Hi All,
Back from Rotorua now, it was a good weekend but my role was changed to placing the arrows out at least an hour before any stages started so unusually for me I don’t have much info to share!
What I can tell you is that the new Nissan R35 GTR has taken it’s first victory on New Zealand soil in the hands of Tony Quinn, edging out local boy Dean Sumner in his Evo 9 and Stace Hopper took out third in his widebody Impreza.
In the classics Brent Emerson’s Holden Commodore took out the win. PJ Johnston lead early in his awesome Ford RS200 until a hydraulic failure in the clutch system ended his event after stage five, having already opened up a 2 minute lead. Second place went to Tony Butler took second in his Holden powered Cheetah, unfortunately that means that the general not only won the classics but took a 1-2, not so good for a blue oval fan like myself.
Many of the favourites in both the Modern and Classic competitions copped massive time penalties for speeding in the H.I.S. speed restriction zones. At one minute per km/h over the 50 km/h limit, the penalties were definitely steep and possibly the worst affected was Barry Kirk-Burnand, a ten minute penalty dropping him from second to ninth in Classic.
The third round of the Northern Rallysprint Series is being held in Rotorua this weekend, hopefully an entry list will be out later in the week and I’ll have some more news on that later in the week.
Cheers
Blair