Ernie Graham Historic Cyprus Rally 2010

Grant Shand was out in Cyprus helping Ernie Graham another one of Rallyxtreme's customers.

 Report from Chris Parsons

“Ernie Graham and I took a Category 3 win on the first round of the FIA Historic Championship this weekend The Cyprus Historic. The rally, based in Limassol but using the WRC stages up in the Troodos Mountains comprised of a tarmac stage on the Friday evening, gravel stages on the Saturday and back onto tarmac for the final leg on Sunday.

We were the only British crew entered, but nonetheless had some stiff opposition from across Europe, not least in the form of Pierangelo Rossi in his 3.0 Porsche 911. Emerging from the first leg with a 3.1 second deficit, we took the fight to the competition on the Saturday gravel loop, finishing the day just 4.8 seconds in the lead. The Sunday tarmac leg saw atrocious weather conditions, causing the cancellation of the Mylikouri stage because of snow! The torrential rain and poor visibility continued to plague the mountain stages, and the wrong tyre choice on the only dry stage of the leg dropped us a shed load of time. However when Rossi went out with a broken brake pipe, we were able to maintain our lead through to the finish.

As well as the weather, the event struggled with a fuel station strike on the island, but the organisers persevered to put on a first class International rally as well an FIA regularity rally at the same time. The changeable weather conditions obliged crews to pay close attention to tyre choice, but nothing diminished the high quality of the stages. Ernie is now looking to continue his FIA challenge on the next event in San Remo.”