Jack Stokes of Canterbury, along with his Southland-raised co-driver Hayden Graves from Gore, leads the NZ Rally Championship (NZRC) by just two points as competitors head to Southland for Round 3 of the championship, the Barry Robinson Memorial Rally Southland, on Saturday.
Stokes leads both the overall national title race and the Junior Rally Championship, in which he is the reigning champion in his Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo. The duo also lead the Mainland Rally Series as they come south, Stokes by one point over Deane Buist and Graves tied with Bridget Airey.
The season has gone “almost perfectly” for Jack as Round 3 approaches, although he quickly adds “apart from 30 metres”, a reference to the fact that after winning the opening round in Otago, he finished second in the Canterbury Rally, finishing just .2 of a second behind winner Jack Hawkeswood of Whitford, the closest margin in NZRC history.
He takes a philosophical view of missing the win by such a margin by saying, “I was lucky to be in it after a spin in Stage 2. I managed to limp back to service, and the crew did an awesome job to get me going again.”
While Jack has not seen a lot of the roads here before, he has travelled south when his brother Robbie competed in the Wyndham Rally over the past couple of years.
However, Jack’s co-driver is Southlander Hayden Graves, who has co-driven with his father, Andrew, in this event before, including a win in 2023. Asked whether having a local co-driver will be an advantage, Jack laughs and says, “It is a bit of a handy thing to have in your back pocket.”
Having been co-driven by Graves the last two seasons, Jack says the in-car relationship between the duo is going from strength to strength. It helps too that we get along really well. We are mates, and we can talk about a lot of other stuff too, not just rallying.”
As for competing against Robbie, his brother, who was second in last year’s National Championship but has had a tough start to his 2026 campaign, Jack says, “we help each other quite a lot – before and during events. We share a lot of information on set-up and tyre pressures, things like that. It is all about helping us both go quicker. I prepare his car as well.”
Coming to Southland, what will his approach be?
“It will be the same as the earlier rounds. The pace has been super-hot all year. You can’t back off, although you do have to keep an eye on the fact that there are three rounds after Southland, so banking points and staying in the fight is important too.”
All the cars and drivers in the Barry Robinson Memorial Rally Southland will be at Invercargill Central from 4pm on Friday, 17 July, where the opportunity exists to get autographs and see the cars close up before the Ceremonial Start at 6pm.
The following day, the cars leave Wyndham at 8.30am before tackling seven high-speed Special Stages before the event concludes at the Ascot Park Hotel in Invercargill at 3.45pm.
Header Image: Iconic Visuals
