Major changes took place in this year’s edition of Spring Rally. The rally itself changed date from April to March 19. ATCL organized it on a Saturday, which was unlikely in previous years. The rally featured 2 new stages that were repeated 3 times, twice in day time and once at night. The stages were hosted in Jezzine, at the following villages; Bqosta, Karkha, Der El Mkhalis, Kateleh, and Kfarfalous. Each stage was 10 Km long and were very fast and flowing.
One thing didn’t change, the champion. Roger Feghali did it again, but on a new car and with a new Co-driver. Roger was driving a new EVO 10 alongside Joseph Mattar one of Lebanon best Co-drivers in Lebanon. Roger sweeped all stages and finished over 2 minutes a drift from runner up Nicholai Georgiou, on another Mitsubishi EVO 10 which is also prepared by Roger and MotorTune.
Nick’s second place was not as easy as Roger’s first. Apart from the first stage Nick battled the whole rally with fellow drivers, 3rd place finisher Gilbert Bannout and 4th place Tamer Ghandour and 5th place Nicolas Amiouni. Bannout alongside new French Co-Driver, Cathy Derousseaux were very cautious in stage one and lost 20 second to the charging Nicholai Georgiou, but very strong displays at the end of the rally got him close and made him finish on the podium.
Tamer Ghandour last year’s championship runner up, drove a very aggressive yet composed rally, and finished first between the
guys on EVO 9s. Tamer who suffered some problem ahead of the rally especially in terms of preparation was very fast in the first 4 stages, but lost focus in stage 5 to miss out on a podium opportunity. Never the less we should not forget the Tamer was racing without a dog box in his car which hurt him a lot in the fast stages of this year’s spring rally.
Nicolas Amiouni finished 5th after a very difficult rally. Nicolas had a little shunt in stage 1 and lost his rear tyre but recovered so well to finish fifth. Nicolas had an amazing charge at the last stages to finish twice 9 seconds behind Roger.
The surprise of the rally is for sure Mansour Zacca driving a car that is 13 years old. Mansour made it to 6th place alongside co-driver Ramy Menhem. Mansour and Ramy drove a very stable and composed rally until stage 5 were they suffered a little at the night stages due to a problem with the lighting. Mansour and Ramy are planning to change the car ahead of the Cedars Rally so they can challenge
for front places. 7th 8th 9th and 10th positions went respectively to Chafic boulos, Joseph Hindy, Sysley and Nibal Zahr. Chafic lacked the performance edge because of his old generation car and Joseph Hindy suffered a puncture that slowed him down during the rally. Sysley finished an impressive ninth on his first ever rally as well as Nibal Zahr did.
The 1600 cc group was won by Joseph Nasr, who was only competing with Kamal Dargham for the title. Joseph was aided by Kamal in the rally and both drivers enjoy a good relationship and good sportsmanship. Kamal was suffering from many technical problems all day, but joseph scored some impressive stage times especially taking into consideration the age of his Peugeot 206.
Ziad Karanouh was excluded from the race because of a short cut in between stages, and osmat Saify had a very impressive run on an EVO 7 to finish 12th. Bassel Bou Hamdan, Bechara Beshir and Roger Bridi who were competing among each other although Bridi is not exactly in same category finished 11th, 13th and 14th respectively.
Photos by: Joelle Awad and Khaled Karam
