Sri Lanka's premier motor racing team EZY Racing who were carrying the National Flag for the first time in Asia Pacific's leading Motor racing event; in Friday's opening ceremony were boosted by the presence and support received by EZY Corporation representatives who had travelled in from Singapore where EZY Corporation is head quartered .
Sri Lankan Rally Champion Dinesh Deheragoda who was making his inaugural appearance in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship in his ER 88, overcame a very tough weekend to finish a strong 6th in the Asia Cup segment to provide his team a great start to their international rally campaign. The Interactive Group who powered the EZY Racing team, were given a morale boost by the presence of the CEO , Shahid Mahmud at the opening ceremony. “We were given a strong start for the weekend when Deheragoda put in a spectacular performance in the 2km spectator stage which was the only stage held on friday to give EZY Racing a dream start by finishing 5th on the stage, much to the delight of the loud fan support for EZY Racing.
With Saturday scheduled to have 7 grueling stages of rallying, and overnight heavy rains making the terrain slippery, Deheragoda competed the first two stages competitively to hold on to a strong 5th place in the Asia Cup Standings which was lead by the Defending APRC Champion Gaurav Gill. Unfortunately during the 4th stage of the Rally, Deheragoda while trying to increase his pace to catch up with the front running cars, overshot a corner and damaged the ER 88, which was heavily damaged on the impact. The national champion then nursed the car to finish and lost valuable ground to his competitors, conceding his 5th place to Indian Rally driver Sanjay Takale.
"Our strategy for the weekend was to be competitive but not over aggressive as we didn't want to have a situation where we were forced to retire and wipe off all our hard work. Nevertheless we did have a tough stage 4 which was a very technical section and we overshot a corner and hit a tree. We did everything we could to reduce the impact, however the damage was quite severe." said Dinesh Deheragoda during the first service break on Saturday . Fortunately this incident happened just before the service stop where the team had 30 minutes to repair the car which had a very heavy impact to its front.
With 4 more stages to be completed during the day, the team decided to nurse the car and complete the days stages as any retirement would cancel the entire day’s progress according to the regulations of the championship. This saw Deheragoda finishing a very tough day 2 with EZY Racine positioned 6th in the Asia Cup.
Speaking to the media after the first day Deheragoda further stated that he was forced to slow his pace after the morning’s incident as they had limited time to turn the car around. "We decided that getting through the day was our most important priority. We therefore sacrificed speed and focused on completing the day. We intended using the Saturday nights service break to do a more detailed job on the car, with the hope of catching up on Sunday"
With the dawn of Sunday, the final day of Rally Malaysia and the 1st Round of the Asia Cup, EZY Racing decided to assess the situation and look at securing the 6th place during the stage 9, 10 and 11 which were held in the morning. With 3 more stages scheduled for the rally to end, Dinesh upped his pace during stage 11 to finish 5th in the stage in the Asia Cup Rankings, only to lose his breaks. Deheragoda who delivered an impeccable stage during stage 12 was encouraged to see that his pace was only 40 seconds off the pace of the leading production car cup driver Sumiyama from Japan. However, this caused Deheragoda to nurse the car even further as he had to drive with minimum braking ability during the last two stages, as an overheating brake system heavily hampered his ability to drive fast, and thus he had to be content with 6th place in the Asia Cup.
EZY Racing's visionary founder who is currently the CEO of the iconic local team was seen in the thick of action during the weekend. Hamzadeen who had earlier indicated that he had no expectations from his team during the weeks rally as they were very new to the international arena, said “ we're looking to learn from the experience” and indicated to the media that his team's performance was satisfactory. "When we left for Malaysia, we were very clear on our objectives and that was to complete the rally without retiring from it. In that context I can say, we accomplished our mission as we managed to complete the rally in a healthy manner. We are very pleased with Dinesh's (Deheragoda) performance as it was not at all an easy rally. Most of the drivers who had come over had ample experience in driving in this rally and we were one of the very few newcomers. The rally was definitely much tougher than we initially anticipated. However the positivity for us is that we go into the next Rally with a decent amount of statistics and data on our car, driver and performance."
Deheragoda who has won over a dozen of National Championships In Sri Lanka, also stated that he had higher expectations of himself from the weekend’s rallying and that he wasn't content with it. "I have a wonderful team who hardly puts any kind of pressure on performance. I feel totally at home and very comfortable with my team EZY Racing. As a racing driver I believe I could have done a few more things better that could have given a better result. I intend on working on those learnings during the next 4 weeks as we prepare for Rally Japan" said Deheragoda
The Sri Lankan team currently stands 6th on the team championship and are hopeful of gaining on a few positions by the end of the year after completing the next three rallies which would decide the pecking order of Asia Pacific's best Rally Racing Teams.
