Dilusi achieves goals at Rally Whangarei

Dilusi achieves goals at Rally Whangarei

Team Dilusi, the sole Northland based rally team campaigning this year’s ‘Brother’ New Zealand Rally Championship (NZRC) had some big expectations riding on their shoulders going into last weekend’s 2012 International Rally of Whangarei. The event was the first Round of the NZRC and covered 283 kilometres of Special Stages over Saturday and Sunday on fast, flowing and technical roads between Whangarei and Maungaturoto.

The mission for the weekend was to achieve two things for Team driver and Kerikeri resident, Kingsley Thompson: get on the podium and secure some all important Championship Points.

Straight out of the blocks on Saturday morning’s first stage Thompson and co-driver John Allen from Australia, went about setting top three stage times. They maintained a consistent pace for the remainder of the stages to end Day 1 in 2nd place behind experienced campaigner Emma Gilmour.

After regrouping on Saturday night the Team headed into Day 2 with their sights set on capturing the top spot from Gilmour. The first two stages of Sunday morning saw the boys with a slim advantage after improving their previous day’s pace.

Unfortunately for the Team, they suffered a broken rear drive shaft toward the end of Special Stage 11 The Team elected to continue on through the next 20km stage ‘Waipu Caves’ in two wheel drive mode and then try and limp back to the service area in Whangarei.

“I have to give credit to the service crew who worked frantically at the 15 minute service to successfully replace the broken shaft” says Thompson. However the repercussions of driving so far with the broken shaft also damaged the rear differential. With no service time remaining the crew made the difficult decision to continue on in two wheel drive mode and try to salvage as many points as possible to set a strong start to the Championship.

After completing the second half of the day, Co-driver, Allen was surprised that the car had survived the 61kms of special stages and still managed to limp back to the finish “I never thought that the car would survive that distance with ratchet straps holding the rear diff in place. Full credit to Kingsley for driving a very ill handling car all afternoon and still bringing it home without a scratch”.

This perseverance allowed the Team to salvage a podium spot and gain a 3rd place in the premier NZRC Group N class and 17 points for the weekend.

The Team now set their sights on the next round, Rally Wairarapa, on the 28th and 29th of April and will head there with a strong head start on points.

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