BUSSELTON resident Tom Wilde will join Australia’s most elite rally drivers in the 2016 Kumho Tyre Australian Rally Championship next month.
Wilde will join fellow West Australian Brad Markovic in the first ever two car team in the ARC to hail from WA.
The opening round of the ARC will kick off in Busselton on April 22 for the Quit Forest Rally which will see drivers tackle terrain in Barnard Park and Nannup.
Wilde said it was a really good feeling to be part of a full WA team and to tackle the first round in his home town.
“It is my favourite event it will be my 11th one I never miss it,” he said.
“It is great Busselton is the first round of the Australian championship because I have a new navigator and it is a course we both know and feel comfortable with.
“So having a new navigator for the first round in Busselton is a good way to do it.”
Wilde said the most challenging stages of the Busselton event was driving on tarmac.
“The rally mostly happens in the forest on gravel so we still have to run on gravel tyres,” he said.
“It is more of a spectator stage, you can lose a lot more than you can gain and quite often a few people often crash and end their rally.
“It is always a good thing to try and win that stage.”
Wilde became interested in the sport after his family moved to a farm near Nannup and he would watch the forest rally from his home each year.
He did not know anyone in the sport so Wilde researched how he could become involved and it went from there.
ARC clerk of the course Ross Tapper said he inspected the roads and they were in excellent condition and there would be some fine turning of the stages to vary them from previous years.
