Rally championship heads to southern winter

Attention editor - for immediate release 11 May 2009.

Media release: Vantage Aluminium Joinery 2009 New Zealand Rally Championship, on behalf of The Motorsport Company

Round two: Southern Cross Hotel Rally of Otago (16-17 May).

Rally championship heads to southern winter

Heading for the deep south, the Vantage New Zealand Rally Championship’s second of five rounds in the 2009 season will be based from the Otago hold of Dunedin this coming weekend (15-17 May).

In stark contrast to the dry dusty and mild conditions of the season opener six weeks prior in the Hawke’s Bay, the two-day and 255 kilometres of competition offered by the Southern Cross Hotel Rally of Otago introduces an additional test for the teams.

The coldest and most southern journey by New Zealand’s top-twenty teams, arduous weather will again add to their Dunedin programme. Beginning with a car show and autograph signing session at the Edgar Centre on Friday night, the teams then have two days of competition through roads north and south of the Dunedin base.

Leading the field away for the Otago weekend following their dominating first round performance, husband and wife pairing Richard and Sara Mason say the cold brings a mix of fortunes.

“Our Dunlop tyres have quite a (heat) range on them so the cold doesn’t affect them a whole lot. But it does affect the car; nice cold air through the intercooler does give it a bit more grunt – which makes it a bit more enjoyable to drive, especially on those fast bits,” said the former two-time champion Richard Mason.

Starting the weekend in their BNT Subaru with the current championship lead, it is a position the Masterton based pair has previously dominated from despite the potential for setback by having to carve an initial path through the gravel roads.

“It does make it harder being first on the road. Generally speaking no matter where you are in New Zealand there is always a layer of gravel on top of the road, so if you’re first, you are the one carving your way through it really – so the people behind do get an advantage as they can follow your lines.”

Necessitating perfection in the descriptive note to describe the road direction, Mason says detail is the key:
”If we are going to a stage where we already have good notes, we start looking for anything extra we might be able to put in there. For arguments sake; a cut on a corner or maybe looking out for boulders in the grass that might be a ‘don’t cut’, just really adding the detail and fine tuning.”

As defending champion, Geraldine’s Hayden Paddon and co-driver John Kennard arrive in Dunedin fresh from action in Australia where they finished the weekend’s Queensland Rally in tenth after running a comfortable fourth for most of the event.

Switching to his New Zealand based Team Green Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 9 – a left-hand-drive car, Paddon’s previous best result in 2008 was second to Mason, where he will start from for the weekend – placed second in the championship.

Joining the championship competition at group-two level, Alexandra based charger Andrew Hawkeswood introduces his open-class Mitsubishi Lancer to the premier group one production category dominated field. Having previous podium results in Otago, Hawkeswood says he likes the fast nature of the event: “I like the flowing features, the nice camber, predictable surface – it just suits the way I drive.”

Returning to her hometown for the weekend, the now Hamilton based Emma Gilmour and co-driver Glenn Macneall also have podium results; their Vantage Subaru Impreza STI finishing second overall behind the Mason’s in 2007.

Starting from fifth position, with three prior consecutive victories, Chris West returns in a Mitsubishi Lancer with former co-driver Chris Cobham following the term retirement of Gary Cowan.

Mixed in to the field, Group N two-wheel-drive champion Patrick Malley and co-driver Malcolm Read top the smaller-car stakes in their Ford Fiesta ST150.

The first of five Fiesta’s to the world specification, Ashburton’s Tony Foster and co-driver Lisa Hudson will have their larger two-litre Fiesta present to try out-pacing the junior development field. Running behind Kiwi-2 and rally exponent Reg Cook and co-driver Mark Ballantyne in the Nissan Micra, the two wheel category also includes New Zealand’s first bio-diesel fuelled car.

Christchurch’s Matt Summerfield starts his second championship event in the Skoda Fabia vRS, with the 16-year old piloting the Allan Geddes owned car using fuel produced by his bio-diesel distributing father Les.

With the two-day rally separated in to three fields, entries in the classic category run in the Dunlop International Classic competition is headed by Australian based Alister McRae and co-driver Erin Kyle in a Ford Escort RS1800.

Current champion Rob Wylie and co-driver Paul Turner top the championship field in their Nissan 240RS, with Taranaki’s Mike and Helen Cameron (Mitsubishi Lancer) starting 36th in a field of 39 cars.

Following the 4pm Friday afternoon motorshow at the Edgar Centre, Dunedin’s Mayor will partake in an official opening at 6:30pm heading the teams in to a night’s rest before the 7:30 Saturday morning departure from outside the Southern Cross Hotel. Completing seven stages to the south of Dunedin the teams return for the 2.15km tarmac Super Special stage around Dunedin’s industrial area from 3pm.

Restarting at 7:15am on the Sunday outside the Southern Cross Hotel, teams have a further six stages, five of them based around Middlemarch in the north.

Introducing additional competition, organisers have set out a quarter-mile timing mark at the start of the Hartfield Road stage (SS11) – where the first 400 metres is dead straight, to record teams’ time over the standing start distance.

Along with numerous spectator opportunities at road junctions, designated areas at stages two, four, five, seven, ten, 13 and 14 will provide additional viewing.

With a 42.3km finale through the southern-set Berwick forest early Sunday afternoon, the cars return for a champagne finish in Dunedin’s Octagon from 2:30pm.

Maps and further information can be downloaded from the event website: www.otagorally.co.nz

Ends.

Vantage Aluminium Joinery New Zealand Rally Championship – points (top five – first of five rounds).

Gold Star overall and Premier Group one (N4 and N3 classes)
1: Richard Mason (Masterton) – Subaru 74
2: Hayden Paddon (Geraldine) – Mitsubishi 62
3: Emma Gilmour (Hamilton) – Subaru 52
4: Matt Jansen (Christchurch) – Subaru – 41
5= Josh Marston (Christchurch) – Mitsubishi 32
5= Patrick Malley (Auckland) – Ford 32

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