The 2008 FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) series (that consists of seven events) officially began in New Caledonia. Headquarter of the rally was located at the famous resort town of Noumea.
　
The opening day comprised the ceremonial start and two very short Super Special Stages (SSS). The two ADVAN equipped cars, run by CUSCO RACING, finished the day solidly in third and fourth before the start of tests on Saturday.
　
On April 12th, a full-scale battle began under clear skies. It was expected to be a tough one because the road surfaces in New Caledonia are infamous for being slippery due to dust and small stones.
　
CUSCO RACING's crews steadily ran through the stages, adjusting their suspension setups and tire pressures to deal with the difficult surface conditions. As a result of their thorough approach, Dean Herridge scored a stage win in SS11 "No Bo 3" (15.59km) which was the final SS of the day. At the finish of Leg1B, the Australian driver stayed in third and his teammate Hiroshi Yanagisawa in fourth but it looked quite possible for them to move up in the ranks in Leg 2.
　
However, Leg 2 was mired with rain. The conditions were so bad that the organizers even considered the possibility of canceling some of the stages.
　
The day consisted of four special stages and the first of them was SS12 "Katrikoin 1" (35.41km) which was the longest one of the rally. And it turned out to be the toughest one. Because the surfaces were so muddy, it wasn't easy going even with the all wheel drive rally cars equipped with mud tires.
　
The rally cars had to drive through the stage very, very slowly as if they aren't racing at all. In this stage, Yanagisawa slipped off the course over a weak shoulder when he had just cleared a hair pin corner and had to retire from the rally. It was a shame for the team because the Japanese driver was upbeat and marked some comparable times to the rally leader, Katsuhiko Taguchi.
　
As Herridge was now two minutes behind the leader and three minutes ahead of the third placed driver after this stage, he chose not to take any unnecessary risks in the rest of the rally and eventually finished in second.

　[Result: 2nd overall]
"I couldn't go flat out in the early stages because the car tended to oversteer but I managed to mark the fastest stage time after some set up adjustments."
"For this team, I am a newcomer and not really settled in yet but I would like to thank everybody of the team for their efforts which brought us this second place finish."
"I will try to do my best in the next round in Australia because it is my home event."
　
(Note: This comment is reverse-translated from a Japanese text.)

"The surfaces of the stages in this round inherently have a good level of grip if they are dry. But when wet, they became extremely slippery because the soil is argillaceous.
"We put all the data from the gravel tire development in the P-WRC (the FIA Production Car World Rally Championship) until last season into the specification of the tires we used here.
"We used Mitsubishi Lancers for tire development in P-WRC but the two Imprezas equipped with the tires performed well here. This is proof that the basic specifications are good and we have been in the right direction in the development. One of our main concerns was resolved, I should say.
"As for the rally itself, we would like to thank Dean (Herridge) for his good performance despite the fact that this was the first time for him to compete in New Caledonia. It was a pity that Hiroshi (Yanagisawa) had to retire due to the course off because a podium finish was within his reach."