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.
Yesterday was Motorsport BOP’s event at Old Coach Road. This was a bent sprint where competitors would race down a closed road to a turnaround point, and race back to the start / finish line.
Dylan and I arrived at the event a little on the early side, but were surprised to find we were the only ones there at the turn around point. We decided to shoot the practice run from here to see what it looked like.
Most of the field approached the turnaround cautiously during practice (probably the best way) but there were a couple of exceptions -mainly Glen Perry in his Holden Torana and Steffan Etter in his Skyline.
Phil Jones arrived quickly but looked like he ran into a gearbox problem at the turnaround point. He got going again, but withdrew from the event.
We decided to walk into the road a little bit further for the first of the timed runs. This was a good viewing point, but not so good for photography. I’m still trying to find a way to make the cars on tar seal look better. I tried practicing panning to create motion but soon found out its harder than you’d think and most of my images were a fail in this department. Still will keep at it as I’m sure the results will be good one day!
The sun was blisteringly hot, and waiting for the next run was pretty hard. Must remember to take more sunscreen and water next time!! By now a couple more cars had stopped running. Dave West in his Starlet sounded like he had a gearbox / gear selection problem. Mike Guy’s Jaguar XJ6 disappeared too. I’m not sure what happened but was told he had an off somewhere, but can’t confirm this is what happened. I hope he’s ok.
We decided to end the day back at the turnaround point. The cars were now approaching the cone at much higher speeds. Mike Torr was looking extremely quick until he blew his turbo.
Gary Bodley was another very quick looking car. Boy could his Honda rev!! He went on to win the event overall which is not surprising given how fast he looked and how quickly he was turning around at the cone. Another car that looked and sounded very fast was James De La Haye in his Subaru Impreza. James carried a lot of speed down towards the turnaround point and I was impressed in the braking ability of his WRX.
Full results can be found here.
I think I managed to shoot every car, but please contact me if I’ve missed anyone (I have heaps more).
Overall it was a great day thanks to all the organisers and marshals from Motorsport BOP who volunteered their time to make it happen.
Hopefully the video will be up later this week.
Cheers
Jase
