Cunningham the new ‘World’s Fastest Maori’

Cunningham the new ‘World’s Fastest Maori’

With another strong performance at Rally Hawkes Bay over the weekend, Clint Cunningham is a strong contender for the unofficial title of ‘The World’s Fastest Maori’.

After a hectic two weeks that involved not only rebuilding the car from the biggest crash of his career, but also finding a new co-driver with regular co-driver Greg Ruka unavailable for the event, Cunningham and Dave Devonport set a string of top ten stage times to move up to a fantastic sixth place after stage four.

As more fancied runners recovered from earlier problems, Cunningham continued at a solid pace in the RCK Contractors Mitsubishi Evo 4 and still maintained his top ten position, dropping to ninth after using gravel tyres on the all-tarmac 12km stage eight.

With a top ten result, not to mention a class podium, all but in the bag heading into the final stage, Cunningham experienced the lowest of lows that rallying can offer when a fuel pump wire came loose and stopped the car with only 500 metres remaining. Although he was able to make a temporary repair and finish the event, more than three and a half minutes were lost, dropping Cunningham to 15th and off the class podium places.

“It really was a fantastic day, right up until the final hurdle,” said Cunningham. “To have a problem so close to the finish was tough, but we also set a whole heap of top ten stage times which is really encouraging and pleasing.”

Cunningham and the RCK Contractors Rally Team now turn their attention to the third round of both the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship and Rally Xtreme series’, the Daybreaker Rally in the Manawatu, on June 29.
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