Multiple MSA National Rally Champion Marcus Dodd will start as clear favourite for victory on the Bournemouth based Rallye Sunseeker on February 23/24. Dodd has tasted the victory champagne four times previously on the event, and will be keen to make it win number five on this his is home rally.
The Poole based driver starts as car number 1 in his Hyundai Accent WRC4. Prepared by Marcus’s own HPM Motorsport team, the silver and black machine was the pace setting car in the 2006 MSA National Gravel Rally Championship. Mechanical glitches would unfortunately blight Dodd’s championship aspirations as the team continued to develop the ex-factory machines throughout the season.
With the teething problems behind him, Marcus and his Hove based co-driver Andrew Bargery will have mixed memories of the 2006 Rallye Sunseeker. In virtually his own backyard, Marcus set a searing pace in the Flitewise.com and Sunseeker Powerboats backed car. The Pirelli shod Hyundai was over a minute clear of its closest rival when clutch failure halted their progress permanently and they were forced to retire.
Despite that retirement twelve months ago, Marcus goes into the event with great confidence. A continued program of development on the Accent WRC car and a complete winter rebuild means that Dodd and Bargery start the event with a brand new car that they know is a proven winner in the MSA National Rally Championship. Marcus is looking forward to getting started when the event kicks off with the traditional blast through the Bournemouth Winter Gardens and along the Promenade on the Friday night:
“It seems like a very long time since we were leading here last year” said Marcus. “Last season was a very public testing year with the car, as we developed a state of the art paddle shift gear change system and a number of other key developments. The result is a car that is more competitive than when it was a factory run car in the World Rally Championship! As with any development program there are always going to be problems to overcome, but there was no doubt that once we found reliability the car was a winner as we proved on other events. Competition will be tough again this year, and hopefully we can make up for the disappointment of 2006 with a very strong start on Rallye Sunseeker. It will be a busy weekend for us all at HPM Motorsport, and we are all looking forward to getting started”.
It certainly will be a busy weekend for the HPM Motorsport outfit. Aside from looking after lead driver Marcus, the team are fielding two other Hyundai Accent WRC’s on the event. Dodd senior, Harry, is driving his regular car for another season in the MSA series, but newcomers to the team for the event will be Kevin Stevens and Tim Sturla. The British Rally Championship regulars will use one of the HPM Hyundai Accent WRC’s for the first time on the rally.
