By the numbers – Google Grant’s key numbers for Dayle ITM Goldrush Rally Coromandel
Defending Champion Ben Hunt has made a near perfect start to the pursuit of his fourth Gold Star after the 3-Round South Island section of this year’s BRIAN GREEN PROPRTY GROUP New Zealand Rally Championship.
The Nelsonian turned Aucklander came from behind on the final stage at Otago to head off fellow Skoda driver Robbie Stokes by just 2.5 seconds, led all the way at South Canterbury for a comfortable near 2 minute margin over Josh Marston (Holden Barina), but had to settle for 2nd at Canterbury as Robbie Stokes notched up his first round win, by 12 seconds.
Robbie fought back from a first stage delay at South Canterbury to finish 3rd and is therefore now 7 points behind Ben at this halfway point of the season.
Josh is third after a 4th at Otago, 2nd at South Canterbury and 6th at Canterbury, but 22 points down on Robbie.
Deane Buist has his Historic Category Ford Escort BDA in 4th with Jack Hawkeswood (Toyota GR Yaris) next and Cat 2 leader Bryn Jones completing the Top 6.
In the 2WD Championship Deane Buist is just 1 point off the maximum possible points tally – due to a 2nd on the Otago Power Stage – so has a healthy 15 point lead over Bryn Jones with fellow Cat 2 Fiesta Rally4 runner Tim Mackersy a further 17 points in arrears.
NZRC Rookie Steve Gill (Ford Escort) is 4th (63) with Gold Card drivers Pat Norris (Toyota Corolla) and Dave Strong (Honda Jazz) tied on 47.
The Rally Challenge series for the One Day teams is being dominated by Southland’s Caleb Macdonald (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6) who has won all three rounds and finds himself 24 points clear of Rookie and Junior Awards leader Josh Keighley (Subaru Magnum H6) who also leads Cat 5C.
Series Sponsor Brian Green (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9) is having a great year and is in 3rd on 57 points – 8 behind Josh – as well as leading the Gold Card series.
Cat 5B leader Ian Warren (Nissan Pulsar) is 4th while North Island Subaru drivers Ben Huband and Gavin Feast (who both didn’t do Canterbury) are 5th and 6th.
Category 2 for the FIA 2WD crews may be a bit lighter on numbers this year, but it is providing intense competition between the Fiesta Rally4’s of Cambridge’s Bryn Jones and the Dunedin husband and wife pairing of Tim and Lauren Mackersy. Single Seconds have separated them on most of the 31 special stages run so far, but it
seems Bryn has always done just enough to leave the South Island with the maximum points haul and heads back North with a 16 point lead.
Category 3 (OPEN 2WD) is also being fought out this time round by just two main contenders and it was expected that the high-powered Honda Jazz of last year’s runner-up Dave Strong would dominate over the 1600cc Toyota Corolla of Southland’s Paul Cross. It certainly looked that way after South Canterbury with Dave taking maximums at both. However the Honda was forced out with a mechanical issue very early at Canterbury, so Paul was able to take the round win at Canterbury – even though he broke an axle on the Start Line of the final stage at Ruapuna and had to nurse the car to the Finish in central Christchurch – and thereby reduce the series’ gap to just 9 points.
Category 4 – the Historic Rally Challenge – sees Deane Buist dominate the South Island rounds with a clean sweep to lead Steve Gill (2 x 2nds & a 3rd) by 18 points with the ever consistent veterans Pat Norris and Mike Cameron (Mitsubishi Lancer) fighting for the final podium position just 8 points apart.
The International Driver Award saw Julien Lenglet from Vanuatu take the lead with his win at Otago from Glenn Alcorn (Irish/Aussie) and Japan’s Fuyuhiko Takahashi who missed a great opportunity to take the lead at Canterbury, but unfortunately went off the road early in Stage 3.
The Manufacturers series is as always proving to be quite the contest with Skodas winning all three rounds, but one of each podiums sees Ford only 3 points behind, benefiting from the Cat 2 & 3 Bonus Points earned by Bryn Jones’ Cat 2 results.
Similarly it’s the Cat 2 Fiestas of Team M-Sport Rally4 (Bryn Jones & Tim Mackersy) who have topped the points at all three rounds of the Teams Cup to take a 19 point advantage into the second half of the championship over Team Dougy’s Darlings (Josh Marston & Deane Buist).
The Gills Repairs Racing Team (Steve & Paul Cross) are a further 22 points behind in 3rd.
The Teams Cup for Cat 5 has the B Class Battlers (Ian Warren & Thomas Paul) with an 11 point lead over their fellow South Islanders Caleb Macdonald and Kevin Laird in Big Belly Racing.
All 27 Categories and Awards are available at any time on the ChrisSport website via the Black ‘2025 Points’ icon on the Options Line at the top of the Home Page.
They are also available on the Mobile Version by clicking on the POINTS icon on the Footer of that Home Page and then selecting the Series you want to view.
This is the link which gets updated immediately after each Round: ChrisSport
IN THE FIGHT FOR THE GOLD STAR WHO HAS BEEN QUICKEST AND MOST CONSISTENT SO FAR
As you would expect the championship leader Ben Hunt heads both Counts.
31 Stages have been run in the first three Rounds and Ben has won 17 – 6 at Otago, All 8 at South Canterbury and 3 at Canterbury.
Robbie Stokes is next with 7 – 3 at Otago, 0 at South Canterbury and 4 to win Canterbury.
Jack Stokes has 6 – 4 on 4WD debut at Otago, 0 at South Canterbury and 2 for his first Overall NZRC Podium at Canterbury.
Jack Hawkeswood at Otago’s Waipori Gorge is the only other Stage Winner.
Stage Podiums also go Ben’s way with a total of 28 of the 31 held.
Robbie has 25 with Brother Jack next with 14 from the 19 stages he has completed.
Josh Marston has 11, Jack Hawkeswood 9, Emma Gilmour 4 with Dylan Thomson and Haydn Mackenzie both on 1 each.
AND SO WE TURN OUR ATTENTION TO COROMANDEL WHERE A VERY DIFFERENT CHALLENGE AWAITS
IT’S TIME TO GET TECHNICAL:
From flat-out blasting around the South Island the NZRC Class of 25 are in for something totally different on the Coromandel Peninsula for Round 4 this Saturday.
After a six year break, not only is it new territory for a large number of them, but it’s almost New Zealand’s version of the old WRC Tour de Corse, which was fondly referred to as ‘The Rally of 10,000 corners” due to its narrow and twisting stages.
Tight, Twisty and Technical is the best way to describe 2 of the 3 pieces of road to be used for 8 of the 9 stages with the Whitianga industrial area providing the final Spectator stage to wrap up the competition. It’s ‘only’ 1.42kms long but will be by far the slowest of any stage so far this season as the three loops were completed at an Average Speed of 70.80kph back in 2019, compared to Otago’s City Street Stage’s 83.95kph back in April.
And even Coromandel’s quickest one – Port Charles, the opening double pass from Kennedy Bay to Coromandel – is slower than most (27) of the 31 stages already contested down South.
At 96.95kph for the 22.53kms when last run in 2019, it has only a marginally faster Average Speed than Otago’s slowest road stage – Waipori Gorge 11.04kms (95.70kph), and is slightly slower than South Canterbury’s second slowest – Mount Gay Road 14.05kms (97.34kph).
The 309 Road’s 11.52kms are like a mini-Motu and at 2019’s Average Speed of 79.72kph is closer to South Canterbury’s Kakahu Forest 22.35kms (76.36kph) – and it’s set to be run 3 times this year..
The Coroglen – Tapu stage (running East to West) fits neatly between the other two roads at 87.69kph, so its 22.78kms are expected to take the top crews close to 16 minutes to complete.
All those 2019 road stage results were set by Ben Hunt and Tony Rawstorn in their championship winning Subaru WRX which they used to, almost, clean sweep that year’s series, until they were forced to stop in the penultimate stage of the final round at Waitomo while leading by almost 2 minutes, and thereby just failed to become the first crew to win all events in a Six Round Season – a feat that still remains to be achieved.
As mentioned they won that edition of Coromandel, but by far and away the closest margin of their 5 wins that year after virtually running out of fuel going round the Dakota Drive Spectator Stage. They went into the 1.42k stage with a, seemingly, comfortable 26.2 second lead over Dylan Turner & Malcolm Read in the Audi, but the (lack of) fuel issue saw them haemorrhage 23.7 of those seconds to just hold on to win by 2.5 seconds.
Fuel should not be a problem this weekend as there will be an opportunity to top up in the Service Park after the third Pass of the 309 Road.
When it comes to the 2WD competition there is a great family battle in prospect, even though only one of the family members is competing this year.
The 2WD Road Stage Records were all set by Anthony Jones in his Ford Escort in 2019 and as mentioned earlier, his son Bryn is currently leading Cat 2 for the FIA 2WD cars. After an great shootout at the Hamilton Car Club’s Hoddle Road Rallysprint last weekend where Dad went home with the Bragging Rights, the younger Jones is sure to want to set some new (at least Family) Records of his own, and stands a very good chance with the stages being repeated.
So the current 2WD Records are:
Port Charles 14:56.1 (90.51kph) on the 2nd Pass.
309 Road 9:27.5 (73.08kph) on the 2nd Pass and
Coroglen 17:07.5 (79.81kph) on the 1st Pass.
For Dakota Drive it’s Charlie Evans (Mazda RX7) 1:16.6 (66.74kph).
AND FINALLY…
We can’t let this opportunity go by without congratulating this year’s Break Through Driver and Rising Star – JACK STOKES – for his success at the
MotorSport New Zealand Elite Motorsport Academy back in July where he was awarded the Bruce McLaren Trophy as the top performing athlete.
Well Done Jack and Happy 24th Birthday this Sunday.
And at the other end of the New Zealand Rallying Involvement ‘Family’ when you come across the 00 Car on Saturday don’t forget to wish the legendary ‘MOJO’ – aka Murray O’Donnell – a Happy X4th Birthday for Monday.
For those of the younger generations MOJO was not only a very good Driver in his day, but also one of the main mechanics for another legend of the sport, Mike Marshall and then became the Route Co-Ordinator for the 5 years of the Motogard Rally from 1978 to 1982.
Since then I can’t remember a New Zealand WRC or APRC round that he hasn’t been part of the Zero Car Group clearing the stages to ensure the safety of everyone.
In more recent times he has continued his event organising work masterminding the routes for the Variety Club Bash and several similar motorised Charity Fund Raising Fun Runs.
Happy Birthday for Monday MOJO.
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