Subaru's Pat Richard claims victory at Rallye Defi

    MISSISSAUGA, ON, Sept. 11 /CNW/ - Subaru Rally Team Canada driver Pat
Richard and co-driver Alan Ockwell set an unrelenting pace in their 2008
Impreza STI to finish first at this year's Rallye Defi in Ste-Agathe.
    Second place in Ste-Agathe went to Bill Bacon and Peter Watt in their
Mitsubishi EVO IX. Craig Henderson and Lyne Murphy of St-Constant, Québec,
driving their Subaru Impreza WRX finished in third place. Antoine L'Estage and
co-driver Nathalie Richard were on pace for a podium finish until an engine
failure in their Hyundai Tiburon put them out of the contest.
    "It's great to have won of course, but I was really looking forward to
battling with Antoine on the longer stages, so I'm disappointed they weren't
able to finish," said Richard. "It was a tough event - a lot of entries
weren't able to finish - so it was as much a victory over this rugged course
as it was over the other cars and drivers."
    The top place finish takes Richard to an almost unbeatable 80 points in
the battle for the championship, with just two races left in the Canadian
series while Subaru leads the Manufacturers Championship by 20 points over
Mitsubishi going into the final two events.

    The Canadian Rally Championship is comprised of six events across Canada
between February and November. The next event is in Merritt, British
Columbia-the Pacific Forest Rally, October 17-18, 2008./NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release is available on
    the CNW Photo Network and archived at http://photos.newswire.ca.
    Additional archived images are also available on the CNW Photo Archive
    website at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are free to accredited
    members of the media/

For further information: Elaine Griffin, [phone]