News

Rally’s rising stars ready for Hawke’s Bay

The winner of the inaugural Rally New Zealand Rising Stars Scholarship, 20-year-old Ben Hunt, from Nelson, will be competing in just his third-ever rally when he lines up for the Tomoana Warehousing Rally Hawke’s Bay on Saturday 4 April.

This opening round of the Vantage New Zealand Rally Championship also sees entrants in the Rising Stars Development and International Awards start accumulating points towards these higher tiers of Rally New Zealand’s driver development programme.

Hunt took the $50,000 Rising Stars Scholarship title, which provides him with expert mentoring and a season’s use of a professionally-prepared Ford Fiesta rally car, after an intense shootout weekend in March. Since then, Hunt has been flat out trying to fit in preparations for his first rally representing Rally New Zealand around his commitments as a professional tennis coach in Nelson.

“There’s been a huge amount to organise – paperwork for rally entries, licences, sponsors,” says Hunt who was a very successful age group tennis representative until taking up rallying last year.

“With help from Neil [Allport, former New Zealand rally champion] and Chris [Carr, chairman of Rally New Zealand], Jeff Cress has agreed to be my co-driver. I’m really thrilled about that as Jeff has a lot of great experience. My team also includes acknowledged Ford Fiesta specialist Kayne Barrie as team manager, Gavin Peterson and Paul Curnow as mechanics and my father Richard, a former rally driver.”

From the start, Hunt saw how much he could learn from the experience. “This is the best prize in New Zealand motorsport at present, and it’s amazing to have the support of so many people.”

At the Hawke’s Bay event, Hunt will compete in the front-wheel-drive production car (N3) class, driving the Ford Fiesta competitively for the first time.

Rally New Zealand chairman Chris Carr says: “At this stage, Ben has had only a few test runs in the Fiesta, and he has competed in only two rallies, but already his out-of-car work is up to the standards that we set the competitors. For his first event in Hawke’s Bay, we expect nothing more of Ben than to learn to drive the car, to work with Jeff Cress and learn how to get the best from pace notes. With such a tight timeframe between Ben winning the award and his first rally, the team will also be using this rally as a development event.”

One of the key elements of the Rising Stars Scholarship was that the final decision wasn’t all about speed, explains Carr. “One of the things that we stressed was the need for the winning driver to become a complete package, and not just be the fastest driver.”
 
Carr adds: “Five contestants from the Rising Stars Scholarship shootout have entered the championship classes at the Hawke’s Bay rally and we are delighted that all of them will have some new skills to show their fellow competitors.”

Running alongside Hunt in the N3 class will be two other young drivers from Nelson: Scholarship runner-up 18 year old Daniel Harris and 24-year-old Dominick Unterberger. Adam Bligh, from Wellington, and Stephen Barker, from Hamilton, are both running Mitsubishi Lancer Evo rally cars in the open four-wheel-drive class. Two other Scholarship competitors, Piran Pigneguy, from Wellington, and Peter Weir, from Pahiatua, are running in the non-championship Clubman’s event.

For the Rising Stars Development and International Awards, each worth over $50,000 like the Scholarship, competitors must be registered to compete in the full Vantage New Zealand Rally Championship (NZRC). Competitors nominate two NZRC events in addition to two compulsory events, June’s NAC Insurance International Rally of Whangarei and August’s Possum Bourne Memorial Rally, to collect points towards the award. Points are awarded for each stage of the nominated rallies, three points for being first Rising Stars competitor through each stage, two points for second and one point for third.

Carr explains the background. “The Development Award is specifically developed to support competitors in the N3 or production car front-wheel-drive championship, and offers the 2009 winner significant funding and expert support to run a four-wheel-drive car in Rally New Zealand and the New Zealand Rally Championship in 2010.”

The Development Award currently has four competitors registered for points – Hunt, Unterberger and two experienced Ford Fiesta campaigners Ben Jagger, from Whangarei, and Auckland’s Patrick Malley. However only Jagger and Malley have nominated Hawke’s Bay as one of their four points’ scoring rounds, while Hunt and Unterberger have elected simply to gain driving experience in the two-day event which is based in Napier and takes in stages as far north as Wairoa and east to the Esk Valley.

“Daniel Harris has also indicated that he will be registering for the Development Award after using Hawke’s Bay to gain experience,” adds Carr.

The Rising Stars International Award provides the 2009 winner with significant funding and support to contest a major international rally in 2010. Competitors do not need to be registered yet, and to date, current New Zealand rally champion Hayden Paddon is the only competitor registered to earn International Award points in Hawke’s Bay.

“This decision by Paddon guarantees him maximum points from the weekend which could prove pivotal at the end of the year,” says Carr.

To be eligible to enter any of the three 2009 Rising Stars programmes, competitors must be 26 years of age or younger on 1 January 2009. All three tiers of the Rising Stars programme are scheduled to run again in 2010.

After the final round of the New Zealand Rally Championship in Nelson, Rally New Zealand will run a one day shootout programme with the top two points’ scorers in both the Development and International Awards, plus a wildcard entry for each award, taking part. The Awards’ shootout is scheduled to take place in October this year.