Robbie Stokes and Shayne Reynolds have been excluded from the Rally Bay of Plenty, the fifth round of the New Zealand Rally Championship, an event on which they had taken a provisional victory.
The Stokes Motorsport pairing, who were initially winners of the round, were deemed to be in breach of Article 19 of Motorsport New Zealand’s Schedule R, the article to which rallying is governed.
“Exclusion: Crews are bound, under the pain of exclusion, to check in at all control points in the correct sequence and in the direction of the rally route. It is also prohibited to re-enter the control area.”
It was at the event’s second service park where a moment of confusion saw Stokes enter the service park early, before realising the mistake and returning to the check in point to the service park ta second time. By doing so, Stokes was in breach of the above rule.
After initially being fined $250 for the infringement which saw the victory stand, a Motorsport New Zealand Judicial Hearing held last week found that the only appropriate penalty as per the Motorsport Manual was exclusion.
The result means Ben Hunt and Tony Rawstorn are now declared the winners of Round 5, Rally Bay of Plenty, with Jack Stokes and Hayden Graves promoted to second ahead of Jack Hawkeswood and Jason Farmer promoted to third place.
Heading to the final round this weekend, Hunt now sits on 158 points, 41 clear of Stokes who retains second place, now on 117, nine clear of Josh Marston in third.
The New Zealand Rally Championship resumes with the International Rally of Whangarei on 7-9 November.
You can read more on the decision HERE
Header Image: Geoff Ridder
Sounds like an honest mistake where nobody was in danger and quite frankly way over the top to me ,