As usual Graham Gittens and I shared the Nassco/Philips Lighting/St. James Travel/Mobil 1 Toyota turbo starlet, and first up was Gitts. He put down a 2m31s, but admitted there was room for improvement. I then went onto the start pad for the first of my two qualifying runs with Jonathan Still in the Nescafe/Philips Lighting/Castrol BMW M3. Off the line I could hear the harmonious sound of the Bimmer as it pulled away from me up the straight, and I thought to myself, "Well isn't this a waste of time" followed quickly by "it's not a race, just qualifying, relax." On approaching the hairpin before the finish, I could see the BMW wasn't too far ahead, but blocked it out and concentrated on driving the course. Stillo did a 2m32s and I had a 2m34s, which I thought was quite respectable.

On Gitts 2nd run he put down a 2m29s and looked very clean through the hairpins. Stillo and I squared off again; and once again he pulled away from me going up the straight. This time though I felt more confident that I could stay with him, and pushed a bit harder. This time coming out of the hairpin we were side by side, and when we crossed the finish hose, both of us had clocked 2m29s.

Gitts, then went out for his final qualifying run against Freddy Gale, and was really pushing hard, but still quite clean in the hairpins. As he came out of the final hairpin to approach the finish, he snatched 2nd gear and it wouldn't select it, and was forced to do the remainder in 3rd. He finished ahead of Freddy, but was only able to do a 2m30s. Now my problem was that I still had one qualifying run to do, and on VRW, 2nd gear is THE most important for us. Damian, our mechanic from ProAuto Works Inc., quickly found that one of the gear selector cables had pulled out, so he did a quick fix, by forcing the cable back into the sleeve, crimping it, the cable tying it. I went back out and did a 2m28s.

Next was the head to head eliminations. First up was Adam Alleyne in his RWD starlet. Fortunately, Damian's quick fix was holding together and I was able to beat Adam, partially due to problem he had off the start. Up next was Kirk Watkins in his Corolla. I bogged down off the start line and Watty started to pull away, but I wasn't worried as his fastest time til that point had been 2m34s, so I figured I had time, no need to push it and take chances, turns out I was wrong. As I exited the final hairpin I looked to my right and realised Watty was THERE. And I was on the longer track. It was then I really started to push it, but in the end it was too late, and Watty crossed the finish line ahead of me. My time on that run was 2m27.06s a new personal best.

Thanks to my sponsors, Nassco/Philips Lighting/St. James Travel/Mobil 1 for there assistance this year and making all this possible, and a BIG thanks to Damian from ProAuto Works for his quick fix on the gear selector, which not only lasted my 3 remaining runs and allow me to get 2nd place points in the Sunbeach Rallysprint, but also allowed Graham to finish his remaining 2 runs and collect 4th place points.