A total of 48 teams have entered this weekend’s Rally Whangarei, including Hayden Paddon and Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen. Cars range from the latest international specification Rally 2 Hyundai 120N to a 1977 Mitsubishi Lancer. The rally covers 720km of the Northland region, using 18 special stages of closed road.
It is a qualifying round of the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC), the final round of the Pacific Cup and the second round of the New Zealand Rally Championship (NZRC).
Top-seeded driver Paddon and co-driver John Kennard return to New Zealand following a second placing in Rally Islas Canarias just five days before the Northland event begins. Paddon and Kennard lead the series after two rounds and now change focus to the Whangārei event the pair have won seven times.
“Whangarei always has some of the best stages in New Zealand, they’re really cambered and flowing like no other,” said Paddon. “I think we can expect our New Zealand-based Hyundai i20 N Rally 2 car to perform better on those stages compared to Otago, and hopefully everything we learned about the car in Otago and continued to develop since will help us to extract further performance gains.”
It’s new territory for van Gisbergen, whose last home event was Rally New Zealand: “It’ll be my first time on the Whangārei roads and from what I can see they have a bit of everything”, he said. Van Gisbergen will drive the Audi S1 AP4 specification car with Australian-based co-driver Glen Weston.
“It looks like a fast but also technical rally. I’m looking forward to the challenge and seeing how we go. I’m in a different car this season, so we will be learning that and looking to improve each rally.”
Seven cars are offshore entries, including the Cusco Toyota C-HR of Michael Young. Others include Eugene Creugent and Pierre-Henri Brunet from New Caledonia, Julien Lenglet and Nelson Law from Vanuatu, and Stewart Reid and Glen Alcorn from Australia.
A total of 11 teams have entered the APRC category with 35-point-scoring for the NZRC. Others are entered in the Allcomers category.
Activity starts at 1 pm Friday with shakedown testing at William Fraser Memorial Park’s Pohe Island. Drivers will then be at the Cameron St Mall from 4:45 pm for a signing session ahead of the 5:30 pm ceremonial start.
The competitive section begins Saturday morning with four Special Stage tests to the north of Whangārei. They return at 11:42 am for a service stop before repeating the journey in the afternoon. The day concludes with a double run of the Pohe Island 1.15km spectator stage.
Sunday uses four road stage sections to the south – repeated after the 10:39 am service break. The remaining teams return for the ceremonial finish at the Pūtahi Park – Town Basin, Whangārei, from 3 pm. There is a prize of NZ$3,000 for the winning APRC entrant, $2,000 for second and $1,000 for third, provided by Indian businessman and promoter Vamcy Merla.
Words & Images: Supplied
