03/Feb/2003 Erik shares with Oliver JACQUE and is back in the car!

Today's running features the Valence - Gap 'common leg' of the rally, a 373km section expected to take competitors 7 hours 35 minutes to complete. St Jean en Royans/Le Chapelle en Vercors, St Barthelemy du Gua/St Michel les Portes, Les Oches/Luz La Croix Haute, St Firmin/Chauffayer the locations of the 4 Special Stages held today.

After a well-earned rest following yesterday's activity, the CHR drivers began filing out in their machines at 9:33 am behind the #16 car of Shunji Hasumi and Emile Yamano. Valence faded into the background as the other CHR cars followed. In the # 14 Alpine, Francois Gagnaire and Michael Abattu led the identical #18 machine of Olivier Jacque and Marc Minari. The second Japanese pairing, the #17 car of Hitoshi Kato/Yoichiro Suziki, brought up the rear, all cars running smoothly and sounding healthy.

The thin veil of clouds early in the morning gave way to strong snowfall before noon. Cars were regularly going off course, and this was causing concern for Erik and the support team. Among the CHR drivers, Olivier JACQUE had a high-speed off in the slippery conditions, but otherwise there were no incidents as competitors got used to the roads. Each of the Special Stages were cleared by skillful driving despite the awful conditions.

In the afternoon section of today's action, there was a quick change as Erik Comas hurriedly replaced driver Marc Minari and drove with Olivier Jacque in the #18 machine to the end of the section. Spectators along the way excitedly cheered on the former F1 driver/2 wheel World Champion combination, applauding enthusiastically as they sped aggressively by.

Throughout the rest of today's run, the weather deteriorated progressively to stormy conditions. A change of the regulations by the event sponsors resulted in the retraction of an earlier time penalty, and all the CHR cars ran smoothly to today's goal.