RallySport Magazine September 2016

with Anthony Jones managing to reduce
a pair of rear tyres to canvas across the
opening three stages. Despite that, his
Escort led the class from Dave Strong,
who needed only to finish to secure the
title.
However, Strong was coming under
more pressure from rookie Dylan
Thomson, who was only 15 seconds
behind and well clear of Jack Williamson
in fourth.
Reeves continued his domination of
the opening loop of stages with a five
second win on stage three, heading
home a surprised Blackberry, who
continued his storming drive with a
second fastest time to move into the
top five.
Turner signaled his intent with third
fastest, ahead of Summerfield and a
frustrated Clint Cunningham, whose top
five time was despite a misfire holding
him back.
Sixth fastest meant Hawkeswood
stayed ahead of Summerfield for
second, 23.6 seconds behind Reeves
and only a tenth of a second ahead of
Summerfield, with Turner lurking less
than six seconds behind.
As teams headed for service, weather
was becoming a big talking point and
the dark clouds lurking ensured several
different opinions would show in tyre
choice.
With the first pass through the
longest stage of the rally, the 23
kilometre Tapu-Coroglen stage, as well
as a repeat run through the 309 road
used as stage three, some compromise
was inevitable, but the weather factor
was throwing in a further unwanted
complication.
On top of tyre choices, there were
plenty of dramas for teams to work
with. Inkster, who was on the pace
in stage one, was forced to replace a
broken spark plug to fix his misfire,
while Lance Williams’ morning, that
began with a puncture, was taking
a worrying turn with an overheating
engine, ironically an issue that dogged
him on this event last year (to the point
where later in the day, he would stop
and take water from the same spots as
the year before) was starting to cause a
few concerns.
Not as many as the Ben Hunt team,
however, who were unable to sort the
Jeff Judd was as
spectacular as
always in his Escort.
cause of the power loss and made the
difficult decision to retire rather than
risk the car.
Kiwi hopes continued to dwindle as
Sloan Cox secured
second in the 2016
NZRC in Coromandel.
Reeves took his fourth stage win in a
row as the rain began to fall, although
an almighty effort from Inkster saw him
only three seconds behind over the
23km, despite a broken gear display,
causing difficulty in judging speed with
the sequential gearbox in the Skoda.
Kingsley Jones showed Blackberry
was not the only Gull Challenge
competitor in a hurry with the third
fastest time, just ahead of Summerfield
and Turner, both of whom leapfrogged
Hawkeswood in the stage, as did
Blackberry and Inkster, after a tyre
choice went horribly wrong on the
Mazda and he could only set the 14th
fastest time.
With some suspension changes at
service, Holder increased his pace
slightly to seventh fastest in stage four,
but showed why he is the national
champion in stage five, claiming the
stage win and the first driver to take a
stage win off Reeves.
The stage win moved Holder up
three positions to seventh place and
into what was becoming an intense
battle for the top five, with 3.1 seconds
separating fifth to seventh.
Summerfield moved himself into
a solid second place with the second
fastest time, while a wound up
Hawkeswood recovered some of the
time lost with the third fastest time,
Dylan Turner was
impressive once
again in his Lancer.
SEPTEMBER 2016 - RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE | 27