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Who will get top Kiwi honours in Repco Rally New Zealand? |
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Who will get top Kiwi honours in Repco Rally New Zealand?
The honour of being the first local competitor home in each New Zealand round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) is highly sought after.
Pictured: Chris West & Hyaden Paddon - will the leading New Zealand Rally Championship contenders be top Kiwi this year or will Richard Mason come home the top Kiwi three years in a row?
With the action in this year’s Repco Rally New Zealand due to commence on Friday 29 August, leading local Subaru driver Richard Mason will be looking for a three-peat in the top Kiwi title race. A two-time New Zealand rally champion, Mason came home top Kiwi driver in 2006 with an outstanding tenth place overall and repeated the distinction with 15th place overall in 2007. Mason, with co-driving wife Sara, is one of the top-ranked competitors in the New Zealand Rally Championship (NZRC) field which follows the WRC and Production WRC competitors through the event’s 16 special stages. Other contenders for the first Kiwi title are Mason’s fellow NZRC competitors Chris West and Hayden Paddon. West, another former New Zealand rally champion, took the top Kiwi honour back in 2004, while Paddon has contested New Zealand’s long-running WRC event only once before, last year when he finished 49 after suffering gearbox failure. Paddon and West have each been selected as this year’s recipients of a Repco Rally New Zealand scholarship which provides free entry in the Production WRC class, an opportunity to prove themselves against drivers competing in the global competition in similar Group N rally cars. The top Kiwi honour goes only to competitors who complete all three days of the event, although only Friday and Saturday’s results count for NZRC points.
Repco Rally New Zealand starts on Thursday 28 August with a ceremonial start in downtown Hamilton with the rally action taking place across the roads of Waitomo, Otorohanga, Raglan and Franklin districts from Friday 29 August to Sunday 31 August.
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