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Ovaltrack Race Report, 31st May 2010

 

Another Class Win for Lund and the Roadnet Team

For immediate release: Monday 31 st May 2010

Ref 2010-01

Sussex racing driver Paul Lund (Rusper) has opened his 2010 season with a class win in the French Rallye Tout-Terrain Championship at Soissons , just east of Paris this weekend.

The Rally was the 35 th Jean De La Fontaine event which was the fourth round of the French Off Road Rally championship. Lund had intended to make an earlier start to this year's campaign but has been concentrating on his business as well as building a new race car for this year's selection of events. “I was hoping to have a new car ready for this season but things like work get in the way,” joked Paul. “In the end it turned out a quicker option to repair last year's car – the one I barrel rolled last December!”

The event was held over 13 stages, seven of which were on Saturday with the remaining six on Sunday covering 127km of special stages and 124km of liaison.

“I thought I'd try something different this year,” explained Paul. “We tried to run the Rav on full Rally tyres instead of off road tyres but we buggered all five of them in just two stages so I decided to go back to the knobblies.” The move paid off as the team took and maintained the class lead whilst also taking fifth place in the unlimited production class which pitched them against the generally more fancied Jeeps, Landcrusiers and Nissan Patrols.

“I've never really been one for convention.” Says Paul. “They seem to regard the Rav as a bit of an oddity and we get a lot of attention out there because it does the job time and time again. This is another good result for the old girl.”

Paul and co driver Ross Gill compete in a Toyota Rav 4 that runs in the production class for cars up to 2 litre. He says: “The Rav has all the usual bits and pieces – it's built to FIA rally rules but also has a UK MSA rally log book. It's got a Blue printed engine that was built by Bob Hawkins at Hawkinsport in Horley, Surrey and has been re-mapped to around 180bhp. Other mods come from Ohlins, race suspension supplied by Aurok, race spec brakes and all the safety stuff like harnesses, extinguisher, and multipoint roll cage again built by Hawkinsport. Off-road rally tyres are sourced from AJS 4X4 Tyres at Kingswood in Surrey . I'm also backed by Roadnetuk.com and my own company, AUTOGRAFIX.”

Paul is also being supported by Total Off Road which is Britain 's only dedicated off-road magazine. The monthly publication has its roots in off-road motorsport and every month includes in-depth profiles on the best modified vehicles from the UK and around the world. Paul's RAV4 is profiled in the July issue of Total Off Road, which goes on sale on 17 June.