Round 6 - Raglan Rally
The 2018 New Zealand Rally Championship concludes this weekend at Rally Raglan. One day of rallying awaits us on some of New Zealands most iconic rally roads. Some of the most intense battles in Rallying history have played out in this region. This year again sees the return of Whanga Coast, Tony our co driver reckons this is the best piece of road in NZ it has multiple rhythm changes and is such a great challenge for the car and crew, The stage just gets more intense the closer you get to the finish line.
Its been a great lead up to the event recently we competed at Rally of the North in the now nicknamed “White Pointer” Subaru. It was perfect to keep up my match fitness by getting in racing kms on notes. The rally ran faultless to schedule all day with competitors getting in 160km of racing. Unfortunately we broke and axle on stage 3 and dropped time over the following 2 stages. After service at lunchtime I went out fighting to make back time lost. 3 stage wins had us climb back onto the final spot on the podium. Being able to commit to the notes was a real benefit and advantage we had over other crews as we use the same note system at all NZRC rounds.
We ran a small rides day for Hydraulink after Rally Coromandal and I had the privilege of taking Alister McRae for a couple of runs up and down the road, It was good to grab a couple of pointers to tidy up with my driving which can only benefit me in future events.
Reece is run on Friday it’s a single pass look at the road this year. We have a good set of notes from last year to build on to get even more speed on the stages.
There is plenty to play out for this years overall standings in the Championship. Currently sitting in 2nd place with a small points buffer over the chasing pack of 4 drivers Im looking for a good result and healthy points haul to cement 2nd place overall for the year. Subaru are currently leading the manufactures championship and Tony is leading the co drivers championship it will be a big fight over the weekend to hold station and keep these two in there respective number 1 spots. The high level of consistency and speed that the team has displayed this year will be one of the major contributing factors to our overall results at the end of the event.