A little bit sideways Rallying in New Zealand, where we like to get A Little Bit Sideways! Up to date Rally News from teams around the country together with event reports.
Hi There
As you know, in the weekend I competed in the Canterbury Rally. It was a great event, which I am stoked at finishing 6th overall in, my best result to date.
It all kicked off on Saturday night with stages located in Ashley forest, north of Christchurch. The main aim was to hold a comfortable pace and get through the Saturday stages. The roads had some sections which were rather rough including water crossings. After the two night stages I was pleasantly surprised to find that out of 57 starters we were sitting in 5th place, and first 2wd by 19 seconds.
This set us up for a good start on Sunday where we had to try fend back some of the hard chargers who struggled the night before. The forestry roads were great, with fast sections as well as technical sections, so we were having plenty of fun. There was also a couple of patches of ice and snow which mixed things up a bit.
Regan Ross reeled us in after the morning stages so it was game on for 2wd honours for the afternoon section. Unfortunately for him he was forced to withdraw with oil pressure issues with just one stage to go. I pushed hard on the final stage, the power stage, and set the 7th fastest time – just 0.2 sec off Emma Gilmour and just missing out on a power stage point.
It was great to finish up with a good result and with the car all straight, especially after crashing in Otago. So overall it was a very successful weekend and was great to do some more night stages. You can check out a couple of videos below or you can watch it on TV3 this Sunday at 2pm.
Thanks to Malcolm Peden for calling the notes, and Trevor Sandilands for preparing the car.
Also cheers for the support from Farmlands, Gulf Oils, Freshmax, VJ’s Distributers, Ultimate Motor Group and John Bates Wheel Alignments.
The next event is the Gisborne Rally on the 27th of June.
Cheers
Max
