After an incident filled event in Malaysia, India’s Sanjay Takale is hoping for a smoother time at Japan’s Rally Hokkaido. It should be, as it’s his Japanese team Cusco Racing’s home event and for Takale too its familiar territory having competed in Hokkaido twice before.

By finishing three out the four events so far this year, Takale has racked up handy points in both the drivers’ championship and the Production Cup, a good result in Japan will consolidate his position in the series.

“My plan here is to continue developing my driving and as this is possibly my last APRC rally for this year, I want to do well here in Japan and get some good points. My goal is to win a round of the Production Cup, something I haven’t been able to do this year and this is a good opportunity”, said Takale.

As with all events in the APRC championship Rally Hokkaido has unique challenges. Takale is well aware of the technicalities of the Hokkaido rally roads, “The second pass on these stages can be very rough and you have to be very careful where you put your wheels. In some stages there are concrete gutters that can give you a puncture or worse break a wheel”.

Rally Hokkaido starts in Obihiro a city on Japan’s northern island Hokkaido, on Friday evening 26th September. The teams then compete across 18 special stages covering almost 222 kilometres before finishing on Sunday at approximately 1700 back in Obihiro.

Go here to view some footage from the Cusco Team test: http://youtu.be/W3dRKuQGiyw?list=UUdNDUhAokaIuXJwIPcs1L6A