Subaru driver John O’Dowd continues to bank solid results this year, claiming a top-10 Australian Rally Championship result and a podium place in the West Australian Rally Championship.
With eyes on both the national and state series, the Perth-based driver set competitive stage times all weekend, not putting a foot wrong to score more points in the ARC, while also extending his WARC points lead.
“We had a really good weekend. It was great having Tom (Wilde) in the car again. He’s a really good co-driver. The notes were really good, and we started committing more to the notes as the event went on.”
While O’Dowd finished third in WARC for Saturday’s Leg 1, he was locked in a great battle on Sunday with his Maximum Motorsport team-mate Brad Markovic and Asia-Pacific Rally Championship front-runner Mike Young. At the end of the morning stages just 10 seconds separated the trio. In the afternoon Markovic managed to ease ahead, while O’Dowd climbed past Young to claim second position in WARC for Leg 2 and maintain his WARC points lead.
“We really started to push in the Sunday afternoon stages. I thought we might be able to catch them, and we did get past Mike. But Brad was pushing as well! Second is OK. We banked some good WARC points, and extended the points buffer in the Western Australian series.”
The next event in the Western Australian Rally Championship is the MRF Tyres Boddington Safari, which starts in June 3.
John O’Dowd is supported by Knightcorp Insurance, Pacific Finance, Rent WA, Truck Wholesale WA and Maximum Motorsport.
Photo: Gemma Lucas – Drift Images
