Smoke of gunpowder rises with roaring war drum
In October of golden autumn, both the fourth station of Asian Pacific Rally Championship and the final arena of National Auto Rally Championship this year are held in the important city of Shaoguang in north Guangdong province. Heroes from all over the country have arrived here before the beginning of competition. In the encampment where they are stationed, racing cars drive in and out in public with roaring noise for last commissioning. Drivers are all well prepared for the coming race with great courage and determination to win over others. For the powerful Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team that has only slim advantage in score, its result of this match may have a great impact on its possibility of continuing to hold the title of annual champion. Consequently, this team will never overlook the result of this competition. Since its arrival in Shaoguang, the 333 team has begun competing with several major rivals, intriguing an profound atmosphere of competition.

Feature 1:
Facing the coming match, mechanics of all the teams have begun their competition on October 18, the day before commencement of official match. Maintenance area of Stage 1 is located in Maba town of Qujiang county of Shaoguang. To get the most favorable place for setting up the maintenance tent, the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team has gone to Maba maintenance area in the afternoon of October 18 without finishing car check. However, the maintenance truck encountered their counterparts of Honghe team. The competition atmosphere between the two most famous race teams obviously affected the mood of their mechanics. On the 50 kilometers long road leading to the maintenance area, the two trucks with bright color began their battle of taking the lead in entering the maintenance area. Mechanic Wang of the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team who is called as the best driver only next to the four active racing car drivers in Shanghai took the lead in occupying the best section of the maintenance area after four times of overtaking. In spite of fatigue for days, this interesting thing really made the team happy for a long time.

This time, it’s still the perfect four drivers Wang Rui, Xu Lang, Li Junyi, and Wang Shaofeng that join this match on behalf of the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team. In this year’s National Rally Championship, they formed a 333 chariot, making a sudden attack against other rivals in Shanghai, winning fame in Wuhan, and putting on a wonderful play of surviving in dangerous situation in Beijing. After one month’s rest, they will continue to use the POLOgti racing car that had brilliant performance in last year’s Shaoguang rally. Because of subtle changes both in the arena and outside it, this team uses all of its force to go to south China for participating in this rally with full confidence of winning.

Background information 1:
The most important titles of the National Rally Championship include “Manufacturer Cup” and the annual general champion of the “Federation Cup” which represents the competitiveness of the race team as a whole. In the battle to win the annual champion, every team should have at least two racing cars taking part in the match, and the total score of a team is the sum of the scores of its two best racing cars. Because in the previous several stations, only a few teams registered in the large cubic capacity group N (Group N4), and there is large gap among their competitiveness, so the Honghe team got all the champion titles of group N. However, the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team takes part in the other group of 1600CC Cup in which forces of large numbers of rivals are close to each other. It is the total strength of the team that enables this team to keep slim advantage in the Federation Cup. In spite of this fact, the team keeps cautious optimism without boasting of victory in every match. The situation in the match of Shaoguang really encourages the team. It seems that POLOgti does fit the rally in China. Compared with other racing cars of same level, the excellent capability of POLOgti prevails over other teams. In Group N, besides Honghe team, the Jiatong team has a famous driver Ren Zhiguo who joined the team just before the match, meanwhile, other drivers of Jiatong team will also wage threat against Honghe team. The host team of Shaoguang Jisu also cannot be ignored. It has been proved that its driver Hua Qingxian surprised all the experts with his performance.

Developing plans secretly at night:
On the night of October 18, the writer got the news and chance of auditing the strategic meeting of the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team before the match. However, Zhuwei, the team manager, made an unexpected arrangement to mislead the competitors by asking all of us, except drivers, Chinese and German directors, to stand outside of the headquarters. Reporters going there for news were really hit hard, only getting access to part of information by standing close to the door.

In the mysterious atmosphere, the battle plan of the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team came on.

Background information 2:
The auto manufacturer cup has belonged to the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team before the Shaoguang rally. So the struggle for the Federation Cup attracted extreme attention. To win this Cup, drivers of a team must have coordination in a well-organized way. It’s necessary for a team to hold a meeting before the match to confirm which driver should take the lead and which driver should defend in every section of the match.

The defending champion mauled heavily under numerous attacks:
At the very beginning of the match, when people focused on who would get the final victory among several top drivers such as Wang Rui, champion of Beijing Rally, and Xu Lang, champion of 2001 Shaoguang Asian-Pacific Rally Championship, both of whom are from Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team. Xu Lang failed and was thrown out of the rank because of his carelessness and unforgivable mistake. This also announced the champion of 2001 would get nothing this year.

Feature 2:
Xu Lang has long been unbeatable in the gravel road. This time, he used POLOgti racing car in Shaoguang, and had full confidence before the match. Maybe his best performance came too early. In the second lap of the match, he got No.1 by winning over all domestic racing cars of large cubic capacity with his 1.6L POLOgti. Whereas, in that afternoon, he encountered a puncture. Xu Lang only fixed two screws among four because of wanting to catch up with other drivers urgently. As a consequence, tire of his car got out of control and was separated with the car shortly after Xu Lang restarted his journey. Inconceivably, Xu Lang lost his leading position.

After the end of match of first day, the No. 21 racing car driven by Wang Rui took the lead in place of Xu Lang. The situation of Wang’s racing car was extremely nice. It just underwent some minus repair after entering the maintenance stop, and gave mechanics a lot of time to rest. And then, Wang drove his car to line up in the time point. Although Wang Rui consolidated his advantage in the first day, and gap of two minutes were not easy to overtake for any rival, Li Junyi, last year’s general champion who belonged to the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team still achieved good performance. Li Junyi kept close to Wang Rui and was ranked second. Wang Shaofeng, another driver renowned as “general in blue” didn’t give good performance, only ranked after sixth.
To get the Federation Cup, a team must get both champion and runner up. However, Li Junyi had not consolidated his advantage, any mistakes of top drivers would cause changes in ranking. It seemed that real competition would start in the second day.

Break through in the battle! Victory of 333 is still hanging!
Just like anticipation, a scrimmage for ranking began in the first lap of the match of second day on the whole.
The battle plan of the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team was adjusted immediately. Wang Rui, as the major force, began defending his first position, while Li Junyi and Wang Shaofeng played the role of barrier by besieging other drivers. They gradually increase scores by pressing other drivers from the front and the rear, and urging rivals to make mistakes in order to get the best ranking and score. Xu Lang played the role of hussar, mainly aiming at struggling for “king of speed” and preventing rivals from having first position in every section of match.
The four drivers completely implement the strategy of the team, and the match went on according to the plan. Wang Rui continued to get success on his road and enlarge his advantage. Rivals chasing after him nearly had no chance of overtaking him. Li Junyi, in this case, began to do what he want, cast off all the chasers, and consequently consolidated his second position. Other rivals, one after another, suffered time-penalty, large maintenance and exit because of chasing or narrowly catching up with top drivers. The battleground was filled with chaos.

Meanwhile, the situation of Honghe team, the major rival for the Federation Cup, in the group N, was absolutely favorable for the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team. Cheng Zihua, who boasted of having no real rivals in this match, only ranked third after two days of competition, while Hua Qingxian of Shaoguang team ranked first. This situation couldn’t be more favorable for the 333 racing car team. Whereas, accidental situation emerged when they were smiling in their camp. The situation on the battleground went down sharply in the third day…
The final, bathed in victory
Hua Qingxian suffered time penalty because of two mistakes of his co-driver in the third day and did not enter the stop according to the time set by the match organizer. For a driver, one match could not afford two time penalties. Finally, he only got second prize, and lost the championship to the Honghe team. Undoubtedly, Honghe team had chances of regaining victory. Luck did them a great favor, meanwhile, made the 333 team of Shanghai Volkswagen unhappy about the uncertainties.

There was no suspense about Wang Rui’s final victory. He had advantage of 6 minutes in gaining champion of 1.6L Cup. For the veteran driver Li Junyi, if he wanted to consolidate his position, no one can hamper him. He finished all of the 17 laps of the match as a runner up. Unfortunately, Wang Shaofeng’s car had six punctures in one match. His credit could hardly bring up any honor to himself.

Champion and runner up of group super 1600CC were seized. Although Honghe team fortunately won the champion, Chen Zihua, one of its major drivers, only ranked third. Basically speaking, the winner of the Federation Cup of this stop was confirmed, the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team finished match of the whole year with advantage of 20 points.

Background information 3:
According to the regulation of the China Auto Sports Federation, teams participating in international matches can get additional scores. If one team gets score in an international match, its credit will be added to its score in domestic title match. It means that in the Thailand station, the last of the Asian-Pacific Rally, both Honghe team which wants to have the final struggle and the Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team are likely to take part in the match. However, there is a gap of 20 points, it will be very hard for Honghe team to get its success if the two teams both register for the international match.

Epilogue:
The Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Team that uses the third generation of Polo racing car of sport style becomes the biggest winner of this match. This team ranked first in the Federation Cup and the group N of the Asian-Pacific Rally Championship, got both champion and runner up of the super 1600CC Cup and the group N2. At the same time, it ranked among the top six of the group N, and won the auto Manufacturer Cup for Shanghai Volkswagen. All these honors enable this team be proud of itself before other teams in China, and give a nice end to all the matches this year.