Subaru rally driver, Cody Crocker, heads into this weekend's round of the Australian Rally Championship in South Australia knowing victory will be tough, but that two solid results will leave him in a strong position to win his first outright national championship title.

Crocker comes into Coopers Pale Ale Rally SA in sparkling form, having won five of the six rounds of the Australian Rally Championship as well as the Subaru Rally of Canberra, a round of the Asia Pacific Championship.

At the halfway point of the six-round driver's championship, the Subaru Impreza WRX STi driver sits on top of the points table with 106 points, from a maximum of 123. He is 32 points clear of second placed South Australian Ed Ordynski (Mitsubishi) who has 74 points, while Subaru driver, Simon Evans, is third with 71 points.

The late Possum Bourne won the last seven titles, and Crocker would like to keep the trophy at the Subaru Rally Team Australia's headquarters in Melbourne.

The only time he and co-driver Greg Foletta have been beaten this year was at their last outing, the second Heat of the Premier State Rally back on July 6. Having won Saturday's heat, he experienced mechanical problems on Sunday's first stage, slipping back to 22nd position before recovering to eighth by day's end. It was the only blemish on an otherwise perfect season.

But the South Australian roads are full of tricks, and Crocker believes that veteran South Australian driver Ed Ordynski knows them better than anyone so is the man to beat this weekend.

"This will be the most difficult event for us to win for the season," Crocker said.

"You always know that Ed is going to be hard to beat here because these are his roads. But the next round is in Melbourne, which is our home event, and then the final round is in Tasmania, where we showed great form last year."

"So we know that the main thing this weekend is just to get home with two solid results."
"We are fortunate to have a good buffer and then have our two best events to finish off with."
"So if we come away from here with a couple of good results, we will go into the rest of the season confident that we can win our first outright national title."

"Not that we can take it easy this weekend. Rallying is not like that and you always have to drive hard. But we're not under pressure to win, so we can calculate where we take risks and where we don't. Hopefully, we'll make the right calculations!"

Crocker's team mate, Dean Herridge, has also had the best season of his career. The 26-year-old West Australian produced his first ARC podium result when he finished third in the second heat at his home event, the opening round of the season.

He followed that up with a third outright at the Subaru Rally of Canberra, then repeated that result at Rally Queensland in June.

The Premier State Rally had plenty of challenges for Herridge. He placed sixth on the Saturday and was in third place at the halfway mark on the Sunday, but an engine problem ended his charge there.
"I'm really looking forward to the weekend," Herridge said. "They're tricky roads but Glenn Macneall (co-driver) and I really thrive on this sort of challenge."

"We are driving with a lot more confidence than in the past, and that just comes with experience and time behind the wheel. The results are coming and now we just have to consistently produce top three results."

"Three events down and three to go, we are sitting in equal fifth place in the championship now, but that is only 24 points away from second. Hopefully we leave here on Sunday a little closer to finishing the year with a top three outcome."

Cooper's Pale Ale Rally SA will be headquartered in the heart of the Barossa Valley in Tanunda and take place from Friday August 8 to Sunday August 10.


While the event's administration has moved from Adelaide to the wine country, the stages will be very similar to those utilized over the past two years, taking in a number of council roads as well as those in the Mt Crawford State Forest.

The service park will be centred at the Mount Pleasant Oval, close to the major spectator point in the Mount Crawford Forest.

Rally fans can follow all the action on www.rally.subaru.com.au with the fastest results service on the web and the only one with split times from within the stages.
The split time service, known as Live Rally on the Subaru rally website, really brings the stages alive as you follow the progress of cars during the stages.