No pictures yet so I'll make do with these pictures of the Lunar Racing MG ZS taking two podium finishes in the Britcar production championships at Rockingham Motor Speedway over the weekend:


http://www.zscentral.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=6022&sid=e9e9365116d7fffce63d93c9f707acbc



As regular readers will know, last year the MGs did rather well in Chinese Rally Championships with both the MG7 and MG3 SW taking race wins during the season running in the red and black colours of the Maxxis Tyres racing team. At the end of last year the MG3 SW rally car appeared at a number of Auto Shows in green MG XPower colours suggesting a greater factory involvement for 2009.

So far we have not heard from the MG race team in 2009, but we do now have the event timetable:


2009 National Rally Championship (CRC) race calendar:

First event
Jiangsu Jiangning
June 12-14

Second event
Beijing Huairou
July 3-5

Third event
Guangdong Fogang
August 14-16

Fourth event
Fujian Shaowu
September 18-20

Fifth event
Zhejiang Longyou
November 13-15

Alternative event
Shanghai
To be determined


The most notable observation is that the traditional Shanghai road (ashphalt) event, the seasons opening event won last year by the MG7 and which has now been held for 8 consecutive years, is not listed!

Instead the season will open on June 12th in Nanjing! Jiangsu Province has never before held the National Rally Championships so the event is eagerly awaited. Mid summer in Nanjing is hot, sometimes very hot, and normally dry. The event is mainly on gravel stages concentrated in the scenic resorts of the Jiangning mountains and should provide a spectacular start and a complete contrast to the mud and eventual washout at Longyou that ended the 2008 season.

Will we see the MG3 looking like this?



or will it return in its red and black Maxxis colours, in either case I believe it will be run once again by the Maxxis team, with factory support.

Note: "Jiangning mountains" - "Jiangning" as in Jiangsu - is a district of Nanjing and one of the top tourist spots in China. It has a history of human occupation running back at least 400,000 years and has had billions of yuan spent on preserving its ecology.

Windy wrote:Note: "Jiangning mountains" - "Jiangning" as in Jiangsu - is a district of Nanjing and one of the top tourist spots in China. It has a history of human occupation running back at least 400,000 years and has had billions of yuan spent on preserving its ecology.

Sounds like an odd place for a rally to me, like a mixture between Cyprus (hot and gravelly) and Switzerland (mountainous, environmentally-sensitive, motorsport ban?)

patpending wrote:Sounds like an odd place for a rally to me, like a mixture between Cyprus (hot and gravelly) and Switzerland (mountainous, environmentally-sensitive, motorsport ban?)

I suspect it's more like a cross of Cyprus and Wales!

Ie plenty of forest that's not in national parks and so available for rallying and plenty of vegitation despite the mid summer heat. Not sure what the difference between a mountain and a hill is there but I'm fairly sure the Swiss mountain passes are considerably more spectacular as far as views are concerned!

Windy wrote:...I suspect it's more like a cross of Cyprus and Wales! ......

Sweet Lamb with garlic and black bean sauce, anyone?

NB I've just noticed you can now get Maxxis tyres in Germany. Their winter road tyres got very poor results ("not recommended") in the ADAC's winter tyre test.

Looks like their rally version is pretty good - just worked out why they sponsor a rally car!

patpending wrote:NB I've just noticed you can now get Maxxis tyres in Germany. Their winter road tyres got very poor results ("not recommended") in the ADAC's winter tyre test.

Looks like their rally version is pretty good - just worked out why they sponsor a rally car!

Seem to be best known for their motorbike tyres in this country, but again it seems to be off road tyres...

I was having my new wheels balanced at ATS in Sidmouth yesterday, a family member is the manager, and noticed he had some Maxxis tyres there, we got talking and he told me that they're a good budget tyre, certainly better than a lot of cheaper tyres,.