Challenging Coromandel Rally for Cox

Challenging Coromandel Rally for Cox

After a promising start at last weekend’s Mahindra Gold Rush Rally of Coromandel, Sloan Cox and co-driver Sarah Coatsworth had to settle for finishing the event and gaining well needed mileage, instead of attacking for the podium finish they were confident of achieving.

The rally started off well for the pairing with a successful reconnaissance of the stages completed on the Friday before the event. It was here that they saw how good the roads were and Cox could not wait to attack the stages with anger the next day.

Rally Coromandel started off exactly how the pairing had planned and hoped for with a second place through the first stage, narrowly missing a stage win by just 0.1 seconds, followed by a third place through stage two. Cox was happy at the first service that all the hard work between events had paid off.

Unfortunately this was not to last. During stage three an oil breather pipe blew off the motor slowing Cox down in the stage, but still achieving fourth. Cox repaired the pipe before stage four, but possibly the breather pipe blowing off was a warning sign that something was amiss with the engine, as during the stage the car began to overheat resulting in Cox losing over two minutes.

A compression test was done during the service which followed and showed that number three cylinder had a fault, a decision was then made to drive the remaining stages to gain vital footage for next year.

“Unfortunately it was another tough rally for the team. We were all very excited heading into Rally Coromandel and had high hopes that it was an event that we could come away from with a great finish, but again this wasn’t to be the rally. Our return to the top will have to wait that little bit longer,” states Cox.

The Cox Motorsport team have not yet decided on their next event and are busy working through the issues that plagued them at Coromandel Rally.

ENDS

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