From the Service Park – Rally Bay of Plenty
This edition of From the Service Park is more of a visual one thanks to so many of our men (and women) in the field for dobbing in their mates.
Whoops
It all started on Friday at recce when Bryn Jones decided to walk up the road to check where a stage actually started only to have a little whoopsie caught on camera…
Check out the footage below courtesy of Dylan Thomson.
BB gets lost (again)
It is becoming something of a habit these days, but Blair Bartels managed to get lost once again at Rally Bay of Plenty.
Heading back to the NZRC crew’s accommodation at Mount Maunganui after Friday night’s ceremonial opening, he took a wrong turn and started heading back to Auckland by mistake, much to the delight of the rest of the team following him.
It follows similar incidents at Whangarei last year and at Southern Lights Rally back in June.
What was BB up to?
This column received a photo of Bartels in a weird stance and we have been trying to identify exactly what the championship coordinator was up to at the time the pic was snapped.
Our best guesses are a pre-event haka, the starting of a sumo bout, setting up to be the bottom row in a human pyramid and trying out as Quasimodo in the 16th Avenue Theatre’s production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Hudson one-two
A big congratulations must go to the Hudson family after kids Jared and Amy Hudson finished one-two in the overall Battery Town Rally Bay of Plenty.
Jared sat next to rally winner Hayden Paddon while Amy co-drove for runner-up Mike Young.
Fresh off both co-driving stars recording their 50th rally at Daybreaker, it proved a proud moment for renowned co-driving parents Rocky and Lisa Hudson, who were on hand to watch over the weekend.
Who is calling it quits?
Which leading NZRC star, who won a class championship in the past couple of years, is calling it quits at the end of the season?
The driver in question has proven himself with results and is ready to take a break and focus on other areas in 2025.
Which bit is the rack?
Jay Pittams showed a nice touch by baking one of his crew a birthday cake over the weekend.
Grunta was celebrating a birthday and the talented Pittams showcased his creative genius in assembling the tasty treat below – apparently accurate to scale.
Bay of Plenty mafia battle royale
Speaking of Pittams – he and a number of other local drivers put on an epic show over the weekend as they battled it out for bragging rights (and a fairly sizeable prize to the winning driver at the pub on Saturday night).
Gavin Feast was the one to triumph in a battle that included Andy Martin, Jay Pittams and Phil Macquarie.
Two cars, one driver, one stage
Yup, this rare feat managed to occur over the weekend. How? Well, let’s just say a particular driver left his car strewn in a dangerous spot. While the driver in question was up the road warning traffic, his co-driver was frantically trying to free the car.
Then an arriving car stopped and assisted by towing the stricken car out of a tight spot with the driver jumping into the stricken car and the co-driver operating his own car.
We’ll let you work out who we are talking about.
Breakfast of champions
While checking the leading cars out at the start of SS3, the NZRC live team took the chance to ask our leading combatants what they had for breakfast on the morning of competition.
Ben Hunt couldn’t remember what he had, Robbie Stokes had a pair of Weetbix, while Zeal Jones opted to skip breakfast and eat at the first service.
Emma Gilmour was our pick for best brekky, going with a pair of poached eggs on English muffins.
Rally winner Hayden Paddon was too put off to answer by Budgie’s cell phone cover – a Mickey Mouse number that is apparently a “gift that he has to use.”
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