Rakahouka farmer Nigel King, Club Captain of the Eastern Southland Car Club, is enjoying the second chapter of his rallying career as he prepares for the MLT Barry Robinson Memorial Wyndham Rally on Saturday, August 10.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he said recently, although he says his car, a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 3, developed an oil pressure issue at the recent Mt Misery Hillclimb. “I’m pretty sure it is electrical. We have just rebuilt the motor, rewired it, and given it a little birthday.
“We did the Southland Rally recently, and it never missed a beat as we finished thirty-third overall and won our class by 3 minutes, but at the Hillclimb, the oil pressure light came on for a split second.”
King bought the EVO out of Hawkes Bay in 2020. “It was Reece Jones EVO1RS that he used to win the 1995 NZ Rally Championship. That is the pedigree, but I’m not sure how many bits remain after numerous people have spent time poking around with it. It is a cool bit of kit, but you need a lot of confidence to drive it fast. You can go from hero to zero in three flicks of a 5-cent piece.”
King started rallying in 1992 in a Datsun 1200 before purchasing an MKII Ford Escort, of which he says, “I shouldn’t have sold it.”
Next was a Toyota Corolla AE86, in which he competed for five years. “I sold it in 2001 when I had a young family,” he adds.
That was the end of chapter one of his rallying for about 18 years, trap shooting taking over as his sporting outlet.
He returned to the sport in 2018 with a Toyota Starlet, which he shared with his son Brayden for two years. “You can’t beat doing it with your kids, and the banter when you beat each other is great.”
While it was great to share the car with Brayden, it did raise the problem of not being able to share the car at certain events.
“I had always wanted an EVO, so I bought one. I love being back and there are quite a few of the old crew coming back into the sport as well as me.
“I’ve used the EVO for heaps of events. I’ve done five rallies. I finished four of them, but I had a big accident at Lawrence in 2020 that meant I spent nine weeks on the couch afterwards. I have also done numerous rally sprints, hill climbs, and autocrosses in it.
King didn’t participate in the Wyndham Rally last year when it was reintroduced to the calendar after a lengthy break.
“I came close to entering but not close enough due to the car not being ready, so I am looking forward to it this year.
“I haven’t done Wyndham for a long, long time. It is really cool. I said a few years ago it would be nice to have a Wyndham Rally again. It is great that it recognises Barry and what he did for the sport and the club. He was a genuine down-to-earth farmer with great talent. The Wyndham Rally has provided a lot of memories, some very good ones.”
One of the not-so-good memories was his first Wyndham Rally in the Datsun 1200 in 1993.
“I rolled it about eleven times 2 kilometres from the end of the rally. I knew the road well and was overconfident. My wife Liz was the co-driver at the time. Despite that, she did co-drive for me on other occasions. Other than that, Wyndham has been a good rally for me. They are nice roads, but you have to respect them.”
Yolande Clearwater, wife of Canterbury-based driver David Clearwater, is King’s co-driver for this event.
“We did the Rally of Southland together,” he said. “It was a big learning curve. The Friday night stages were a ton of fun. I made a couple of fundamental errors, but we gelled in the car straight away. It will be interesting to see where we go as a team.”
The rally has the support of the Mataura Licensing Trust, Traffic Management Services, and Yuasa Battery, as well as Rayonier Matariki Forests, the Southland District Council, Gore District Council, Prime Range Fresh Shop Lorneville, Matt McRae, and the landowners on the rally route.
This year’s rally will again be centred on the township of Wyndham, 45 kilometres east of Invercargill and 25km south of Gore.
It will start at the MLT Three Rivers Hotel in Redan Street, Wyndham, at 9.00 am on Saturday, 10 August, from where competitors will tackle five Special Stages with only minimal changes to a couple of last year’s routes.
The rally then ends back at the MLT Three Rivers Hotel in Wyndham, with the first car due at 3:32 p.m. after 128km of Special Stage competition linked by 126km of touring stage mileage.
