Motorsport: Opotiki driver wins tight tussle

Opotiki rally driver Michael Young has scored his second Asia Pacific Rally Championship Junior Cup win of the season in the International Rally of Queensland.

Young, a 19-year-old in his first full season of international rallying, enjoyed a tight tussle with young Japanese driver Akira Bamba throughout the two-day weekend event.

Young and Tasmanian co-driver Daniel Willson went into the Queensland round leading the Junior Cup class following their class win in Whangarei in April which gave them an eleven-point lead over Kenneth Koh, of Malaysia.

However, Koh went out of the weekend's rally with mechanical issues on stage five, leaving Young battling with Bamba.

The Japanese driver finished day one with a ten-second margin after Young's two-wheel-drive Proton Satria Neo suffered some damage.

"We went out this morning [Sunday] determined to take the lead back and that's what we did. We won the first 15.35 km stage by 20 seconds, giving us the lead and then we kept the lead all day to make this our second win from two events," said Young.

With experience rallying in Malaysia, Japan and New Zealand, Young was competing in Australia for the first time.

"It was great. I really enjoyed the rally," he said. "It started out muddy, but got drier and faster especially on Sunday's stages. We did have a bit of trouble when we hit a big rock yesterday. We went up on two wheels and the control arm got bent, but the team was able to fix at service. Other than that, the car ran brilliantly and it was a really enjoyable event."

The Queensland event was the third round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship and, like the opening round Rally of Whangarei, saw Australian Chris Atkinson take the overall APRC victory. Young will now join the APRC competitors at the Malaysian Rally on July 14-15 before the Junior Cup wraps up in Japan on September 15-16.