Faultless L’Estage, fast Richard give Yokohama cars 1 and 2 at PFR

MERRITT, B.C. (October 3, 2010) – A faultless drive in a “flawless” car on “perfect” tires has given the Quebec team of Antoine L’Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard a decisive victory in the Pacific Forest Rally and the lead in the Canadian Rally Championship with one event left on the calendar.

In a weekend they described as “uneventful,” L’Estage and Richard drove their Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X to a one minute, 14-second lead over Yokohama team mates Patrick Richard and Allan Ockwell in their Subaru WRX STi. Their victory makes the Mitsubishi team the only four-time winner of the Pacific Forest Rally.

Third place went to the Subaru of Leonid Urlichich of Thornhill, Ontario, and Chrissie Beavis of San Diego, California.

Despite heavy dust, L’Estage and Nathalie Richard, of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, opened an 18-second lead over Patrick Richard of Squamish, B.C., and Ockwell, of Toronto, on the first night, then managed the pace of the event through the conclusion on Saturday. “We had no real incidents, the car ran flawlessly, the tires were perfect – it was almost uneventful,” said Nathalie.

The two-day rally was anything but uneventful for reigning and four-time Canadian champ Patrick Richard, who had been leading the 2010 championship going into the Pacific Forest round. “We had a series of niggling set-up issues that meant we couldn’t go as fast as we needed to at the start,” he explains. The car suffered minor electrical and transmission problems, but the pair had a major setback when they struck a cow that had wandered onto the stage in the last 50 kilometres of the event.

The results from Pacific Forest leave L’Estage with a 2-point advantage over his Yokohama team mate in the championship chase heading into the final event of the 2010 season. L’Estage has won three of the five championship events this year.

“Whoever wins Rally of the Tall Pines will win the driver’s championship,” confirms Patrick. Subaru is leading the race for the manufacturer’s title.

In addition to its sponsorship of Antoine L’Estage/Nathalie Richard and Pat Richard/Allan Ockwell, Yokohama Canada is a supporting sponsor of the Canadian Rally Championship. The Canadian championship has been televised nationally on TSN and RDS since 1993, and is made available on multiple media platforms, including TSN 2, as downloads from iTunes, on-line on Flat Over Crest (www.flatovercrest.com) and to 80 million homes in Europe on MotorsTV.

Yokohama Tire (Canada) Inc. markets and distributes a full line of tires for high performance, passenger car, light truck, and commercial truck applications, as well as off-the-road tires for mining, forestry and construction applications. It maintains distribution centres across Canada to serve more than 700 independent tire dealers and more than 2,000 retail locations.