The penultimate round of the China Rally Championship (CRC) took place in Long You, ZheJiang Province, as a combined event with the final round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) series. Therefore, fierce battles were expected in this event between the strong APRC regular drivers, who had competed in the Asian and Pacific countries, and local drivers from the CRC, as the Chinese drivers have lately been showing significant progress by international standards.

Dean Herridge of Subaru Rally Team China found himself standing in the center of attention during the rainy ceremonial start on Friday. A regular participant of the CRC, Herridge has also taken part in the APRC series this year as a member of the Cusco Rally Team, so he was going to contend for two titles in this event: the APRC drivers' championship and the CRC teams' championship.

He finished third in the first super special stage and first among the CRC contenders. In the National Class, in which only two-wheel-drive cars are eligible, the drivers from two YOKOHAMA equipped Volkswagen factory teams, Yiqi VW and Shanghai VW, occupied all of the top eight slots.

It rained again on Saturday and all stages of the day (total competitive distance was 125km) were run on wet and slippery surfaces. On top of this, lots of hard stones were buried in the muddy surfaces, which made the conditions tougher for tires in terms of wear rate and durability.

But after displaying some impressive performances along with other ADVAN equipped drivers, Herridge had a problem in his transmission and the team made an emergency call to change it during the 20-minute third service of the day. His mechanics scrambled through the task and sent him back to the competition with only a five minute delay.

Despite a 50 second penalty given for the overtime at the service, he managed to finish the day in fourth overall and second in the CRC division with only an eight second gap behind the leader. The result told how fast he was in stages.

Herridge's teammate, Li Wei, was in second among the Chinese drivers. The National Class was a bit more eventful and two of the leading competitors, Wang Rui in a Shanghai VW Polo and Liu Bin in an Yiqi VW Golf, were forced to retire due to mechanical problems in SS7 and SS9 respectively (SS8 was cancelled). As a result, the top slot of the class was to be contended by Qin FaWei and Chen Dean of Yiqi VW and Han Han driving another Shanghai VW Polo.

Although the rain ceased on Sunday, the surfaces were still wet and slippery. The competitors needed to be extremely careful to avoid skidding and going off course.

The Subaru Rally Team China's ace displayed splendid driving in the first stage of the day and moved up to third overall, thus taking the lead in the CRC division. He eventually kept the position until the finish and brought home the first ever win in a CRC event for the team.

As the National Cup contenders skipped the last two stages, the second service of the day became a de facto finish for them. After Qin FaWei and Chen Dean prematurely ended their rally one after another during the final day, Han Han inherited the class win, followed by his teammate Zhang YuMing. This meant the 1600cc Polos finished in first and second, beating all 2000cc cars. With Huang XuMing in a Yiqi VW Sagitar finishing in third, the podium of the National Cup class was again occupied by three YOKOHAMA equipped drivers.