permission of the FIA.

A world record break ing total of 25 Super 2000 cars have been entered on the Barum Rally (21-23 August). 2009 Junior World Champion Martin Prokop has been invited to drive the BF Goodrich celebrity Peugeot

The Richard Burns Memorial Rally, a charity rally held at the Tornado airfield base in Norfolk, England, will again be run on 15/16 August. Proceeds will go to the RAC Association.

Brendan Reeves, odds-on favourite to be selected as the Asia Pacific winner of the Pirelli Star Driver, has been promised a replacement car by the Les Walkden team to replace the Subaru which was destroyed in Rally South Australia. Reeves entered the rally in the state rather than the national category, to gain pacenote experience, but on the last stage he left the road on a fast tree-lined stretch. Observers reported the impact was so severe the engine was wrenched away from the chassis. Reeves (who celebrates his 21st birthday the week before Repco Rally Australian where the winner of the APRC section of the PSD will be judged, suffered a chipped vertebrae in the crash, but his codriver (his sister, Rhianon Smyth) had multiple fractures in her legs.

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