Championship the focus, says van Klink

Championship the focus, says van Klink

Kaiapoi’s Marcus van Klink will be driving with his head rather than his heart as he looks to defend his lead in two series at the Otago Classic Rally, which will run from May 25-27.

After a stellar start to the 2012 season, van Klink is a dominant leader in the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, powered by Brother, and also leads the prestigious two-round Classic Challenge series after a strong win in the opening round, Rally Wairarapa, last month.

Otago and its infamous classic rally, regarded as the best in the southern hemisphere, attracts the best classic vehicles from New Zealand and abroad, all wanting to take home the spoils. Last year, van Klink teamed up with Dave Neill for the first time and was making his first outing in the Mico Plumbing supplies Group B Mazda RX-7, but still managed three fastest stage times on the second day, however hitting a bank and breaking a wheel put paid to a podium finish.

This year, van Klink is sixth seed for the classic rally and is amongst the favourites despite taking on competitors that have won rally championships in Australia, New Zealand and Britain, as well as three World Champions. However crucially for him, none of the five cars ahead of him that are entered in the national championship, nor did they contest the opening round of the classic challenge.

But van Klink maintains that as nice as it would be to win the rally, it will be a big ask with the opposition and that the two championships that the rally counts towards are more important than potentially throwing away points over fighting for a win.

“It will be really interesting, guys like Gwyndaf Evans and Hayden Paddon will be quick, especially on the night stages,” says van Klink. “Last year was the first time we ran the car and we are definitely going a lot faster than we were last year, although the night stages will be tough. However the main focus has got to be the national championship and it would also be great to wrap up the Classic Challenge.”

Rally Otago gets underway with a ceremonial start in Dunedin’s Octagon on Friday night before contesting three special stages. Saturday sees a further seven gravel special stages north of Dunedin before the infamous tarmac street stage to round out the opening leg. Day two sees a further six special stages, including stage 14, the days third, which offers NZRC bonus points as the power stage, before the ceremonial finish at the Dunedin Railway station at 4.35pm.

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