Mark McMillan of Invercargill will make a return to rallying when the Barry Robinson Memorial Rally Southland, Round 3 of the NZ Rally Championship (NZRC), takes place on Saturday, 18 July.
This will be McMillan’s first rally since he won the forerunner to this event, the Barry Robinson Memorial Wyndham Rally in 2024. On that occasion, he took a close-fought win in his Subaru Impreza WRX. However, it is another car, a Subaru Legacy, that he is tackling this year’s event in.
“The Impreza needs a lot of work, and it will not be ready for the event,” says McMillan.
“We made a late decision to compete. The Legacy has not been going for a long time, so we will get it ready and make sure it goes okay.”
The other big motivating factor to do the rally for McMillan is that it is a home rally. “I haven’t done a rally for a while, and it is at home, so it is good to do it.”
McMillan has covered most of the roads before – the first part of the event uses roads previously used for the Wyndham Rally, in which he competed for two years, while the last part uses roads from the previous Rally Southland.
While he has a car to prepare for the action, McMillan, like several others from the Eastern Southland Car Club who are organising the event, is part of the organising committee. “It has been busy, business is busy, and my role on the committee has been mainly to do with the sponsorship side of the event. The support for the event has been quite surprising. I think the fact that the rally starts and finishes in Invercargill has had a bearing on that.
It is good to have the confidence that you get from that good support. We will have a good event, and we will look to build on it in the future. It is good to be involved on that side of it.”
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, tackle seven high-speed Special Stages, and conclude at the Ascot Park Hotel in Invercargill at 3.45pm.
Header Image: Supplied
