Rally Challenge 4WD – mid-season update
The Rally Challenge 4WD class has been one of the most competitive classes in the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship all season, with a total of 14 teams fronting to tackle the first three rounds.
Kicking off the season at the Otago Rally, there was plenty of interest in how the challenge class would play out. Both title protagonists from last year, Jeff Ward and Zeal Jones, had moved on and the question of who would take their spot was about as easy to pick as the winning lottery numbers.
Fastest out of the blocks on the opening stage were Caleb MacDonald and Australian co-driver Larissa Biggar in their Mitsubishi Evo 6, the pair taking the stage win by just over 5 seconds from Andrew and Hayden Graves in their Mitsubishi Evo 3, while Carter Strang and Catriona Flynn were third in their Mitsubishi Evo 10.
The top of the leaderboard would contain those names for most of the day, Canadian superstar Brandon Semenuk and Keaton Williams challenging the leaders early before suffering a puncture while Mark McMillan and Tim Driscoll were also in the fight, but 40 seconds of time penalties dropped them from what should have been second place down to fourth.
So at the end of the opening round, it was Graves taking the win by 1 minute 33.4 seconds, beating home Strang who held off MacDonald by just 5.7 seconds. McMillan would take fourth ahead of Vanuatu visitor Julien Lenglet with Ben Huband with Gavin Feast/Matt Hayward rounding out the top six. Then a group of H6 Subarus led by James Macdonald/Josh Edwards, Jay Pittams/JP Van der Meys (in a traditional turbo Impreza), Paul Cross/Janey Blair, Semenuk, Amy Keighley/Grant Marra and the father/daughter combo of Dave Ollis/Gemma Thomas. The class would see only one retirement, that of series sponsor Brian Green and Brianna Little, leaving the road in their Mitsubishi Evo 9.
The second round took crews to the South Canterbury Rally and while the class lost a couple of international visitors in Lenglet and Semenuk, as well as Ollis, however joining the field were front runners from seasons gone by, Dave Sievers and Kieran Anstis.
Just like Otago, Caleb MacDonald took the early honours with an opening stage win, but Graves took the second and Sievers the third stage win, while consistency would see Mark McMillan again right in the battle, third after three stages. Graves would take each of the next three stages to open a gap, with Sievers admitting the Southland man ‘is quick!’. However gearbox failure would stop Graves in SS7. James Macdonald would impressively take the stage win in his underpowered Subaru, but Sievers would slot into the lead, a place he’d stay through to the end.
Behind him, Caleb MacDonald slotted into second and Strang into third, having fought back from a pair of early punctures. James Macdonald came home in fourth, edging out Pittams by just 5.5 seconds, then Feast, Cross and Keighley led home Green, relieved to make the finish. Graves would be joined on the retirement list by McMillan, with suspension damage ending an impressive run that saw him as high as third.
The third round took crews to Invercargill for the Southern Lights Rally and the field was missing Sievers and Keighley. Lucky to make the start was Graves, gearbox parts arriving just in time to get the car to the event a few hours before the start.
One curve ball for the teams was the introduction of dark stages, both on the Friday night and Saturday morning. Graves would prove to be the dark master, emerging from the second stage with a lead of 59 seconds over Caleb MacDonald, who was relieved to still be in the rally after an off in the dust removed the rear wing from his Evo 6. He was in turn ahead of Strang and McMillan, the pair entirely on home turf.
The only casualties of the event were dealt their fate before the end of SS2, Pittams car failing to restart after the overnight parc ferme, then when it did fire broke a CV joint on the tour to SS2, while a broken ball joint put Feast off the road in SS2.
SS3 was the stage McMillan learnt to drive on (of course at speeds that were entirely legal) so it didn’t surprise many of his rivals that he took his first stage win of the season, but unfortunately on the next stage tackled a jump over a bridge flat out (it was flat in his old Subaru Leone), but got bogged in the mud and lost several minutes and the chance of a podium finish for the third event in a row.
Graves would go on to take the win, ahead of Caleb MacDonald who survived another massive moment in SS6, then Strang who held a solid margin back to James Macdonald, again impressing in the lesser powered H6 Impreza. Cross was next, leading home Green and McMillan, who’s power stage win showed what might have been.
After three rounds, Strang holds the slimmest of leads, his 70 points edging out Caleb MacDonald on 69 and Graves on 63. James Macdonald sits fourth on 58, then Cross (48), McMillan (45), Feast (34), Pittams (33), Green (31), Sievers (29), Keighley (27), Lenglet (18), Semenuk (14) and Ollis on 11.
However with the structure of the class requiring competitors to score only three of the first five rounds plus the final, the race for the title is even tighter than it suggests on paper, while some fast North Islanders are expected to join the mix also.
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