Group A Challenge – mid-season update
The Group A Challenge saw six cars cross the start ramp at the opening round, Rally Otago.
Returning with their Subaru Impreza H6’s were Paul Cross/Janey Blair, James Macdonald/Josh Edwards and Amy Keighley with a new co-driver in Grant Marra for the year. They’d be up against the Mitsubishi Evo 3 of Andrew & Hayden Graves and the traditionally powered Subaru Impreza of Jay Pittams/JP van der Meys. For the opening round, they’d also have the guest entry of Brandon Semenuk/Keaton Williams, the two-time defending ARA American Rally champions, experiencing an H6 Subaru for the first time.
Running as a part of the Rally Challenge 4WD class in the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, Group A Challenge competitors would do all of their point scoring on the opening day, which would take the crews to the wide open roads bordering Lawrence, before racing back towards Dunedin on completely contrasting roads that included slippery forestry and the notoriously tight and twisty Waipori Gorge and finishing with the Tarmac Super Special stage around Dunedin’s Wharf area.
Graves would immediately jump into the lead, not an unexpected result given he had won multiple editions of the Lawrence Rally in the past. Semenuk however was hot on his heels, just 12.6 seconds behind after the opening pair of stages. Behind them was a fierce battle for the final podium spot between Pittams on his first rally in the South Island and the H6’s of Macdonald and Cross, less than 20 seconds separating the trio in that order at the first service.
Unfortunately for the international visitor, Semenuk would puncture in SS3, losing more than 5 minutes and any chance of a good result. Behind the lead, Macdonald would slowly overcome Pittams before the latter took a trip through a fence later in the day, surviving the scare minus a front bumper and thirty seconds. That would leave him third at days end, ahead of Cross, a recovering Semenuk and Keighley.
With Semenuk’s appearance a one-off for the year, the remaining five would head to Rally South Canterbury for round 2, a glut of gravel highways punctuated by a slippery forestry stage early on, before concluding with a blast around levels raceway.
Graves would again set the pace while Pittams and Macdonald swapped second a third places three times in the first three stages, a storming run through the forestry stage giving Pittams the upper hand by a minute at the first service.
Macdonald would fight back and take time out of Pittams on each of the remaining stages and overhaul him on the final gravel stage. That would prove crucial as Graves would retire with gearbox failure, promoting Macdonald into the lead, Pittams retained second with Cross and Keighley moving into third and fourth respectively.
The third and most recent round to date would see teams return to the Southland region for the first time in 20 years to tackle the Southern Lights Rally. Keighley would miss the event through work commitments and it looked like Graves would miss the event too as he awaited gearbox parts that turned up three days before the rally, meaning he would line up against Macdonald, Pittams and Cross.
As well as taking championship rallying back to the Southland region, it saw the return of dark stages, tackling the infamous Pebbly Hills stage on Friday night before a pre-dawn Stage 2 measuring close to 46 kilometres.
Knowing he needed full points to boost his championship chances, Graves laid down his marker early and would have a lead of more than two minutes by the time the sun came up on Saturday morning. Macdonald and Cross were a lot closer, but neither claimed a clean run through the long stage, dust holding up Macdonald while Cross hit a bank with the rear of the car. Both would have a better start to the day than Pittams though, with a flat battery in overnight parc ferme and a broken CV joint touring to stage one ending his day before it began.
The three remaining competitors would hold position across the remainder of the day, seeing Graves take the win ahead of Macdonald and Cross.
After three rounds, Macdonald and Edwards lead the standings on 78 points, 13 points ahead of the Cross/Blair and Graves/Graves combinations who sit equal on 65. Pittams/van der Meys hold fourth on 51 while Keighley and Marra sit fifth on 37.
The format of the series sees the best three of the first five rounds, plus the series finale at Whangarei, count towards competitors final scores so there are plenty of opportunities for a shake up the leaderboard before the end of the year.
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