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  Pressrelease_Vecht_van_Merksteijn_Motorsport_2.doc

Erik van Loon and Harmen Scholtalbers made a huge impression in the Vechtdal Rallysprint around Hardenberg with their first performance in the Ford Focus RS 06 WRC run by Van Merksteijn Motorsport. Despite an unfortunate early retirement from the rallysprint on stage 5 it was a highly successful test for Erik van Loon who left his regular group N Mitsubishi Evo X parked at home for his 8^th outing in a rally event to get to grips with a modern World Rally Car.

Van Loon was right from the start on the pace with the other WRC cars. Driving a completely new car for him, Erik started cautiously and dropped around 10 seconds on the first stage, the difference was just 1 second behind fastest driver John Temmink in the Subaru S12. As a result of a small error on the second stage by Van Loon, the gap to the leader increased to 8 seconds but the director of Van Loon Vlees was still safe in second position in front of Gert Huzink in the Skoda Fabia WRC. On the third stage of the day all three frontrunners achieved exactly the same time so the fight carried on to an exciting final leg of the event.

In the second run of the special stage near Dalen, Van Loon showed that he is able to adjust quickly to the fast Focus WRC and set a fastest time on the wet stage and halved the gap between himself and the leader to a mere 4 seconds. At the finish of the penultimate stage there seemed to be no doubt among the support crews of the top teams about the fact that Van loon would win his first event in the Focus WRC. "You first have to finish to finish first" proved to be true once again when Van Loon came over the team radio and told that he and co-driver Scholtalbers had slid off the road into a ditch and that the rally had come to an early end for them.

"The road on this part of the stage was very bad from all the cars that had passed before and was covered with sand and mud. We weren't driving on the limit when in a left hand corner the Focus WRC started to understeer on the mud and we ended in the ditch. Up until this last corner I really enjoyed this test with the Focus WRC." told Erik van Loon afterwards. "After just one afternoon of testing with the car prior to the event it is an outstanding achievement by Erik van Loon to fight for the victory with two experienced WRC drivers" commented Gerard Grouve, team manager of Van Merksteijn Motorsport.

Final result Vechtdal Rallysprint

1 Gert Huzink (Skoda Fabia WRC) in 34:21"
2 John Temmink (Subaru S12) at 18 seconds
3 Marco Koch (Opel Kadett C) at 1:51"