Sydney-based Canberra rally star Harry Bates will face the toughest international challenge of his career to date next month when he switches camps to a new brand and heads to the Rally of New Zealand to compete against some of the best drivers in the world.
Bates, 26, has secured sponsorship from Australian company Pedders Suspension to drive the very latest specification Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo in the ultra-competitive WRC2 category, one step below the world rally championship.
A three-time national champion, Bates usually drives a Toyota Yaris in the Australian Rally Championship but is able to switch brands for this costly one-off drive because Toyota doesn't build a car eligible to compete in the WRC2 category.
For the New Zealand rally, Bates will be taking all his usual Canberra-based team members across the ditch, including his chief mechanic, his team boss, and his regular co-driver John McCarthy which he believes is vital to give him the best possible chance at challenging the pace of the internationals.
Although WRC2 is the second tier of the World Rally Championship, the cars and drivers are all very closely matched, with entries from Ford, Skoda, Hyundai and Volkswagen.
The fastest drivers in the category are all European based, with Swedes, Italians, Finns and Czech drivers dominating. These are professional drivers, most with factory support, and spend months each year testing.
Built to strict international regulations, the left-hand drive Skoda he will drive is very similar in output to his own Toyota Yaris. It is all-wheel drive, with a five speed sequential gearbox, and with a turbocharged 1.6-litre fuel-injected engine.
One of the many critical factors to the Bates campaign will be gaining an understanding of how to manage tyre wear during the 17-stage rally.
WRC2 cars all use a control Pirelli tyre and are limited to 22 tyres only over the course of the event. The gravel of Rally New Zealand is notoriously hard on tyre wear and knowing when to use his allocated tyres to best advantage will be a vital element to Bates' overall rally strategy.
He said that when discussions began with Scott Pedder, rally driver, company director and chief sponsor of this one-off program, around the possibility of entering the NZ event some months ago, the hunt then started for a car out of Europe that could make him competitive, and to get it air-freighted halfway around the world.
"The Skoda is currently sitting on a pallet in Europe waiting to be airfreighted out to New Zealand, which is a phenomenally expensive thing to do," Bates said.
"But if we were to do this [NZ rally] properly, then we had to find a car which would be as quick as the top-line WRC2 teams; there's no point in heading there with a car which couldn't compete on reasonably equal terms with the factory teams."
Testing the unfamiliar car before the rally starts is another key consideration.
"Hopefully we can land the car in New Zealand late this month and get across there for a test in New Zealand three weeks before the rally starts, then again in the days leading up to the rally," he said.
This WRC2 fulfils a long-standing dream of competing at a global rally. His father and four-time national rally champion Neal Bates had a one-off crack in a factory car at WRC level only once in his career but his lack of adequate testing time in an unfamiliar, left-hand drive car robbed him of the pace he needed to be competitive.
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