Oli Hopkins upheld family honours with a great drive in his Hopkins Race Transporters Mitsubishi Mirage on the recent Proflex Manx Rally, after brother Philip unfortunately crashed out of Round 2 of the Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship and may have to re-shell his Mitsubishi Evo 6.
The event was Oli’s first rally since last year’s Hills Ford Stages, his first event with co-driver Ian Taylor for three years (and their first Manx together for six years) so understandably the Bristol driver made a cautious start in his re-built Mirage.
At the same time, Philip Hopkins had been going well on Friday and was lying 19th overall when he crashed his Mitsubishi Evo 6 on SS9 – with the stage being cancelled as Oli was in the queue to start. Both he and co-driver Sammy Allen were taken to hospital for precautionary checks, while the car suffered a heavy impact side impact.
Oli started Saturday’s third and final leg in 42nd position overall and a few more suspension tweaks by the Macwhirter Motorsport team helped him climb up the leaderboard.
“We were having a good run on our favourite stages of the rally until we had a puncture about three miles from the end of the last stage, which dropped us back about six places overall,” explains co-driver Ian.
“We had to do a quick wheel change after the time control before heading back to the TT Grandstand for a very well deserved 36th overall and 8th in class finish.”
The result sees Oli 36th in the overall Protyre Asphalt drivers’ standings and fourth in Class B.
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