HMO Customer Racing’s Josh Buchan continued his front-running form with a top five finish in Round 2 of the Tarmac Rallysprint series at Sydney Dragway on Thursday evening.
Fresh from the opening round of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Championship at Symmons Plains last weekend, the championship leader competed in the popular event, hosted by the North Shore Sporting Car Club, as part of an entry with Hyundai Australia and N Australia alongside rally driver Brendan Reeves and journalists from some of Australia’s leading automotive publications.
Buchan, with his partner Lauren Thirkell as co-driver, steered his own Hyundai i30 N DCT hatchback and completed four passes of the challenging 3.5km stage, which uses the carpark and access roads at the Dragway and was made even trickier by a torrential summer downpour.
At the end of the event, Buchan finished with the fifth fastest time as the quickest front-wheel drive vehicle, mere seconds behind by heavily-modified rally cars with significantly more power, all-wheel drive and semi-slick tyres and ahead of Reeves in the all-new Hyundai i30 Sedan N, who finished ninth.
“What a great, fun event and a fantastic way for anyone to enjoy their car,” Buchan said.
“It doesn’t matter if you have a full-on rally car or a standard production car like my daily driver Hyundai i30 N DCT – you can be as casual or as competitive as you like.
“I had previously competed in the Rallysprint only once before, but the course was completely different last night and Mother Nature certainly threw a curve ball at us with the massive thunderstorm.
“But the i30 N proved that it is a genuine giant killer and we knocked off some pretty serious competition. I didn’t even change the tyre pressures, and we didn’t have to chuck it on a trailer to drive home at the end of the night
“We even beat Brendo at his own game. So, I’ll take that as another win for TCR.”
Buchan and Reeves will resume their Hyundai race v rally grudge match with N Australia for the next round of the Tarmac Rallysprint series at Sydney Dragway on March 10.
