The Mt Thomas Sprint was run in the
opposite direction and the weather was great. The roads held up very well.
Thanks to JR's bar and grill for sponsoring the event.
Okuku offered a fine and temperate
atmosphere for a challenging and well contested Sunday’s racing, all ahead of
schedule thanks to a very efficient crew of volunteers.
The course provided its share of challenges to the drivers, with the unusual
inclusion of hay bales as corner cones for some of the major hairpin corners,
and a very sponge cake-like bouncy soil texture for good measure. Fortunately
the bales didn’t prove to be too much of a novelty, and remained untouched for
the entire day.
The first furrow was ploughed by Darryll Campbell, who despite shedding the
paddock of it’s surface muck, managed to set a second equal time of 60.13
seconds. Brent Tiney’s Escort saw him a second and a half clear of second place
at 58.56 seconds, proving that 4 wheels are not always better than 2. Geoff
Galbraith found himself in good company, placing second equal and looking for
some more speed in the coming courses. The Lazda (Laser Mazda Hybrid) duo Nic
Jones and Nate Hobbs showed some promising potential with 4th and 7th in the
first course, respectively. The first round was hotly contested by all
competitors, with places 2 through 8 separated by all but half a second.
The second course was reversal of the first with some minor touch-ups, but this
course certainly didn’t prove to be a reversal of the fortunes of the Lazda boys
who moved up into 1st and 3rd, placing Geoff Galbraith in a Lazda sandwich with
not more than a third of a second separating him from 3rd. Scott Reid topped the
rest of the smaller bores in 7th, with some sort of rattling proving not proving
to be too distracting, but worthy of some TLC later. The rest of the Escorts
showed some good pace, averaging a little above midfield, but perhaps wishing
they had some extra driving wheels attached.
The last course of the day saw a 2 lapper around some course a bit like the
second, with the addition of a rather amusing 270 degree hay bale corner. Guy
Anderson’s Terrano (set to 2wd) may not have been the most fit racing machine on
the course, but it certainly put on a good show, especially on the tight hairpin
corners, as did Les Summerfield’s street Falcon. Sam Galbraith (yours truly)
came in with the quickest time of 97.75, but unfortunately couldn’t make up for
the deficits made earlier. The Lazda lads continued their crusade, posting a 2nd
rank time for Nic and 4th for Nate.
The final result was a Celica and Lazda double sandwich, with Nic Jones and Nate
Hobbs in 2nd and 4th places overall, respectively. Geoff Galbraith came home
with the win, with an overall time of 216.76 seconds overall, with son Sam
taking 3rd around 2 seconds behind. Honourable mentions go to Jamie Powell, who
looked to have some potential but whose Starlet sounded like it had a very
unhappy Subaru trapped under the bonnet.
Thanks to the team for a great event (especially Stacey and Drew Jeffrey), and
of course the farmer whose support we could not do without.
It was a great day for the few of us
that decided to brave the cold (and frost!) and head out to Sefton for a bit of
a play on the grass (which very quickly turned into mud) paddock. The field
comprised of 4 Escorts and 1 Subaru. With a field of 9 (with the 1 Subaru making
up nearly half the field) the day went surprisingly longer than first
anticipated, due to having to change the track after each run…. There was not a
great deal of green grass remaining at the end of the day. All in all, we all
had a ball, and thoroughly enjoyed the cuppa and creamed buns provided by our
lovely hostess, Judith Harrington. Many thanks to everyone for their help on the
day and a big thanks to Judith Harrington and Michael Price for the use of their
paddock.
By Barry Varcoe
- It was a foggy start to the day when
Andrew Bulman and Peter Marshall picked me up and we headed off in convoy to the
Rakaia Zig Zags. The fog soon cleared as we got closer to the gorge and we were
into the sun that stayed for the rest of the day.
It had been over 15 years since I had last driven in a sprint on this piece of
road, Andrew had never driven the Evo, he had half owned for 2 years, before on
gravel and Peter
was unsure when he’d last had a skid so it was fair to say there was a bit of
nervous banter going on as the start got closer.
Scrutineering was soon over with I believe a couple of people scrabbling for
seat belts being one of few problems.
This Motorsport ruling is one of the more interesting to come out in recent
times and one that I feel needs to be readdressed sooner rather that later. Its
crazy that a 20 year old road car that sits in the sun day after day only needs
a visual inspection of its belts and yet a competition car (that is probably
better looked after) needs its belts replaced every 2 to 5 years, some times
with only a handful of uses.
With me not competing in many club level events it was great to see a lot of
cars that I hadn’t seen before, and some very spirited driving from within them.
Some
of
the interesting entry’s included Trevor Crow and his Justy, Carl Balani dusted
of the RX7 with father Guy dusting off his helmet for a skid, (I used to compete
against Guy many years ago in RX2’s, Deane and Brent Buist had the Mitsi
powered, Corolla Bodied Escort out for its debut run, and Peter Marshall had his
Mazaroo all helping to show that you don’t have to leave things the way they are
designed.
We did the Indian file thing and then had our three timed runs. Thankfully as
always mishaps were few and far between. Days end came all to soon and we headed
off down to the sponsors establishment (the Hororata Hotel) for a pie and a
natter about what should have been.
Andrew Sim handed out the prizes for the guys at the pointy end of each class
and we all headed for home. All and all a good day out and a very smoothly run
event. Well done
to the organisers and officials. These guys and gals are the same ones that I
see at every Autosport event I enter and without them, we as competitors
wouldn’t get to have fun and tell stories. So a very BIG thankyou to them for
such a good day.
Arriving first, just after 8am, by start time the pit was full with a surprising
39 entrants and the value of using the event as part of Canterbury Car Club’s
own championship was evident by the 14 entries from that club. On the other hand
Ashburton Car Club’s Club Captain Grant Gordon was riding solo and the 2 Ratec
members made a good showing but needed the numbers and were outnumbered by the 5
non-members. AutoSport won the numbers stakes with a massive 16. Even with the
start delayed by the numbers we had completed 3 accumulated runs and results and
were home by 3pm and out of the hot sun watching Gronholm flying in the Swedish
snow.
Congratulations to Phil on a good win holding off the rabid Hondas of Doug and
Cymon. Thanks to all the organisers from AutoSport and helpers on the day.
Thanks also for a great venue.
What a day! My first ever
autocross meeting and what a way to start! A small field of 10
drivers came out to Shane Thornley's paddock (a big thanks to him) to
help him churn up his thistles!
The weather started off cool, but heated up during the day. The track
was tight and slippery - enough said!
Run 1 saw Paul Cox, driving his Toyota Starlet, win Best Trick of the
Day, taking out one cone on his first lap and stood it back up on the
second lap! Neat trick! Shane Thornley set the pace for thisrun
with a scorching 2.56.70.
Run 2 everyone went up a notch.
producing some much faster times. Paul Cox took charge of the pace,
hooning through the thistles to produce a time of 2.40.70 hotly pursued
by Drew Jeffrey. Paul got 2nd in class and 5th overall. I was elated
having bettered my first run and still being on four wheels!!
Run 3 was the cruncher! Stacey
decided to throw a spanner in the works by reversing the track!! Talk
about a challenge for the rooky, just when I thought I had got the track
sussed!! Daniel Powell in his Lancer GSR, took the time for this
run with a blistering 2.37.26.
After tidying up the track with the
help of the Thornley kids and everyone else, we headed to the Hororata
Pub for a well earned drink and prize giving. Brent Tiney took out
the honours for the day and he also acted as time keeper and scrutineer.
As always Stacey and Drew Jeffrey had everything under control and
organised. Thank you guys.
It was a great
day, thoroughly enjoyed by the everyone who came and I want to thank
everyone for welcoming me to my first autocross and giving me so much
encouragement. I WILL BE BACK!!!
26 NOVEMBER 2006 - WAIPARA HOTEL MT
ALEXANDER SPRINT
A mild overcast day greeted competitors which saw 39
drivers turn up in a wide array of cars. The day started
with drivers briefing, then a slow drive up the road for
a look. There was a good covering of gravel from start
to finish which made the road skatey and very dusty but a
light wind helped clear that. The first run saw no major
problems. Brent Buist in the BDA Escort got stuck in
third gear for the last part of the run but he still
beat brother Glenn by two seconds, the reason for
only
having third gear, Glenn did not tighten gearlever
housing up and they fell out. Winning the run was Hayden
Paddon with a 2.52.02,followed by Brad Harris 2.52.62
and Regan Ross 3.01.96. On to run two, a couple of
drivers to have troubles were Garry Cowan who also had
gearlever problems and stopped near the end of the run.
Fred Merkin had a car sales moment, the fuel gauge showed
1/4 of tank but
there was none, so he stopped. By the end of this run all
the times had dropped by about 8 to 10 seconds, the road
was now hard and fast. In the class Tony Morrison was
leading in the Honda and Graham Wilkson leading 1300 in
the starlet. Run three was an action packed run with
Phil Gurney rolling his Corolla and Greg Taylor leaving
the road after the finish line and rolling down the
bank. This run also found the winner of the event in
Brad Harris with Hayden Paddon second and Regan Ross
third. Class placings were 0-1300 Chris Herdman 3.12.50,
Graham Wilson 3.13.65,1300-1600 Tony Morrison
2.56.79,Cameron Moore 3.00.97, Marcus Van Klink
3.02.84,1600 2wd Glen Buist 2.50.75,Brent Buist
2.54.05,Gary Hawkes 2.56.74,4wd Les Summerfield
2.48.45,Greg Taylor 2.50.15,Josh Marston 2.53.17. I
would like to thank Andrew Sim and his team for a well
run event and also the Waipara Hotel for their
sponsorship.
A cruel
twist of fate had us getting up an hour earlier than
normal thanks to daylight savings to head out to our
most distant rallysprint venue. On the drive up, to
compound the grumpy mood from getting up early, the
skies appeared grey to the north and rain was starting
to fall. Once we reached Kaiwara Rd the skies thankfully
were clear and the road looked as good as ever. A solid
turnout of 30 drivers, counting the double runners were
raring to go, and thanks to Leigh and all the
organizers, briefing and Indian file were underway on
time.
The road was in good nick with a deep cover of gravel
protecting a hard grippy base. It’s a great road, fast &
flowing at the beginning, with a few fast crests and
hidden corners to test everyone’s testicular dimensions.
The second half is a little tighter yet demanding
accurate car placement and punishing the times of anyone
who gets over enthusiastic with the throttle.
The first run yielded the usual excuses from all the
drivers, “Gee that gravels’ deep!” With Juddy setting
the pace on the first run with 2:42.07 closely followed
by Regan and Brad a second back.
In the up to
1600 2WD class Phil Gurney was setting the pace at
2:56.85 and showed all bar Tony Morrison in the over
1600’s how it should be done.
In over 1600
Tony Morrison set the pace in his Accord at 2:56.30,
followed by myself and Steve Carr.
The one and
only bit of off-road excitement happened to our resident
off-roader Daniel Powell on his first run. Getting
caught out by the infamous second to last corner and
skidding up to the fence others have totally removed in
previous years. Other than a few light scratches his
Mitsy GSR was ready to rip for the second run.
On his second run Brad Harris dug deep into his bag of
bravery and removed 5 seconds from his first to post a
2:37.68, Jeff found another 3 second to be second
fastest followed by Regan with a quick 2:40.97
Over 1600
2WD had a new leader in me with a 2:52.56 closely
followed by David Owen in his beautifully prepared Mk2
Escort, then John Weir in the Accord and Steve Carr
shaking down the brand new RX3 in preparation for the
Marathon Rally. Sadly his engine mounts cried enough at
this point, better here than on the rally.
Phil Gurney
had a solid lead in 1600’s and was less than a second
off leading 2WD overall. Pete Abernethy and Scott Reid
were keeping him honest.
So it all came down to the final run, road was nicely
swept and it was time for serious commitment.
For overall
& 4WD honors, Jeff managed to improve nearly 1 second,
2:38.78 to secure 3rd place whilst scaring yet another
co-driver for the day. Ryan Berry did a sneaky and wiped
2.5 seconds off his previous time, showing off to his
wife who was co-driving for the run at 2:37.90, taking a
well deserved 2nd place.
Fastest time
of the day went to Brad Harris with an impressive
2:36.03, over 1.5 seconds quicker than his previous run!
In the over
1600’s I managed to find another 4 seconds to post a
2:48.55 to win the class for a change, closely followed
by Tony Morrison in the Accord and Ross Teesdale in the
ever sideways Sprinter.
Phil Gurney
put on an impressive show at the finish line struggling
to slow his car down after posting a 1600 class winning
2:51.19 and impressively would have placed him 3rd
in the larger class! Peter Abernethy must have liked the
swept road finding another 5 seconds and Scott Reid
rounded out the class.
Greg Kennedy
took the 1300 class for the day in his 1200 Datsun
Coupe.
All in all a great day out. Great weather, well
organized and run. A special thanks to the organizers
and marshals who gave up their Sunday so the rest of us
could have a skid.
It was a
surprise to have such good weather leading up to the
Kirwee Autocross with the amount of rain and other
weather bombs hitting the country at the moment. A field
of 18 drivers, from 3 different car clubs, took to the
paddock for another round of the Interclub series. Wayne
Scott took overall honours in his shared super budget
1984 Mazda Familia. The car was apparently very lucky to
get through scrutineering and was described as "a piece
of sh*t" but proved that in the right hands, it was a
weapon - an amazing effort! Coming home in 2nd place was
CCC member Dwight Parlane in his very tidy looking
Honda, seeing off new Autosport member Daniel Powell,
who managed 1st 4WD car and 3rd overall in his silver
Lancer GSR on his first outing in the car. Ben Bodley
clipped a marker on his second run earning him a 5
second penalty but had the classic 4WD 323 looking very
fast on run three. The Mazda had been returned to a more
original state for the upcoming Silver Fern Rally. Drew
and Stacey Jeffrey were having a huge battle between
themselves for bragging rights with the CRX. Stacey
drawing first blood on run one then clipping a finishing
cone and copping a penalty. Drew was very happy with his
4 second win. Alastair and son, Nick Frizzell had a
close fight with Nick winning runs one and two and
Alastair putting together a solid drive on his final
run.
Thanks goes to The Frizzell Family for lending us
the use of their fantastic paddock, and to Drew and
Stacey for their help setting up the event and to
Richard Towse for doing the scrutineering. We had a
little issue with the spreadsheet for the final times
but the correct ones are now online.
Build it
and they will come, as the movie says but all Andrew Sim
and the Autosport Club had to do was organise it and
they certainly did, with a great turnout of 58 drivers
taking the opportunity to have a go at the recent
Makerikeri Sprint near Rangiora. Whether it was a chance
to check out the forest for the up coming Canterbury
Rally, merely a chance to blow the cobwebs off, or the
recent cancellations of key events combined with the
long cold winter starving many of their diet of avgas
and mud it must have been pleasing to see a fantastic
turnout to what would prove to be a great day of racing.
Ironically
with the recent bad weather, and as recent as the
previous Fridays threatened snow falls, the Sunday
dawned bright and clear albeit a little crunchy under
foot, with a good frost coating the smooth mud of the
car park. All that gathered to hear the official’s
introduction speeches were also warned of the snow that
still lay in the sheltered areas of the road…just to add
to any pre event nerves!
As all
drivers got a first look at the road with a Indian file,
they got a chance to access the conditions and make
their own judgement call as to approach both the snow
covered tight areas and the fast flowing roads that came
after to the finish, but also to decide what approach to
take to the ford that crossed the road on the lower
section. Take it quick and risk damage, take it slow and
risk loss of too much time. A true mix of skill and
bravery!
First
to test their luck was Brad Harris from Rangiora,
setting the pace with a 4.15.17; in one of the oldest
model EVO’s in the field. With the advantage of having a
loop road for drivers to make their way from the finish
to the start line a few took the opportunity to double
enter the event and get two runs staggered through out
the field. Matt Jansen was one of these and his run
through netted him a 4.20.67 seeded 6th on
the road and obviously benefited from his trip as 30
places later he managed a 4.17.48. Not to be out done by
the 4wd boys, Alec Doig in his V8 Escort set the
forest a roar with the wonderful sound of the big V8
replacing the early morning bird song with a great first
up effort. Doig was able to continue this good form
throughout the day to finish with a 4.29.56 fastest and
15th overall.
Good
first up times were also posted by Gary Cliff 4.22.70,
Robert McCallum with a another fine effort his Escort at
4.23.74 (doing a fine impersonation of Hansel and Gretel
by leaving a trail of tail light pieces in the forest to
follow next time!), Matt King 4.23.63, and Fred Merkin
back for a skid in a Subaru WRX with 4.25.72.
It wasn’t all plain sailing for
everyone though with Merv Hatcher experiencing a high
speed “reversing manoeuvre”, spinning his car on the
fastest part of the stage in 5th gear in his
Starion, but gathering it up to finish undamaged and
with a 4.49.39. A quick change of tyres for the rears
for the next run saw 6 seconds trimmed from this time
but unfortunately a few mechanical problems meant that
he had to retire and miss the last run of the day and
not improve his final time of 4.43.84.
Another to have problems was Dean
Schroeder in the RX7, not posting a first up time with
fuel surge issues, but after some adjustments went on to
improve his second run by 7 seconds to finish 45th
overall.
Blair Logan
also suffered early problems in his EVO4 with a
differential problem sidelining him for the rest of the
day. This would be disappointing in two ways as to have
car problems so early into the first run is one thing
but to miss such a good road and not finish the day
would no doubt really be upsetting, and left Blair
lamenting that funnily enough he never had this trouble
in the Corolla?!
Also
to have a wee moment was Matt King. After doing a great
first up time of 4.23.63, he set about reducing this and
in the process he angle parked the WRX down a small bank
near the top of the hill. After an extraction no damage
was sustained, and it certainly didn’t do anything for
Matt’s confidence as on his last attempt he set 4.19.29,
good enough to seal 7th
overall.
Big mover of the day was young Josh
Marston in his WRX sporting flash new livery. After a
fairy conservative first run and over coming a slipping
clutch, he set about improving this and dropped a
massive 23 seconds on run two, and then backed it up
with another 23 second drop on his last to finish with
4.12.87,beaten for 4th overall by Ryan Berry
by only .39 of a second! An impressive drive from the
youngster in only his third outing in this car. The
bragging rites were well in truly in the younger
Marstons favour as his father Leigh had a few issues
with tyre selection, opting for a mud tyre for the
second run and spinning.
Sticking
with the same tyre for the third, and with the road now
drying considerably from the first runs, this proved to
be the wrong choice and again time was lost, finishing
the day 13th overall and with a time of 4.25.06. This
would surely lead to some interesting discussions around
the Marston family dinner table!
An interesting battle developed in
the small car class with a good tussle between, Grant
Goile back in his Toyota SR Coupe, David Fletcher, Barry
Deuart, and Graham Wilson in his Starlet. With the
smaller engine 2 wheel drives not ideally suited to the
first half of the road being uphill, they can make up
time along the top fast flowing section as the bravery
pills set in. Grant Goile obviously took extra pills as
after not setting the fastest first up time, he managed
to set a quick time of 4.45.05 on his second to secure
the lead over the quartet. David Fletchers hard charging
efforts in the Suzuki Gti paid dividends as he managed
to trim nearly 6 seconds of run 1 to finish a mere 1.5
seconds behind Goile. The other two, Barry Deuart and
Graham Wilson swapped times throughout the day to be one
place apart, 41st and 42nd
respectively but with only .11 of second difference
between them.
Stacey
Jeffrey had a touch of the “Merv Hatchers”, spinning the
CRX on the same area of the top section of road,
clearing some shrubbery in the process, but fortunately
no damage was sustained, and Drew Jeffery’s effort are
to applauded with a fine first up effort considering a
recent round of Chemo therapy. A top effort and very
pleasing to see some new competitors to the sport.
So
the day belonged to Brad Harris with a stunning effort
to take overall honours with a final time of 3.59.19,
the difference being more than a second a kilometre
greater than Matt Jansen in second (he also had the
third fastest time running twice during the day)
(4.08.74), Ryan Berry behind him (4.12.48) and Josh
Marston (4.12.87) rounding out the top four.
Sadly with
logging set to resume in the near future the club may
not be able to host this event again for a while and
with other changes in the wind regarding access to the
forest the club will eagerly awaiting a opportunity to
again use what is certainly a great road and a very
popular event amongst the drivers.
Many thanks
go to the Autosport club officials, countless volunteers
on the day and to all that made a great days racing in
the Canterbury forest.
The Club’s Sprint Series for 2006 got underway with 36 competitors turning
up for the popular Rakaia Zig Zag Sprint.
Early morning rain cleared
prior to the start, which along with the heavily metalled road made
conditions rather slippery, as Shane Thornley was to find out on the
practice run damaging his L/F suspension and taking no further part.
The action proved fierce at the top with times over the 2.5 km course being
extremely close. Brad Harris found his rhythm in the last run and took 3sec
off his previous run to come out on top in the Evo RS closely followed by
Blair Logan in the Ex Paul Nichol Evo 4. Blair proving that he will be one
to watch this season as he quickly comes to grip with the Evo. Les
Summerfield was as usual fast and consistent for 3rd O/A in the
WRX sharing the car with his wife Andrea. Chris Hughes was next in the
recently re-shelled Evo and was consistently fast all day. It was good to
see Trevor Crowe giving the very rapid Subaru Justy a run no doubt as a
shakedown for the Dunlop Forest Sprint. Trevor was 1st 2WD and
was closely followed by the very consistent Ryan Berry in yet another Evo3.
Paul Dickson was up from Timaru having last competed at the Zig Zag 25years
ago He was very competitive with a 1.38.08 and 8th O/A. Darryl
Campbell experienced overheating in the Evo throughout the day but was very
happy with his 1.38.19 and 9th
O/A. Next was David Gallagher in the ex Anton Cheetham Evo 3 from the North
Island with a very respectable 1.39.02 and 10th O/A. Leigh
Marston was sharing the Evo3 with David Gallagher and was only fractionally
behind on 1.39.29. I think Leigh somehow prefers his WRX. Alec Doig was next
in the Escort V8 and 2nd O/A in the 2WD class. Alec helping sweep
the road in spectacular style. Phil Sloan in the Legacy, Hamish Galletly in
the ex Crowe WRX and Justin Harwood in the Evo 3 were all in the 1.43
bracket closely followed by Andrea Summerfield in the WRX. Event organizer
Andrew Sim in the 2.0 Corolla was next on 1.44.84. Now that he has the
suspension sorted he is talking about more power from the engine. Matt and
Paul Jansen were 19th and 20th respectfully in their
immaculate WRX’s. Matt really backs the WRX into the corners in spectacular
style. Matt had actually entered twice and got down to a 1.41,61 which would
have given him 12th O/A except that only the first 3 runs count
in the final result . Tony Foster was quick in the ex Blair Logan FXGT
sharing a 1.46.05 with John Weir in the superb sounding Honda Accord Vtec.
Carl Balani was next in the RX7 with Phil Gurney in the FXGT close
behind. Peter Abernethy had the Starlet going well and was 3rd in
class behind the FXGT’s. The father and son pairing of Rob and Mark Gerard
were next in the Corolla with Rob coming out on top. Did you know that Rob
won the Westland Rally 3 times in a row from 1975 to 1977 in a RX3 Coupe!
Grant Restall was right behind them in the Corolla with the very reliable
Barry Deuart in the 120Y next and winning the 1300cc class. Marcus Van Klink
was next and 2nd in the 1300cc class in the 1200 Coupe. Guy
Balani was next sharing the RX7 with Carl.
Jonathon Bradshaw in the
Starlet, and Ian Wilson in the Escort were next. Young Chris Herdman was
neat and tidy in the Starlet and finished 3rd in the 1300cc class
followed by Stuart McIntosh in another Starlet.
I am sure the event was
enjoyed by all and many thanks must go once again to Andrew Sim for
organizing and running an excellent event. Thanks also to Graham Wilson and
the members of the Rangiora Rotary and all the others who helped on the day.
ter
was unsure when he’d last had a skid so it was fair to say there was a bit of
nervous banter going on as the start got closer.
of
the interesting entry’s included Trevor Crow and his Justy, Carl Balani dusted
of the RX7 with father Guy dusting off his helmet for a skid, (I used to compete
against Guy many years ago in RX2’s, Deane and Brent Buist had the Mitsi
powered, Corolla Bodied Escort out for its debut run, and Peter Marshall had his
Mazaroo all helping to show that you don’t have to leave things the way they are
designed.
each class
and we all headed for home. All and all a good day out and a very smoothly run
event. Well done
to the organisers and officials. These guys and gals are the same ones that I
see at every Autosport event I enter and without them, we as competitors
wouldn’t get to have fun and tell stories. So a very BIG thankyou to them for
such a good day.
only
having third gear, Glenn did not tighten gearlever
housing up and they fell out. Winning the run was Hayden
Paddon with a 2.52.02,followed by Brad Harris 2.52.62
and Regan Ross 3.01.96. On to run two, a couple of
drivers to have troubles were Garry Cowan who also had
gearlever problems and stopped near the end of the run.
Fred Merkin had a car sales moment, the fuel gauge showed
1/4 of tank but
there was none, so he stopped. By the end of this run all
the times had dropped by about 8 to 10 seconds, the road
was now hard and fast. In the class Tony Morrison was
leading in the Honda and Graham Wilkson leading 1300 in
the starlet. Run three was an action packed run with
Phil Gurney rolling his Corolla and Greg Taylor leaving
the road after the finish line and rolling down the
bank. This run also found the winner of the event in
Brad Harris with Hayden Paddon second and Regan Ross
third. Class placings were 0-1300 Chris Herdman 3.12.50,
Graham Wilson 3.13.65,1300-1600 Tony Morrison
2.56.79,Cameron Moore 3.00.97, Marcus Van Klink
3.02.84,1600 2wd Glen Buist 2.50.75,Brent Buist
2.54.05,Gary Hawkes 2.56.74,4wd Les Summerfield
2.48.45,Greg Taylor 2.50.15,Josh Marston 2.53.17. I
would like to thank Andrew Sim and his team for a well
run event and also the Waipara Hotel for their
sponsorship. 
First
to test their luck was Brad Harris from Rangiora,
setting the pace with a 4.15.17; in one of the oldest
model EVO’s in the field. With the advantage of having a
loop road for drivers to make their way from the finish
to the start line a few took the opportunity to double
enter the event and get two runs staggered through out
the field. Matt Jansen was one of these and his run
through netted him a 4.20.67 seeded 6th on
the road and obviously benefited from his trip as 30
places later he managed a 4.17.48. Not to be out done by
the 4wd boys, Alec Doig in his V8 Escort set the
forest a roar with the wonderful sound of the big V8
replacing the early morning bird song with a great first
up effort. Doig was able to continue this good form
throughout the day to finish with a 4.29.56 fastest and
15th overall.
Good
first up times were also posted by Gary Cliff 4.22.70,
Robert McCallum with a another fine effort his Escort at
4.23.74 (doing a fine impersonation of Hansel and Gretel
by leaving a trail of tail light pieces in the forest to
follow next time!), Matt King 4.23.63, and Fred Merkin
back for a skid in a Subaru WRX with 4.25.72.
Also
to have a wee moment was Matt King. After doing a great
first up time of 4.23.63, he set about reducing this and
in the process he angle parked the WRX down a small bank
near the top of the hill. After an extraction no damage
was sustained, and it certainly didn’t do anything for
Matt’s confidence as on his last attempt he set 4.19.29,
good enough to seal 7th
overall.
Sticking
with the same tyre for the third, and with the road now
drying considerably from the first runs, this proved to
be the wrong choice and again time was lost, finishing
the day 13th overall and with a time of 4.25.06. This
would surely lead to some interesting discussions around
the Marston family dinner table!
So
the day belonged to Brad Harris with a stunning effort
to take overall honours with a final time of 3.59.19,
the difference being more than a second a kilometre
greater than Matt Jansen in second (he also had the
third fastest time running twice during the day)
(4.08.74), Ryan Berry behind him (4.12.48) and Josh
Marston (4.12.87) rounding out the top four. 