May 26, 2024.- Fourth round of the 2024 Eastern Canadian Rally Championship (ECRC) season, this was the inaugural edition of the Rallye Vallée de la Beauce, presented in the Beauce region, south of Quebec City, with headquarters in the municipality of St-Victor. This rally was held under sunny skies this past weekend, on fast gravel roads offering a exceptional challenge for the nearly thirty registered teams. In the end, the 16-year-old prodigy Vincent Lalande, co-driven by Matthieu Toupin, claimed the victory in his Subaru WRX STI.

Originally hailing from road racing, Vincent Lalande impressed right from his very first rally, last February in Maniwaki, after winning the ECRC portion of the Rallye Perce-Neige, which was also his first race on ice. This time, the conditions were radically different but Lalande and his codriver demonstrated the same prowess and took the lead as of the second competitive stage.  They held the top spot all the way to the end, while also setting fastest times on the last six stages.  In only their third rally, out of the four events in the 2024 ECRC calendar so far, the Lalande/Toupin duo won by a margin of over one minute and nine second and reclaimed first place in the championship standings.

Establishing a comfortable rhythm near the front before setting the fastest time on the sixth stage, Marc Bourassa, co-driven by David Legault for this event, drove his Subaru WRX STI to a second place finish. The podium was completed by Yohan Tessier and Philippe Poirier, driving a brand-new Subaru by multi-championship winning team Test Racing.

A two-wheel drive specialist in the early 2000s, Tessier took no time to find himself among the rally leaders this weekend, offering a spectacular show for the fans. The Tessier/Poirier duo finished 2 minutes and 20 seconds behind the winners with a margin of 1’11” from Bourassa/Legault. Their third place spot came with a small gap of just one second ahead of William Pardiac and Manuel Arsenault, who also gave the spectators something great to watch in their Subaru.

Leading the overall rally as well as the 2-wheel drive Class after the first stage, Nicolas Laverdière and Patrick Lévesque (Ford Fiesta ST) were also impressive in this very first edition of the Rallye Vallée de la Beauce. They may have conceded a few positions to the more powerful 4WD cars in the longer and faster stages of the event, but they dominated their 2WD rivals, won the Class, and finished in the Top 5 overall. This proved to be a convincing and successful return to competition Nicolas Laverdière.

Gabriel Monette/Hughes Bergeron (Subaru) finished in sixth place overall (5^th in four-wheel drive Class), ahead of Jean-Philippe Courchesne and Michel Voyer. With their BMW 318Ti, Courchesne/Voyer also claimed second place in 2WD, a highly contested category consisting of no fewer than 13 teams.

Completing the Top 10 overall standings were Zachary Bourassa/Érika Séguin (Subaru WRX), Réjean Perron/Olivier Landreville (Mitsubishi Lancer Évolution) and Mathieu Royer/Alyssa Voyzelle-Montminy (third in 2-wheel drive with their Nissan Sentra).

In total, 16 of the 20 intended competitive stages were run in this first edition of the Rallye Vallée de la Beauce and 23 of the 28 registered teams were able to finish.

This season, the Eastern Canadian Rally Championship (ECRC) is comprised of nine rounds, spread out between Ontario and Quebec.  The next event will take place on June 29^th as part of the long-standing Rallye International de la Baie-des-Chaleurs, in Gaspé region of Quebec.

For more information, please visit the site www.ecrc-crec.ca.

Photo credit © Clément Tavernier

2024 ECRC Calendar