The stages are located at mountains of Longyou County. There are totally 16 gravel special stages with a total length of 223.37km, while SS1 is Super Special Stage.

In order to prepare this rally, SRTC specially arranged one test at end Sept. in Shenzhen. Also, we required to Yokohama to provide its latest model of gravel rally tyre to be ready before rally. The test resulted good. Also,our mechanics worked days and nights to finish rebuilding and setting the accidental cars of Michael and Li Wei, and made them finished before the rally.

All team technicians arrived at Longyou on Oct.31st to prepare cars and parts, and ECU setting was done on Nov.3rd-4th by our ECU engineer. Nov.6th afternoon was team’s pre-event testing day. It took place at last year’s Chencun Stage. All three cars finished the testing of suspension and tyre, and crews were all satisfied with it.

Leg 1
There were 9 SS this day. Dean started the day with a storming attack to other competitors. He won SS2 by 8:11.6, 2.9 seconds faster than who was behind him, and 10.3 seconds faster than Cody Croker.

Soon, Dean made another stage win. He finished SS3 by 20:48.1, 7.8 seconds faster than the one behind him, while took Cody Croker by 18.7 seconds. Although Xu Lang of Wuming Team won SS4, at the time of the second service of the day, Dean was already leading the rally overall.

Michael and Li Wei finished the first 3 special stages without any mistake or accidents, while Michael placed top8 of CRC and Li Wei top 15.

Unfortunately, Dean stopped his leading in SS5 by gearbox problem. It’s a really big loss to the team. He finally retired the race of Leg 1.

However, Michael and Li Wei were still in stages. After half day, Michael already moved up to 6th overall in CRC and Li Wei 11th . But bad news came again that Michael hurt his right hand in SS8 by steering wheel, which made him lost the power to hold the wheel. Anyhow, he did’t stop, but cooperate with his co-driver to finish the rest 2 stages of Leg 1. Michael was sent to Hospital soon after he returned to service park. The good news was his bone was not hurt, but it had to be decided if he enter Leg 2 or not.

Till end of Leg 1, Dean won two out of the first 4 stages before retire. Michael was placed 6th in CRC and 3rd in domestic driver group. Li Wei was the only survivor of the team. He finished 12th overall, 9th in CRC and 6th in domestic drivers.
By the way, only 2 APRC drivers – Cody Croker and Brian Green remained on road at the end of Leg 1.

Leg 2
With the passion for rally, Dean finally decide to do super rally in Leg 2, while Michael decided to retire because of the hurt of hand.

SS11, 13 and 15 were extremely twisting uphill roads while SS 12,14 and 16 were moving downhill.

Dean got a puncture in SS11 which lost about 1 minute. And Li Wei finished the stage 9th. Presently, Dean was 11th in Leg 2, 48.6 seconds behind the leader Higgins and 25.6 seconds behind Salo of GiTi Team, and Li Wei was 9th overall and 6th domestically.

SS12, Salo of GiTi team won the stage, took 10.4 seconds from Dean who finished stage second.

SS13, Dean fought back and won by 13.2 seconds faster than Higgins of Lancer team and 22.9 seconds than Salo.

Although Salo took another 10.7 seconds from Dean in SS14, Dean took the time back by 20 seconds from Salo and 24.6 seconds from Higgins in SS15. Untill now, Dean was already 2nd place in Leg 2, 3 seconds behind leg leader Salo and only one stage to go.

SS16, Dean gave another storming finish win and took 7.1 seconds from Salo, and finally won Leg 2. Li Wei competed stably and move up step by step. Finally, he moved up to 6th overall in CRC from 9th position, and 3rd domestically from 6th .

Till the end of Leg 2, SRTC ace driver Dean Herridge won 5 stages out of 16, and 3 times 2nd fastest in stages. Although he retired mid-way, he won Leg 2 after super rally, which secured the 3rd position for SRTC in 2007 CRC yearly team’s title. Li Wei also kept moving up step and step, and he made it by finishing 6th overall in CRC and 3rd in domestic driver’s title from 16th at the every beginning.

2007 China Rally Championship ended together with the finish of APRC Longyou Rally. Subaru Rally Team China entered all 5 events of the CRC. Especially after the change of team formation in Beijing rally, and also with the even greater Subaru China, we were becoming bigger and stronger than ever before. New Ace driver Dean Herridge finished 5th in Beijing, 3rd in Liupanshui and 2nd in Kaiyang, as well as SRTC won twice 3rd position in team’s title and finally secured yearly team’s 3rd position in 2007 CRC. Michael Lieu also got several CRC top eight position to win points for the team and himself. He finally obtained the 8th position of 2007 CRC yearly driver’s title. It’s a big year for Li Wei to study. He experienced different top co-drivers in each event that made him more clear about what kind of co-driver will best suit him. Li Wei didn’t get quite good result in previous events this year, but he got all them back in the finally round, which also placed him at 7th position of 2007 CRC yearly driver’s title.

Although we didn’t win in Last rally, we already showed our rivals the capability to win, and made them feel great pressure.

The fourth round of 2007 China Rally Championship took place on Aug.4th in Kaiyang county of Guizhou province. As 3rd driver Michael Lieu’s car is not able to be repaired after last accident in Liupanshui in such a short time, Subaru Rally Team China only entered Dean Herridge and Li Wei.

The stages are located at suburbs of Kaiyang county with beautiful signs. There are totally 9 gravel special stages with a total length of 143.36km.

In order to let rally cars be at the best status, to let drivers be more familiar with their cars and find out problems, SRTC specially arranged three days pre-rally test. We chose two different roads and used both morning and afternoon time to test, so as to let drivers get used to different feeling of cars on different roads and in different time, as well as to better test the new Yokohama tyre and Tein dampers. The transmission of Dean’s car and turbo of Li Wei’s car all happened some problems, and team technicians solved them in time. So the test this time was successful and very important, it made it’s possible for team techanicians to solve as many problems as possible before the rally.

Leg 1
SS1 took place on the first day at Jero park. The road was mixed with gravel and concrete. The race was held with two cars compete in one group as super special stage. SRTC well prepared for the opening stage. We left key technicians to follow rally cars from ceremony to P/F in, in order to guarantee the cars had no problems. Dean competed with Car No.12, British David Higgins. Dean chose gravel tyres while David tarmac ones, so Dean finished the stage 3 seconds behind David, and finally placed 3rd, 0.3 second behind car No.10, British Martin Rowe. Li Wei competed with KST team driver Liu Caodong, and finished 2 seconds behind, finally placed 9th overall.

SS2 to SS5 were held on the second day. As KST team chose wrong type Michelin tyres, Martin found it’s hard to get good feeling of the car, and started to lost time from SS2. David and Dean started with big gaps from the cars behind, and were leading the rally. At the end of the second day, Dean finished second with 40 second behind David, while gained nearly 1 minute advantage from Liu Caodong and 2 minutes from Martin. Li Wei was co-drived by Hakaru Ichino, and learned a lot from him. He made a stable start, and kept moving up. He finished the day with 11th overall and 8th nationally.

Leg 2

Dean got his first stage win on the opening stage of Leg 2, and then obtained a second one on SS8. However, as the gap between he and David was too big, team decided to let him keep the current pace to stably finish the rally. Dean well implemented the team order and finally finished the rally second overall. Li Wei met some mechanical problems on his car, and could not make fast paces on the stage. He finally finished the rally safely with the position of 11th overall and 7th nationally.

Dean gained 12 points for the team this round, and SRTC is now at the third position with 28 points.

The third round of 2007 China Rally Championship was held on July 14th in Liupanshui city of Guizhou province. Subaru Rally Team China prepared one 07MY, one 06MY and one 05MY WRX STI SPEC C cars, while drivers are Dean Herridge, Michael Lieu and Li Wei.

There are totally 10 gravel special stages with a total length of 190.23km.

Leg 1
As no systematic test was done before rally, Dean and his car were hard to perform the best at the start of race. However, Dean secured the third outright from the very beginning, only 20 seconds behind the previous car and dropped the next to nearly 3 minutes. Unfortunately, he got a flat tyre at the final stage, lost nearly 2 minutes. But he safely gained the third place and one point for team. Michael showed his full experience from the start, but he didn’t seem to have luck and got 2 flat tyres in SS 1 and 2, lost nearly 3 minutes. After adjustment, he smoothly finished SS 3 and 4, and moved up to 6th outright. However, his car slipped off road due to wet surface in SS5, and withdrew from rally. Li Wei also endured continuous punctures and gave away more than 3 minutes to his rivals. But the experience of last year and stable performance made him move up to 7th outright and 4th nationally end of leg one.

Leg 2
Since there was a big time gap from previous car, team changed strategy for Dean to keep the stable pace till the end. Dean well did it and obtained third overall to make SRTC stand on the podium again, which also made SRTC stand into the yearly top three. Li Wei had two more punctures in SS 7 and 8. However, he finished the rally 11th overall Gr.N.

At the end of 3rd Rd of 2007 CRC, SRTC was obtained 7 points, and at the 3rd position with 16 points overall.

The second round of 2007 China Rally Championship was held on June 15th in Huairou Dist. of Beijing. Subaru Rally Team China prepared two 06 MY and one 07 MY WRX STI SPEC C cars, while drivers are Dean Herridge, Michael Lieu and Li Wei.

The rally contested 10 tarmac special stages which made two loop with 5 staged each with a total length of 180km around Huairou, outskirt of historical the Great Wall. The road is wide and very typical mountain road with a lot of up and down. There is also high speed section which average speed would be over 130km/h in some place. The surface is smooth asphalt as it has been just sealed, so the grip level is pretty high although those grip would be disappear suddenly if the machine made cutting inside corner and the sand from inside of corner would be strewn. The weather was sunny during two days competition and air temperature ranged from 25 to 30 degree in mid of the day. This Chinese Rally Championship is known as having competitor from Taiwanese TV star or popular novelist in Shanghai. With taking place the event around Chinese capital, huge number of spectators visited Service Park or ceremonial finish.

Leg 1
Team Ace Dean Herridge made a smooth starting and kept on moving up stage by stage. At the end of leg one, he was fourth outright with only 11.2 second behind the previous car. Michael showed to us his experience and skills. His stable driving secured the 8th outright and 3rd nationally. Li Wei started to use Australian co-driver Glen Weston this time, which greatly helped his result. He didn’t use AP brake system, but still got the 9th outright and 4th nationally.

Leg 2
In order to get into podium position, Dean chose softer tyre at the beginning of Leg 2, but a puncture happened in SS8 which made him lost nearly 1 minute, and fell to 6th overall. But Dean kept on pursuing, while Honghe team driver retired, so finally, he finished rally 5th overall. Michael kept a stable pace, and finished 7th overall and third nationally. Li Wei’ s car slid off road in SS7 and retired, lost the position of 8th outright and 4th nationally.

At the end of 2nd Rd of 2007 CRC, SRTC was obtained 6 points, and at the 4th position with 10 points overall.

Comment from Dean Herridge
“I’m very grad to get this chance to compete Chinese Rally Championship. This time every circumstance were new for me as our machine was very new as just being developed, wearing Yokohama tyre was new experience, also it was first to drive tarmac road in China. Even though I was very enjoyed this event. We still need some time to be used so the result of this event was not perfect, but I’m pretty sure that we could see good performance at rest of rally this year. So let see how is going.”