RallySport Magazine August 2016

FAMOUS STAGES: THE MOTU
not to do that! What’s out of sight on
Motu is more daunting than what you
can see!”
Jim Scott
“In 1977 Ari Vatanen and I headed
into the Motu stage after passing all
three works Fiats in the stage prior.
Once we started it’s right, left, right,
left and after a couple of kilometres Ari
says: ‘Jim, forget about the notes, you
will never keep up in here.’
A couple of corners later and the
front of the Escort is hanging over a
bank and I’m out pushing. Back on
the road and we set off again and Ari
shouts out: ‘You better get back on
those notes Jim.’”
Neil Allport
“You either love it to bits and you
think that you’re a Colin McRae, but
most other people love it and hate it all
in the same sentence, and I think that is
a pretty fair summary of the place, you
never know if you’ve liked it until you
got to the end of it.
38 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - AUGUST 2016
At the time it is always a nightmare.
The last time I did it was in the Silver
Fern in the Escort and I sort of looked
forward to it, but after getting 6km
in and clobbering a rock, I was hating
every damn kilometre to the end, and I
think that’s what that stage is about.
If you chance your arm in there, it’s
got everything you could ever want
in a stage, it’s just one of those iconic
pieces of road I suppose. To sum up, I
don’t know whether I like it or hate it,
there is something challenging about
it for certain. It’s a bucket-lister, a road
you need to travel down in your rallying
career. Some of the journeys have been
fantastic and some have been terrible.
They’ve had everything on that stage.
The first year I did it in 1983 we got
stopped when Bettega was parked on
top of a cow or something in a Lancia
037. I’ll always remember the stage for
that and I suppose the biggest memory
of that stage, not actually driving it,
was watching Ari Vatanen come out
of there in 1977 in the international,
that’s probably what inspired me to go
rallying and it just so happened it was
on that stage.
Memories from driving it are
certainly good and bad, I don’t know if
the good outnumber the bad, but it’s
always been challenging and that’s an
understatement too. I’ve never done
that well on that stage, not that it really
matters. Well, I guess it always matters,
but it’s not something that you feel you
need to have done in your life (win the
stage), just getting through it with four
wheels on the car and no dented panels
is a big enough achievement.”
Tony Sircombe (international co-driver)
“The name still sits with respect when
I hear or read the name Motu. My
journeys up and down the road from
1989 through 1995 during Rally New
Zealand are relative good memories,
considering the epic challenge the road
presents to teams. Only once did I get
to watch the rest of the rally pass by,
when Rod Millen and I DNF’ed on Motu
1 in 1990 with turbo failure.
During the lead up to any rally, recce
gave you a good idea on how you will
attack a stage, but Motu was quite
different from most and always stood
out as a possible turning point in the
rally. Colin McRae used this stage to
stamp his place in Rally New Zealand
history with some incredible stage
times.
Recce for Motu was a huge task as
the return journey down the Waioeka
Road made just one pass through the
stage about a three hour trip. With the
early rallies we had open recce, which
to Rod and I meant a minimum of four
passes, to Possum it was more like
seven!
Some of you may have seen the
clip of an in-car video from 1995 of
Possum and I. That year I had 80 pages
of notes for the 45km stage. I barely
had a moment to take a breath and
would need to physically and mentally
prepare for the challenge of 39 minutes
of intense concentration. Back then a
couple of bottles of Lucozade helped
me get into the frame! To make it more
of a challenge that year, we ran Motu
up in the morning and down in the
afternoon….
There was always big unanswered
questions going through your head
on the start line of Motu in those
days prior to gravel crews and mobile
phones (not that you got any cell
coverage in there!). Thoughts of how
deep the water would be at the ford,
and therefore how fast to hit it, was the
road wet and thus slippery, would there
be ice at the top of the ridge or in the
shade?
Rod Millen and I ended way up a
bank because of an icy road just before
you get to the top, which spoiled an
incredible run up to that point. I was
able to get out and push us back onto
the road, so not all was lost.”