Old Autosport Club News

17 October 2004 - Autosport Club Canary Furniture Canterbury Rally

Rangiora's Les Summerfield extended his lead in the Mainland Series this past weekend with a close fought win in the 2004 Canary Furniture Canterbury Rally. Number 1 seed John Silcock did not start the event with his Lancer's engine not being ready on time. Summerfield and co-driver Matthew King were first on the road for the day and did well in the conditions to come away with a 17 second lead after the cars finished the last special stage. Emma Gilmour and Glenn MacNeall in the Evo 6 won stage 3 and was grabbing back time that was lost to Summerfield in stage 1 and 2 throughout the day although not quite enough, the WRX driver's charge from the outset seeing him top the scorecards by enough in the first two stages to be able to defend the lead throughout the day. Tom Pritchard and Mike Fletcher claimed third overall in a fine drive that saw the Dunedin driver record fastest times on stages 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9! Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson were top 2WD in the Escort BDA and drove consistently quickly to 4th overall in the event, a fine performance in the slippery conditions that favoured the four-wheel drive cars. Dave Burgess and Bryan Pipe in the Legacy all the way from Waiuku had a great trip to the south, bringing the car home in 5th overall and with that taking out the NZ 4WD club rally championship. Congratulations Dave!

In the classes it was of course Deane Buist taking out the 2WD (class D) honours. Hayden Paddon with Nicole France reading the notes took out the 1301-1600cc class in 12th overall and 2nd class D from Andrew Sim and Tony Witheridge in second in class B and third in class D. Evan Cook from Porirua with Jason Delaney from Titahi Bay brought their Corolla DX (with a pretty mean looking rear wing on it!) home in 3rd of the class B mid-sized cars. The 0-1300cc class was all action and at the end it was Graham Wilson and Chris Herdman in the Starlet that came out on top after a great drive. Barry Deuart and Iain Pow in the Datsun 120Y had a relatively smooth run and took second in the class ahead of Shane Thornley and Nicole Summerfield in another Starlet. There could have been a Starlet class in the event, with 13 taking part. The small(ish) classics were headed home by Barry Mills and Mark Allington in the Avenger, with Ian and David Latham in the Eccy in second almost 9 minutes down on the flying Mills, and Paul Cox with Peter Abernethy in third in the class. The big classics had Robert "Groove" McCallum and Sean Sands in top spot with a very well driven example of sideways action to 7th overall. Gary Hawkes with Nicola Mulholland sitting beside him put in a fantastic comeback performance with third 2WD car home and inside the top 10 at number 9 and second big classic, while Derek Ayson and Andrew Graves were in 10th, 3rd big classic and with it claimed the NZ 2WD club rally championship, congratulations Derek! Rookie award went to Russell Burney of Gore who cranked along in the wee Civic, seeded 68th and finishing 23rd.

The pre-rally talk from Crunch Bennet at Canary Furniture was the most comfortable rally forum most had attended, and we don't know of anyone who ended up adding a lounge suite to the rally budget although there were several people looking at going back at a later date to have a closer look. The ceremonial start was relaxed as local personality Jo Giles conversed with the drivers and sent them on their way. The rally had some fantastic roads, stage 1 was a real challenge first up with a good mix of twisty forestry and wide open main roads, along with some very fast straights down in the valley. The second test was even twistier, some interesting very tight corners that came from nowhere up the hill, and an almost unrecognisable downhill on the Ashley Forest sprint course to finish, the trees were all gone. The top of SS3 Demmocks was a real treat, twisting it's way along the ridgeline and the downhill wasn't as slippery as many expected although still a challenge. The Karetu stage had a couple of fords that weren't too much trouble if taken carefully, a great middle section that reminded drivers of the top road around the back at the Hanmer rally, and had a really fast downhill on Paringa Road to the finish. Onepunga Road was the only public road in the event and was fast and flowing with a tricky downhill hairpin section into a bridge mid-way through, finishing flat out on tarmac. The Lake Janet stage was great, nice flowing roads down to a pretty beat up concrete bridge (there were some big holes in that thing) and fast to finish, and the last stage was flat out main forestry roads, raising the excitement level even more. Finishing in Cathedral Square it was a real treat to see all the cars lined up outside the cathedral.

There was quite a high attrition rate in the rally, with 42 of the 74 starters finishing the event. The forest roads proved a bit tricky for some and hard on equipment for others. Neville Kidd's Starlet had a strut collapse in SS1, in the same stage Brent Buist thought he'd lost all his gears but second and temporarily withdrew, but investigation found the problem and he was able to continue. Fred Merkin parked up the WRX in SS2. Michael Prichard in the Cyborg had a crash and really bent it against a tree, Sara Randall had a fatal clutch problem and retired after trying to cure the problem and rejoin. Stewart Bufton's diff problems forced him to retire, and Steve Carr's run of bad luck continued with the motor losing compression and stopping. Euan Fuge was honking along as video footage showed but the engine in the RX3 cried enough. Mark McMillan's WRX melted some of it's own wiring and rubber mounts and the Southlander retired not wanting further damage. Stephen Peterson was in the lead of the 1300cc class when his car refused to start and he was forced to withdraw. Kevin Lynch damaged the front of his Starlet in SS7 and withdrew, Ryan Berry in the Pritchard's Starlet 4-AGE had an engine failure, Neville Pettigrew's Bluebird Turbo began belching smoke early on in the event and by SS4 had given up the ghost. It was close to retirement for Dave Fletcher, who pushed the KE20 into Cathedral Square after the clutch packed up in Colombo St! He also had to tour the last three stages due to a broken leaf spring, the diff tube held in with a ratchet tie-down and some welding wire.

The prizegiving was held at Warners hotel in the Square. It was a good turnout and by all accounts the food was great. The impressive silver cups were handed to all the winners and crews mingled long into the night. It was a sociable end to a fun but challenging event.

Click Here For Printable Results (PDF file)

3 October 2004 - Okuku Autocross Results

It was a great day to go play on Wayne Summerfield's new front lawn at Okuku. The sun was shining and the conditions would be very interesting as there was a lush covering of grass on moist firm soil. The course was excellent, a mix of open sweeping corners that tightened, twisty bits, and a couple of tight hairpins. It was good to see some new faces at the event, and things got off on time.

The open bits of the course in the slippy first run suited the 4WD turbos and Chris Hughes in the Evo led by less than a second from Kieron Telford's Pulsar. Derek Hartley's Barina GTi was obviously a great wee car to do Autocrosses in, and he set a really good time to be running in third, although Grant Goile was only a tenth of a second behind. Jonathan Hughes running in Chris's Evo and Dave Fletcher in the KE20 were best of the rest a couple of seconds back. As the grip improved things were going to get interesting. Andy Reid had a big spin at the end of the long sweeper that tightened, and everyone steered clear of the markers. Paul Jansen did well to steer clear of the marker he was sliding towards as he missed the second last hairpin; he recovered well although was now out of the running.

In the second run the course remained the same and the line had got a bit of grip, but off track it was still slippery in the grass. Grant Goile had an absolute blinder and was 2 seconds faster than anyone else, taking the lead from Chris Hughes by a second. Kieron Telford dropped to third even though he scored second fastest time in run 2. Hartley's Barina GTi was 2-tenths behind and in fourth on accumulated time.

The course was changed slightly for the last run and an indian file was run. This laid a bit of a track but competitors would have to be wary of not following the well worn tracks from the previous course as the corners were mostly side by side with the older ones. Dave Fletcher overcooked it a bit being first on the course for the last run and not used to the slippery grass, and had a half spin right in the shoot-through to the second lap (he says he was distracted by spotter Richard Towse laughing as he went by, Towse maintains he only started laughing after the spin so that couldn't possibly have affected Fletcher's performance). Derek Hartley would have been in the running for an overall place if it weren't for missing the first corner of the last run and getting a slowest time penalty.

Grant Goile had hit his straps and scorched through the last taking the run by two seconds and the event by three from Hughes who wasn't holding back either. Telford consolidated third place. Geoff Douch had the wee Starlet Turbo up into 4th overall and took the big-engined 2WD (well, it's not that big but it's got a hair dryer stuck to it) and due to a fantastic third run Shane Thornley showed he must have been doing a bit of skidding after hours in his home paddock to move into 5th. Matt Jansen again won the family battle but there was only two seconds in it after Paul's surging recovery of run 2. In the other family contest Andrew Bufton was glad of Stewart's slower time in run 1 and managed to hang onto the lead throughout the event with some smooth driving, winning the Class 2 award by only 5 hundredths of a second from Shane McKenzie. Robert McCallum did well to keep the rear-wheels under control in the Eccy and took second in the big 2WD class from Brent Sibley, after Sibley made best time in run 1 in the class Groove thought he'd better pull finger.

Rhys Ellison took the Focus WRC/Peugeot 206 WRC/Vauxhall Chevette into top spot in the road cars and 13th overall, followed only 1 second later by Ryan Pool's Legacy RS/Legacy RS/Legacy RS. Guy Anderson's Corolla FX-GT aided by the extra aerodynamic downforce of huge ski-racks was third road car. Craig McCulloch recalled the last event he did in the Corolla (the mud-plug) but unfortunately couldn't call up the class winning form this time. Rene Spijkerman had the Escort Mk1 out for a blat looking a little less creased now than it did at the Ashley Rally. Greg MacIntosh has bought Nigel Tyson's Starlet rally car to replace the crashed Datsun Bluebird and he, and (12 year old)  James and Michael had their first paddock skids in the car at this event. It was the first event for James and Michael and they did really well to steer clear of all the markers through all three runs.

The results were:

1st Grant Goile (Starlet) 4m06.35s
2nd Chris Hughes (Evo) 4m09.60s
3rd Kieron Telford (Pulsar) 4m17.29s

1st Chris Hughes (Evo) 4m09.60s
2nd Kieron Telford (Pulsar) 4m17.29s
3rd Jonathan Hughes (Evo) 4m22.52s

1st Geoff Douch (Starlet) 4m19.55s
2nd Robert McCallum (Escort) 4m26.52s
3rd Brent Sibley (Escort) 4m30.64s

1st Andrew Bufton (Starlet) 4m25.26s
2nd Shane McKenzie (Starlet) 4m25.31s
3rd Stewart Bufton (Starlet) 4m26.80s

1st Grant Goile (Starlet) 4m06.35s
2nd Shane Thornley (Starlet) 4m19.59s
3rd Matt Jansen (Datsun 1200) 4m20.97s

Get a full results transcript by clicking this link (PDF).

Thanks to Richard Towse, Dave Fletcher and Josh Marston for organising and running the event; Michelle Reid and Huri Timothy for documentation; Groove McCallum and Andy Reid for scrutineering; Lynne McKenzie for operating the hockey stick; Stewart and Andrew Bufton for course help, Haydo Riddle for spotting, and all those who helped pack up the event who had it all done before the results were tallied, well done! By 3:00pm everyone was off home and Wayne Summerfield had some interesting tracks on his lawn. Hopefully he lets us back in next time. Thanks very much Wayne!

20 September 2004 - Makerikeri Road Sprint Results

Loads of cars and competitors arrived at the Makerikeri/Mt. Grey Sprint, a really good bit of gravel that's pretty close to town. The spectator corner was well populated all day and they got a bit of a show too. A couple of cars didn't make it to the start line with Geoff Combe's Starlet not wanting to fire up so it stayed on the trailer, and unfortunately Grant Restall's Corolla had a problem with it's seats that couldn't be repaired before the start. John Weir was out of his overalls before he got started as the Honda Accord he was sharing with Tony Morrison understeered into a bank on Morrison's timed practise and the resulting damage saw it sidelined too.

With the damp conditions leading up to the event it was hard to judge what the course was going to be like, and it was interesting to find that on this totally windless day in the Ashley Forest that the dust hung in the air from the previous car a minute ahead. While an indian file was lacking many felt it would have been hard to see the road with all the dust in the air, and as it turned out the timed practise turned into one of the high speed runs. Unlucky to go off the road in a big way on the timed practise was David Clearwater in the Celica, his tyre suffering a puncture and the car rolling sideways off the road and well into the trees. Brent McDonald in the Lancer was also unlucky in that he talked to Bart before the run. He was informed the ford could be taken flat. The resulting crunch saw the car trailered after limping back to the pits. Bart wasn't wrong, the ford can be taken flat if you are driving a tank. Unlucky was Richard Towse whose Sunny broke the camshaft in the practise. In the first competitive run Kieron Telford had a puncture which bent the rim and the resulting wobble sheared the wheel nuts on the front of the Pulsar GTiR. That was the end of his event too.

The winner on the day was Brent Collins from Timaru, and he made up for his lateness at arriving by driving very quickly in the ex- Graham Coey Subaru Vortex. The lightweight special just pipping Les Summerfield for the outright win. Congratulations Brent. For his efforts he received the very interactive Pottery International trophy. Ryan Berry led the chasing pack in the Evo, with Brent Buist the top of the 2WDs in 4th overall. Those BDAs were a sight to behold coming down the hill to the spectator area, hanging the rear out in the weeds while nearing supersonic speeds. Glen Simpson made it into the top 5 in the Autoteach lease WRX, Bart was driving it like he owned it and it was a shame he braked too late at the spectator corner and handbraked into the run-off road. The time lost there could have easily seen him break into the top 3.

Jeff Judd and Groove McCallum were neck and neck after the first run with Judd opening up a gap by the last competitive pass. Andrew Sim was very fast in the FX-GT, taking 1600cc class honours in 8th overall and using good racing lines as the photos on KeenKiwi attest. Junior driver Brad Harris showed good speed in 9th overall with Blair Logan making a rare appearance these days in the yellow FX-GT next on the scorecard and second in the 1600cc class. Matt King did well in the lease Autotech lease WRX, some saying the car was used to the road by now but Matt was definitely showing that sitting alongside Les Summerfield on rallies sure helps in the learning process. Chris Hughes was again all smiles in the Evo2 in 12th overall, more time in the saddle is all good. Leigh Marston was a bit down on power due to continuing computer niggles. Brent Tiney was another driver using the good lines with the Escort twincam sounding great off the line and piloted well into 14th overall.

First of the small cars was Stephen Petersen, the only front skidding 1300cc car in the event pulled well away from the chasing pack, although the class 1's were less of a pack at this event than the 4WD cars which were very numerous. Hayden Spatcher was third in the 1600cc class, ahead of Petersen on the cards after the first run but not quite managing the run to run improvement that the Starlet driver pulled out. Paul Jansen was next in the GTiR and had no trouble keeping well clear of son Matt in this event, the younger Jansen definitely had a top speed disadvantage in that matchup on the long sweeping sections in his Datsun 1200. The battle of the Datsun 1200's was hotter than ever this event though, Ryan McDonald closing to within three quarters of a second of Jansen in run 2, in 38th overall. Graham Wilson and Josh Marston were 2nd and 3rd respectively in the small car class, both pulling a massive improvement from their first run times although Josh had an easier time improving after a big spin into the bank on the last corner in run 1. Ben Johnson is steadily improving and was mid-field at the end of the day in the Pulsar GTi front skidder. Dave Fletcher spent too much time going sideways down the road after the pond and the high-speed half spin saw him finish in 4th in the small car class.

Stewart Bufton was seen trying to get more downforce in the Starlet by leaving the rear hatch open. Unfortunately the experiment didn't quite work and created more drag than the car is used to and so Andrew took the honours in the father-son contest on this occasion, finishing in 22nd overall. Phil Sloane did well to keep the Lecacy RS on the island in the tricky surface conditions in only his second gravel event in the club, narrowly pipping Bruce France for 23rd overall, France distracted by taking Dave Fletcher for a ride in the last run, the passenger asking difficult questions about quick-racks in the middle of corners. Fletcher responded that it was not a deliberate attempt to slow the competition, then immediately went to find Josh Marston to try to get a ride with him.

Cameron Moore in the AE86 Levin was 25th overall and kept things pretty tidy (like the car really) most of the day although ran a bit wide at the first intersection at Mt. Grey road. Barry Deuart in the mighty 120Y was only a couple of seconds behind the leading rear wheel drive 1300cc cars, 1200cc just being a wee bit off the pace in the high speed event. Brent Sibley could be forgiven for thinking it's the weight in the two extra doors carried by his Escort that saw him in 27th overall, as his car control was going good and his lines were quite tidy. Darryl Campbell's Evo didn't take the start of the second timed run but his first time was enough to get up to 28th overall and if other competitors' improvement was anything to go by he may have broken into the top 20. Stewart Bufton edged out Grant Goile by half a second, Goile giving the Starlet another run while the KE25 Corolla is rested, no wonder it goes so fast as it obviously returns the care shown to it! Andrea Summerfield was the day's only lady driver and finished in 31st overall, a bit out of practise but having a bit of fun. Want to ease the pressure on yourself after running documentation? Just take a WRX for a spin in the event too!

Richard Bowater in the racy wee Starlet made the trip up from Ashburton to have a fun day on the gravel, all smiles afterwards showed the travel was worth it. Rex Ford's 180B was next on the scoresheets, the driver gaining in confidence with each event. Jonathan Bradshaw went sideways all day, having a blast. Paul Stanley took a break from keeping an eye on proceedings as part of the forest management crew to go for a blat in the Eccy, flares now painted the same colour as the car so it slips through the air a bit better. Peter Quinn's Levin was back in action looking it's usual resplendant best, Peter managed to stay ahead of the chasing Datsun 1200 battle mentioned earlier. Nigel Ackers showed a 12s improvement between the two runs which he's got to be happy with. Luke McHaffie had a problem with the GT4 and didn't take the second competitive run. Nick Marston was sharing the RDL Starlet for the day and improved a massive 57 seconds between runs. Greg and Stuart MacIntosh were sharing the Nissan Bluebird turbo and both completed the first competitive run however an accident where Stuart ran into a bank head on in the second run halted the event.

The accident happened on a reasonably fast bit of road and the impact bent the front of the car substantially, forcing the suspension back into the firewall with enough force to bend and dent the firewall. The event's safety procedures worked well, with a marshal hearing the crash and investigating and a following competitor ascertaining damage then then proceeding to report it to another marshal who radioed for assistance. The intervention vehicle called for the ambulance when it became clear that the crashed car's passenger Andrew Bufton had suffered a cut chin and whiplash. The ambulance was dispatched into the course and retrieved Andrew and took him to hospital for a check over. While the ambulance was away the event was stopped, and only when it returned could the event proceed, the delay forcing the cancellation of the last competitive run. Competitors were briefed on this and everyone seemed happy as three runs had been accomplished if the timed practise was counted. Thankfully Andrew was not seriously hurt, although a couple of days off were needed because of the whiplash. Stuart MacIntosh was shaken but (thankfully again) unhurt. This is the first event this author has been at where an injury accident has occurred and it was impressive to see the quick response of the emergency crews, a great job by all involved. When the event got underway again the remaining cars had no further incidents (well, apart from those wee moments that always seem to happen when your result needs it the least!).

Results were:

1st Brent Collins (Subaru Vortex) 4m00.83s
2nd Les Summerfield (Subaru WRX) 4m01.55s
3rd Ryan Berry (Evo 3) 4m04.84s

1st Glen Simpson (WRX) 4m10.72s
2nd Brad Harris (Evo) 4m16.99s
3rd Matt King (WRX) 4m20.83s

1st Brent Buist (Escort) 4m07.32s
2nd Jeff Judd (Escort) 4m11.33s
3rd Robert McCallum (Escort) 4m14.07s

1st Andrew Sim (Corolla) 4m14.30s
2nd Blair Logan (Corolla FX-GT) 4m20.06s
3rd Hayden Spatcher (Corolla) 4m32.09s

1st Stephen Petersen (Starlet EP71) 4m30.33s
2nd Graham Wilson (Starlet) 4m36.59s
3rd Josh Marston (Starlet) 4m38.95s

Thanks to Andrew Sim for organising the event and Les Summerfield for helping with organisation. Thanks to Paul Stanley for acting as forest laison officer for the day and Andrea Summerfield and Kieron Telford for documentation. John Weir, Richard Towse and Robert McCallum did a great job of getting through the 20 cars that needs scrutineering audits. Tony Witheridge did another great job operating the timing gear. Thanks again to the team from Rangiora Rotary for marshalling. There were lots of helpers on the day, including Derek Simpson, Brent Buist, Leigh Marston, Chris Hughes, Nick Brownlee, David Fletcher, and Michelle Reid (sorry to those we missed by name and THANKS!). Thanks also to St. John Ambulance for ensuring our injured competitors were well taken care of. And a big thanks to Geoff Bone of Pottery International for sponsoring the event, and putting up an impressive returning trophy.

Here's the full results in PDF form: Makerikeri Road Sprint Results

29 August 2004 - Club member Sean Gray to compete in Rally Japan

After a top performance in his most recent outing in the Parker ENZED N.Z. Rally Championship back in June, Christchurch based rally driver Sean Gray has foregone the rest of the New Zealand championship to instead take up an opportunity to compete in Rally Japan. Gray's Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 6 has been shipped to Japan for the event which takes place on the island of Hokkaido from 3 - 5 September. The rally is Round 11 of the World Rally Championship and Round 4 of the Asia - Pacific Rally Championship.

Gray's opportunity to drive in the event comes through a longtime association with Atom Motorsport of Japan. The connection began several year's ago when Gray received a call asking if he could look after one of Atom Motorsport's cars on the Rally Of New Zealand. "Three Japanese teams had come to New Zealand for the rally. Kim Austin looked after one, Peter Van Breugel one and I worked with the other", recalls Gray. From that time he has become firm friends with many of the faces behind Atom Motorsport. "They are wonderful people" Gray said today. "Their son has stayed with us here in New Zealand on holiday and the relationship has evolved to the point where on every other Rally New Zealand that they have done I have built and looked after the cars for them. They initially gave me the opportunity to drive for them in their off season and now they have given me a drive during the season". Gray will certainly not be out of his depth in the field in Japan. His competition career stretches back to 1989 when he competed in his first rally. "That was in Whangarei and since then I have moved to Auckland and now Christchurch being involved in the sport all the way". During his 15 year's of competition Gray has certainly had some high points. In his only other appearance in an Asia Pacific Rally Championship round he performed with distinction. "I did the New Caledonia Rally in 2002', say's Gray. "We finished 7th overall although we were running 5th when we smashed the suspension on the final day"! Other high points in his very interesting career include the Rally Of New Zealand in 2002 and 2003. "In 2002 we were running 30th at the end of the first day with most of the field still there but the suspension failed resulting in a 130kmh roll"!

However some of the performances on those Rally Of New Zealand stages still rate as highlights in his career. Gray contested two rounds of this year's New Zealand Championship before the car was shipped to Japan. In the opening round in Otago the engine was off song resulting in a disappointing result but in Southland he and co - driver Richard Cocker climbed to 9th place before a puncture dropped them a few places down the order. Gray admits he is going into the Japanese event " a little blind". The temperature over there recently has been as high as 31 degrees while the format is a little different. "Most days there is a Super Special or two.That's a feature of the rally scene in Japan. It's like a lot of little rallysprints. Hokkaido is the most sparsely populated Japanese island and it's probably the one most similar to New Zealand. The rally is based in Obihiro which has a population of 100,000 people and it is common to tour 100 kilometres from the Service Park to the Special Stage". Gray will use a Japanese navigator, Fumi Takahashi, for the event. "Fumi has driven and navigated before and has done Rally Of New Zealand 7 times". Fortunately twenty - seven year old Takahashi speaks fluent English. Gray's approach to the rally is a determined one. "I'm not just going for a finish" he says. "I'm going to have a good go and try and get noticed".

Prime support for the effort will come from Atom Motorsport Tokyo, and Dunlop Tyres Japan. Gray will also be utilising Japanese crew - "friends and mechanics", to keep him going throughout the event. In addition to his driving accomplishments Gray has a wealth of experience in motorsport. In addition to his many years of preparing and running cars in the Rally Of New Zealand he has also used his holidays to work for several touring car teams. One of the high points of his work on the circuits of New Zealand was the Liquor King 500 win by Van Breugel and the late Ashley Stichbury a few seasons ago at Pukekohe. While rallying is an extremely unpredictable sport, New Zealand will be well represented by a driver of Sean Gray's calibre and experience in Rally Japan.

Lindsay Beer (021) 351 499
For further comment: Sean Gray (03) 354 1928

15 August 2004 - Loburn Autocross

The proper title for this report should be "Loburn Mud-plug"!  Conditions for the event can only be described as diabolical. It was raining heavily travelling there and the paddock was saturated. What was amazing was that 30 competitors showed up - mad dogs and Scotsmen eh?! (Well, we didn't have an Englishman, and you definitely can't say "Englishman" when you're referring to a Scotsman, right Kieron!?). The greater number of entrants wanted to proceed with the event so on went the show. Timing was by stopwatch as getting all the cables and electronic gear out in the wet was deemed more effort than it would have been worth, and it shortened packing up time considerably. Leigh Marston's  E-Z Up became the covered grandstand for the event and crews kept out of the rain while watching the mud fly and the cars get stuck. Brent Tiney related the days of Autocrossing in snow so everyone considered that this was a bit better than that.

The indian file was too much for Jamie Fisher's Commodore road car that withdrew after not being able to get going in the queue for the start line. The course was well and truly rutted even after the one-pass look by all the competitors. Things were going to be very interesting indeed, then it started to sleet. Grant Goile got things off to a flying start, setting a time an amazing 14 seconds faster than anyone else! Phillip Sloan in the newly built Legacy was coming off a good run at the Taumutu Sprint and was the best of the rest for the first test. Kieron Telford drove well to put the Pulsar into third spot. Andy Reid had a blinder in the Corolla (lots better than his effort in getting their van stuck on the way out of the paddock and having to be towed out by the farm tractor after the event) and cranked around into 4th overall. Paul Jansen had his Pulsar GTiR well up the scorecard in 5th. David Fletcher in the Corolla and Matt Jansen in the Datto 1200 were neck and neck one place back, the former not doing too bad for running last on the road in the run after performing timing duties.

The MacIntoshes had a Bluebird SSS RWD out for a skid but ended up having to withdraw after the car wouldn't go anywhere, the tyre pressures were too high but they had to drive the car home again so couldn't lower them and there were no compressors on site to pump them up. Even a helping hand with a push in the rear by their 4WD couldn't keep the Nissan going which was really unfortunate, and early exit for the guys who usually do well in the road car class.  Josh Marston lamented the lack of a limited slip diff as the Starlet got bogged down and had to be towed. Luckily for the Clerk of Course the call was made before the event to give anyone who got stuck slowest time +5s to keep them in the event! Everyone else was getting around without too much problem although it was the slowest event we've seen!

The second run saw the course changed to be more open so that people didn't get bogged in the corners. Steve Carr did the indian file for everyone to watch so that he could judge where the course went wasn't confusing and after a few spins said it was no problems. To make things fair cars were run in reverse order from run 1. The open course meant the fast 4WDs had an advantage over the smaller cars. Grant Goile hit a marker and went down the leaderboard. Paul Bradshaw showed a good turn of speed keeping things tidy and Matthew King had some of Les Summerfield's go hard aura from Catlins rub off on him and moved up to take second place for the run. Pete Abernethy who's Dad's paddock we had taken over for the event denied all accusations of illegal recce'ing and took the Autotech lease WRX to a run 1 is the second contest. Rhys Ellison's Chevette had miraculously transformed from a 206WRC look-alike into quite a convincing Focus WRC look-alike and with rally tires was doing the business, getting around the very challenging track well.  BT's Escort Twincam was looking pretty good too and he was after a place in the big 2WD class.  Another of the road car competitors Troy Earl in the Starlet found the conditions too nasty and headed home. Haydo Riddle got a bit stuck but managed to get going again in GTX road car, 4WD was a distinct advantage although he lost a lot of time and dropped from his usual high spot in the road car class. Nick Marston was sharing Josh's Starlet and had a good day. Well, any day you don't break a valve spring is a good day ay!

The cars were getting heavier with all the mud (heaven help the cleaners at Quick-E-Wash!) but the run 2 course had held together well so it was decided to run it again as a 1-lapper for the final test. Brent Sibley's smile could be seen through the windscreen of the Eccy (but only just) as he was kicking up enough mud to cover the car many times over. Craig McCulloch was driving a great event in the FWD Corolla road car, smoothly and maintaining momentum around the corners was the way to do it and this was rewarded with a class win. Michelle Reid had a disadvantage of the three-driver TeamRFR Corolla gathering more weight in mud than anyone else's cars but she edged further ahead of Gemma Bone in the ladies contest and Karen Robinson driving the black Pulsar GTiR was keeping the top two honest, gaining on them throughout the event. Simon Bagnall was sharing the car (and consequently Geoff Bone's rally tires) with Gemma for the day and was driving smoothly and consistently and running close to the leaders in the mid-sized class. Jonathan Bradshaw was managing to stay ahead of Bagnall while trying to catch Paul Bradshaw piloting the same car. John Weir was generating a bit much wheelspin in the Accord but it still sounded great.  Craig Millar was sharing the turbo RX7 as well as performing many vehicle rescues in the Safari 4WD recovery truck, and found things a bit understeery for his liking but great fun nonetheless (and also in the Safari!). Craig Hodgekinson packed up and shipped out in his Starlet road car before the last run, the conditions unfortunately not suiting the low and light car at all. John Burt also found the going a bit rough for his Impreza road car and also sat out the final test.

In his first Autocross Phillip Sloan brought the Legacy home in first overall. Congratulations and well done. Again this showed that smooth and consistent was the way to treat the Loburn mud. The results were as follows:

Overall and 4WD
1st Phillip Sloan (Legacy) 5m09.83s
2nd Pete Abernethy (WRX) 5m11.31s
3rd Matthew King (WRX) 5m13.97s

2WD 1601+cc
1st Steve Carr (RX7) 5m33.74s
2nd Brent Tiney (Escort Twincam) 5m49.63s
3rd Craig Millar (RX7) 6m41.39s

2WD 1301-1600cc
1st Paul Bradshaw (Starlet) 5m22.61s
2nd Jonathan Bradshaw (Starlet) 6m01.19s
3rd Simon Bagnall (Levin) 6m19.50s

2WD 0-1300cc
1st Grant Goile (Starlet) 5m15.86s
2nd Andy Reid (Corolla) 5m24.93s
3rd David Fletcher (Corolla) 5m42.47s

Road Car
1st Craig McCulloch (Corolla) 7m01.28s
2nd Hayden Riddle (Mazda GTX) 8m13.30s

Click here for full results

Thanks go to John Weir for scrutineering, Michelle Reid, and Huri Timothy for documentation and timing, Chris Hughes for helping set up the event, Josh Marston for being Clerk of Course, timing for the day, and organising the event and setting up the course, Nick & Leigh Marston for helping, and David Fletcher for timing and towing the dunny back to town (after he'd got the club van towed out of where he got it stuck... ha, a bogged bog!).

So, when all was said and done it was a difficult event in very trying conditions, and one that in hindsight should probably have been abandoned at the beginning of the day. By the time the last car went through most competitors had left so there was no prizegiving so we'll just have to hand out the spoils at the next club gathering. Having said all that, there were a good number of smiling faces in the grandstand and in the cars and as this is the first Autocross for a long time where it's rained, we're not doing too badly. Roll on Makerikeri Road! (Well, not literally of course, we don't want anyone rolling on Makerikeri Road now do we!).

25 July 2004 - Kaiwara Road Sprint

It was an early start on a fine but pretty frosty morning for the crews making the trip north to the Hurunui and this fantastic bit of public road. With the club van's heater being "sub-optimal" Richard Towse had a hard time fending off the frostbite as he towed the dunny north in the dark. Don Mathias had taken the bull by the balls and by the time the dunny arrived on site at 7:30a.m. the road closure signs were up. WIth the course all taped off, signs up, arrowed and everything ready to go it was just luck that the timing transmitter failed, no pulses were being sent back to the control van. Frantic testing of the finish transmitter close to the start, battery changes and wiring checks were to no avail so the finish marshals were enlisted for a day of pretending to be the finish beam. It's almost as good results-wise but a heck of a tough job for the timing crew, Tony Witheridge did a fine job of keeping things on the level there. A big field of 39 competitors had turned out and the indian file showed up a road in good nick with some varying surface conditions (and that's counting the ice too!). Josh Marston withdrew his entry at documentation after his car suffered a bent valve at the Ashburton Car Club's Taumutu Sprint the previous day. Also spectating and servicing for the day was Ben Pankhurst who rolled his newly repowered and repainted RX7 at RATEC's Limeworks Road sprint the previous weekend. It was a shame those boys had to miss this event.

Deane Buist had Fred Merkin's "yes the car is for sale" left hand drive WRX out for a blat, and boy did it blat alright. Rocky in the co-pilot's seat had to remind Deane to watch what side of the bridges he lined up with! The configuration of the car didn't seem to bother him as he led the event from the get-go, was beaten in run 2 by Glen 'Bart' Simpson but took it back in run 3. Regan Ross took advantage of a missed time in run 3 to shave over 6 seconds off his run 2 time to take second overall and 2nd 4WD. Bart was driving the Autotech lease Impreza and commented how quick it got up and went, and he got up and went with third overall and third in class in a 18 second improvement throughout the day, you've gotta be happy with that. Ryan Berry had a white EVO out for a skid, and cranked into 4th overall, and another Evo was in the hands of young Brad Harris who scorched through the course in his first gravel event to take the "most improved rookie" trophy and got 5th overall in the process. Leigh Marston was saving the Impreza for the coming rallies and was out to get some in-car time and had a trouble-free run into 6th.

The 2WD class was again interesting, Jeff Judd had the BDA in full flight as the after match photos showed, he was first 2WD home although he was only one-tenth of a second ahead of a flying Tony Morrison. Morrison was driving the rear-engined 1600cc VTEC Accord to the limit, 5th overall after run 2 and only just pipped into 8th overall at the end, his was "drive of the day". Brent Rawstron drove the Rossendale BDA into 9th overall, with a fair smile on his dial, and on those of his various passengers for the event. Les Summerfield had some issues in the WRX and rounded out the top 10. Chris Hughes, fresh off his overall win in the Limeworks Road sprint put in some good times in 11th overall. Wade Henshaw didn't take the final run due to gearbox problems with the RX7 but enjoyed his day skidding on the gravel and took third in class and 12th overall. Steve Carr's RX7 wasn't far behind Henshaw and according to the driver needs a bit more power, even though it was digging trenches with the driving wheels at the start line after taking off second gear, it was a good run into 13th overall for the man from Waipara. Robert McCallum had a bit of an ordinary day after is win at Mount Thomas although the big thumbs up when returning past the start line signalled he was happy with the day's skidding. Brent Buist had borrowed Brent Tiney's twincam Mk1 Escort and put on a good show. Geoff Bone was back in his Corolla, this event last year was his first in the car and this time a 9 second improvement throughout the day. Stewart Bufton had a collision with a fence in the first run, punting the bumper and some bodywork in the wee Starlet but came back to finish second in the 1600 class.

Things got interesting when spectators started turning up by helicopter! This is what happens when you put an ad in the press so thank Don Mathias for raising our profile. "I might take that up" mused Dermot, you could see him thinking about trading in the Toureg. The VW is probably more reliable than a Robinson whirly-bird, but we all want him to prove otherwise, but only if he gives us a ride.. .. imagine the possibilities for setting up events, the dunny could arrive by chopper to save the van getting speeding tickets for towing at 100kph (bummer Richard!).

Stephen Petersen ran off with the small car class, his EP71 Starlet sounding pretty good all day and coming home 18th overall. Ben Johnson in the FWD Pulsar knocked 6 seconds off his run one time to claim 19th spot. Fred Merkin in 20th overall was sharing the car with Wade Henshaw and managed to get all his runs in befrore the gearbox problems developed. Geoff Hughes was another sharing a car, the EVO2 of Chris to be precise, and first on the road had to be a bit of a challenge in the first run and he showed fantastic improvement between that and his last run to be in 21st overall at the end of the day. Dave Fletcher was doing the timing while Tony took a ride, and on his break managed to bring the KE20 home in second in the small cars and 22nd overall, just pipping a charging 120Y of Barry Deuart who was less than half a second in arrears. Andrew Bufton was having fun, finishing just behind Deuart and Grant Restall was right on his tail, the third spot in the 1600 class went right to the wire. Brent Tiney was a whisker short of the two ahead in his Escort twincam, taking 26th overall. Andy Reid had a bit of a moment in the icy/wet mid part of the course but came back hard to challenge for third in class, not quite getting it but having fun in 27th overall.

Paul Jansen's Pulsar GTiR is still looking and sounding good and he was having a good battle all day with the Evo of Darryl Campbell. Brent Sibley trailered the Spook Escort after run 2 with a blown gearbox. Jonathan Bradshaw copped a speeding tax notice on the way to the event and translated his frustration into a 7 second improvement on the course over the day in the Starlet. John Weir missed run 2 due to mechanical problems in the Accord and trying to make up time had a massive spin in run 3 while in the dark corner that caught out Andy Reid earlier. Peter Quinn had fixed up the AE86 after it's wee off road excursion at Southland and sneaked in ahead of Kieron Telford's Pulsar. Shane Thornley was all smiles, although the Starlet driver had a couple of worrying moments as it was his first time trying pace notes and things went a bit awry when the car was going a bit slower than the notes were. Rex Ford's Datsun 180B was only a sliver of time off Thornley and Matt Jansen was out for his second ever gravel event and got the car home in one piece. Geoff Douch turned out in a Vauxhall Viva, it's been a while since we've seen one of those on the gravel, and rounded out the timesheets after a fun day. Bruce France unfortunately suffered terminal differential failure, the Starlet clattering to a halt just after the start line in run 1, and he was a passenger for the rest of the day.

With radio traffic sometimes getting in the way of getting a "now!" from the finish a few people were due re-runs, some opting not to take them as time was getting on (thanks again guys!). The event wound up just before the permit ran out, and most everyone was smiling when the cars were loaded and a good crowd at the pub enjoyed the prizegiving. They make great fries and burgers at the Greta Valley Tavern. The results were as follows:

Overall and 4WD
1st Deane Buist (WRX) 2m39.98s
2nd Regan Ross (WRX) 2m41.97s
3rd Glen Simpson (WRX) 2m42.29s

2WD 1601+cc
1st Jeff Judd (Escort RS1800) 2m48.67s
2nd Brent Rawstron(Escort RS1800) 2m49.05s
3rd Wade Henshaw (RX7) 2m51.19s

2WD 1301-1600cc
1st Tony Morrison (Accord) 2m48.77s
2nd Stewart Bufton (Starlet) 2m56.85s
3rd Andrew Bufton (Starlet) 3m04.43s

2WD 0-1300cc
1st Stephen Petersen (Starlet EP71) 2m57.23s
2nd David Fletcher (Corolla KE20) 3m03.60s
3rd Barry Deuart (Datsun 120Y) 3m04.09s

A full transcript of the results is available by clicking here (PDF file, open in Adobe Acrobat Reader).
Don't believe all the DNS and DNF's, they were mostly missed times.

Thanks to Don Mathias for organising the event, Leigh Marston and Richard Towse for being Clerks of Course, and helping with setting up and taking down the event, and Richard also towed the dunny. David Fletcher for seeing to the safety plan and helping set up and timing, Tony Witheridge for helping set up/take down and a great job of timing on the day. Daniel Mathais for helping set up, Josh Marston and Chris Hughes for helping set up and take down the event, John Weir and Les Summerfield for scrutineering, Michelle Reid, and Huri Timothy for documentation, Dermot Martin for being the starter and helping with packing up, and Derek Simpson for being recovery vehicle and course clearance car. The marshals from Rangiora Rotary organised by Graham Wilson did another great job of ensuring event safety and finish line timing. A big thanks to St. John for their first aid staff, and to Barry Voss for travelling from Blenheim to be Steward on the day.

26 June 2004 - Autosport members take top 4 places at Timaru Rally

John Silcock won the Timaru Rally this past weekend, followed by John Giltrap and Les Summerfield. Congratulations guys! Deane Buist was 4th overall in his recently repowered 2.0L BDA Escort. Andrew Sim won the 1301-1600cc class, Geoff Bone was third in the big 2WD class, David Fletcher was second in the small car class with Barry Varcoe in third place in that class. Well done to all the Autosport competitors contesting the rally! On a "bugger" note, Brent Buist rolled his relatively recently reshelled BDA, but still managed to finish the event, and Graham Wilson went off the road after being waved through by other competitors with their zetka out because they went off at the same corner.

13 June 2004 - Mt. Thomas Sprint

It was a welcome return for this bit of road, it's got a bit of everything and was in great condition for the 31 competitors to tackle. A cold but sunny and clear day greeted everyone and the forecast was good, a great day for a skid. There were a few new and "returning from a break" competitors at the event, David Clearwater returned to the fray with a Celica GT4, Ryan Berry returned with the Mitsi Cyborg, after a bit of a break, the car repaired after owner Tom Pritchard of Dunedin had an altercation with a bank in the Westland Rally last year. We haven't seen Blair Logan at an event for a while so it was great to see the yellow FX-GT again slugging it out at the top of the mid-sized class. Ryan McDonald was out in the black Datto for his first crack at a gravel event as was Matt Jansen in the yellow Datto coupe. Great to see some newcomers having a go! In a turn up for the books Geoff Bone arrived relatively early, and he managed to fit in his morning exercise by trotting back and forth to his van getting his licence, entry form, coffee, hat, etc.

Indian file revealed quite a marbly surface with some damp and slippery sections past the dry ford. The downhill also was a bit moist and slippery and the changes between wet and dry meant for quite a challenge for the drivers. The start of the first run was delayed by a bit due to a few technical problems with the timing gear at the control van not getting pulses from the finish line transmitter but with that problem sorted things got through pretty quickly. The first run saw Ryan Berry bolt from the blocks and until Trevor Crowe split the beam Berry was 5 seconds clear of the chasing pack. Crowe set a time just 17 hundredths of a second slower than Berry so the scene was all set for a showdown until there was a lucky escape in the Cyborg. On the way down the hill a rear brake disk shattered, and thankfully the car stayed on the road. A relieved Berry commenting it could have ended much worse than it did. Unfortunately with no spare he was forced to call it a day.

A very interesting fight then awakened. It was a couple of modern 4WDs vs. a couple of classic 2WDs and a not-so-classic 2WD. Sean Gray had the Evo 6 up into third place after run 2, Robert "Groove" McCallum had a good run and was ahead of Gray by half a second or so. Trevor Crowe had taken the reins of the event by 2 seconds. Fizzing along behind the top three were Blair Logan and Wade Henshaw in the potent RX7. The latter a second behind the former after the second run. In the third and final run the 2WDs made the most of the swept road and took it to the 4WDs, Groove braking the least on the downhill to take the event win by 2 seconds from Sean Gray. Wade Henshaw had a scorcher in his final run, improving a massive 7 seconds from his second run to leapfrog both Trevor Crowe and Blair Logan to capture third overall. Tom Penrose who had started the day well lost a lot of time in run 2, but fought back admirably in run three to pip Logan for first in the 1301-1600cc class. Geoff Bone had a good day in the Corolla shaving 11 seconds off his first time through to come home third in the big 2WD class. Stewart Bufton had a great drive in the wee 4AGE Starlet, starting out the day very quickly and not letting up, making into the top 10 overall and third in the mid-sized class.

The 0-1300cc class saw a very close battle, there were 10 entrants in the class and the pointy end were pulling out all the stops (one pulled the stops out too far but we'll get to that shortly). In run 1 Bruce France in his Starlet led the charge followed by Grant Goile half a second back in the KE25 Corolla. Andy Reid was snapping at Goile's heels a mere 16 hundredths of a second off the pace. The second run saw things change a bit with Graham Wilson in the Suzuki powered Starlet hitting his straps and leading the class by less than a second from Goile. Reid over-drove a bit letting Josh Marston close in to within a second of Goile. David Fletcher saw to the cone in the bottom culvert on his first run (Derek Simpson commenting how far he had to go to recover it, but we're unsure whether that means David was going quite fast when he hit it or just got the corner horribly wrong) but dragged himself up to be 6 hundredths of a second behind Bruce France after run 2. After run 2 the top 5 in the class were separated by less than 1.5 seconds! The gloves came off final blast through the course, other things came off for Josh Marston whose throttle locked open after a big hit at the ford and he careened into a bank giving the left front of the Starlet a bit of a shunt and ruining his chances of a podium place. Fletcher made the most of a mis-time in run 3, his repeated run going well apart from a bit of a tank-slapper through the right hander at the top of the hill to see him grab second in the class behind Graham Wilson by just over a second. Andy Reid got it together again and took out third in the class less than half a second behind. Goile and France were less than a second behind Reid in 4th and 5th respectively. It's all action in the small cars this season that's for sure!

Chris Hughes is coming along well in the 4WD Evo 2, starting out the event less tentatively than events passed and showing 12 seconds improvement between first and last runs. Shane McKenzie's Starlet was 13th overall in a good drive that shows how well these cars go with a few extra horses under the hood. Ben Johnson is improving in leaps and bounds in the Pulsar 2WD GTi, lopping 18 seconds off his run 1 time throughout the day and finishing well up the scoreboard. This was helped no doubt by getting a re-run on the third as he was going so fast past the finish beam it didn't register he'd cut it (or so the story goes!). Royce Watson again performed scrutineering duties and after he'd done that stepped into his turboed DX Corolla 4AGE and completed all three runs at the event, finishing fourth in the big 2WD class. John Weir was finishing his repairs to his axles before the event in the rather impressive looking race car trailer he'd brought along with him. The ones he had installed previously that caused a problem at the Hororata Autocross had been a little too short, and the long replacements arrived the night before this event. They look to be the right ones this time as the car completed all three runs and John improved his first run time by 17 seconds throughout the day. Lance Donald had the 4AGE DX Corolla wagging it's tail all the way up the hill off the start line and quite a grin on his face after the finish line, it's been some time since he's been on gravel and no doubt we'll see some gains from him as he gets used to it. Paul Jansen's last gravel event was this one at Mt. Thomas in 2002 and a solid day out in the immaculate Pulsar GTiR saw him improve a whopping 19 seconds over the three runs. Barry Deuart's Datsun 120Y was locked in a battle with Jonathan Bradshaw's Starlet all day, both had a fun day out, Deuart having the upper hand to start with but Bradshaw in the Starlet was able to reduce his time through the course by 16 seconds between first and last passes and pip Deuart by less than half a second. Grant Restall was betting on not having an off (he drove his car to the event), and he won his bet, having a trouble free run. Brent Sibley had the blue Escort out for a blat and almost managed to overhaul Andrew Bufton in the final run, Bufton having set his fastest time in run 2.

Everyone helped by lining up well and contributed to getting through the runs quickly by not going off the road. This event is notorious for people disappearing into the weeds but this year people were keeping things on the island pretty well. The organisers and Steward decided to allow a fun run and many competitors took the opportunity to add a few K's, Sean Gray getting keen and going for two. Roger Hudson showed up just after 2 o'clock to watch just as the last cars were getting into the fun run. "Whose event am I at?" he quipped as he helped pack up the timing gear (thanks for that Rocky, - your help, not the quip!). It was off to the Brook for a beer and for the winners to pick up their spoils after a great day in the Mt. Thomas forest. The results were as follows:

Overall
1st Robert McCallum (Escort) 2m23.84s
2nd Sean Gray (Evo 6) 2m25.92s
3rd Wade Henshaw (RX7) 2m26.26s

4WD
1st Sean Gray (Evo 6) 2m25.92s
2nd Trevor Crowe (WRX) 2m26.86s
3rd Ryan Berry (Mitsi Cyborg) 2m29.71s

2WD 1601+cc
1st Robert McCallum (Escort) 2m23.84s
2nd Wade Henshaw (RX7) 2m26.26s
3rd Geoff Bone (Corolla) 2m31.09s

2WD 1301-1600cc
1st Tom Penrose (Starlet) 2m26.97s
2nd Blair Logan (Corolla FX-GT) 2m28.89s
3rd Stewart Bufton (Starlet) 2m33.56s

2WD 0-1300cc
1st Graham Wilson (Starlet) 2m36.75s
2nd David Fletcher (Corolla KE20) 2m37.84s
3rd Andy Reid (Corolla KE20) 2m38.50s

A full transcript of the results is available by clicking here (PDF file, open in Adobe Acrobat Reader).

Thanks to Leigh Marston for organising the event, David Fletcher for seeing to the safety plan and helping on the day, Grant Goile and Josh Marston for helping set up on the day, Richard Towse for helping set up and take down the event, Royce Watson for scrutineering, Michelle Reid for documentation, Tony Witheridge for operating the timing, Dermot Martin for being the starter, and Derek Simpson for being recovery vehicle. Thanks to Paul Stanley who acted as the forest liason officer for the day and is a big help is our club being able to use great bits of road like this. The marshals from Rangiora Rotary organised by Graham Wilson performed a stirling role in making this event happen, many thanks. A big thanks to St. John for their first aid staff. See you all at Kaiwara Road on the 25th of July, allow a bit more time to travel there, it's a tad further on than this one!

17 May 2004 - Hororata Autocross Results

It had rained and drizzled for a week before the Hororata Autocross. The grey skies above the competitors on the day signalled that the "damp" track would still be "damp" and as the indian file showed the course would be a tad on the slippery side. Shane Thornley had found a very good paddock though, the hard rocky base under the small layer of topsoil had made it so the rain had drained away leaving a solid surface just mm under the mud. By the third run there was some level of grip, and the slipperyness early on would mean a fair run for all. The course was anti-clockwise with a good mix of sweeping turns, a couple of hairpins, a slalom, and a long-ish back "straight", just right for the conditions.

Due to some competitors with "special" requirements turning up a bit late the event was a few minutes behind getting started but with the indian file over quickly the first run started on time. Andrew Bufton was giving it heaps. In the first run he was going well until he overshot the hairpin at the end of the long sweeping "back straight" and spun up, backing over the outside corner marker earning him an extra 5s. Everyone else came through cleanly. Gemma Bone and Michelle Reid were the two ladies entered in the event and were half a second apart after run 1. Gavin Williams in his CRX topped the timesheet but only by 5 hundredths of the second from Matthew King making an impressive debut in the Autotech Lease WRX . Gavin kept his head in all day and drove a disciplined event to finish on top of the timesheets on every run and win the event. Congratulations and well done Gavin.

Nick Brownlee was getting used to running at number 13 (he got the same number at the last event he ran!) and was 5 hundredths of a second in front of the car's owner Chris Hughes (who didn't look at all dark about that) and continued to pip Chris by a narrow margin in every run. Brad Harris in the Lancer was going great guns, sitting in 4th overall. In the battle of the Pulsar GTiR's Kieron Telford had a half second jump on Paul Jansen. The second run had a few more markers bite the dust, Matthew King struck one and got an extra 5s added to his time allowing Peter Abernethy also driving the Autotech lease WRX to leapfrog ahead of him. John Weir in the high revving Accord spun and hit one, and Shane Thornley hit the same marker as Andrew Bufton and broke the stake. Andy Reid drove like a man possessed, doing his best to emulate autocross great Grant Goile (conspiquous by his absence but overseas as we understand it) by going in just wide enough and straight on the exits, Reid closed the gap on 1300cc class leader David Fletcher. Gemma edged further ahead of Michelle in the ladies standings after the second run. Rodney Walls in the 1600cc MR2 was in second place in the road car class ahead of the supercharged version of the car run by Rex Webb and the Corolla of Craig McCullough. Paul Stanley's unpainted very shiny new alloy flares on the Eccy didn't make for better aerodynamics as some of the start crew suspected but they certainly add style, and Paul showed glimpses of that as he avoided the markers all day. Simon Bugnell was using the same Levin as Gemma Bone and showed a big improvement, lopping 11 seconds off his first time through. Matthew Jansen was getting used to this autocross caper really quickly, his second run time a huge 20 second improvement over his first run, and to top it off his third run time was competitive in his class.

The last run saw the competitors do two laps of the track, which was still in excellent condition, the hard base not rutting up at all. Bryan Hamilton in the Celica GT4 road car got off to a good start but hit a marker later in the course. Shane Thornley got a bit carried away on the back straight again (he wanted to hook third for a wee bit just to see what happened) and bunted the same marker on the outside of the hairpin again. Smoke coming from Andrew Bufton's tyres at the now dry start line signalled his intentions in the next run and he did very well to keep it under control going well sideways at full noise around every turn until "that" marker at the hairpin at the end of the back straight claimed him again. A good spectacle in the absense of Groove McCallum, thanks Andrew! John "Tornado" Weir was having a great time trying to impersonate the TV ad where the dude in his new ute creates a whirlwind by pulling more than a couple of donuts, but unfortunately when the last run came the right hand driveshaft on the car parted company and it was going no further. Greg MacIntosh was having a fun day out, with consistent improvement throughout the day in the Lancer. Dwight Parlane and Doug Good were having a great scrap, with their total times less than a second apart going into run three and using the same car, all eyes were on them to see who would be "best of the rest". Parlane came out the victor after a great run through the two laps saw him extend his lead over Good by 2 seconds. Gemma Bone sewed up ladies honours with a tidy run (avoiding a stall on the start line this time!). Peter Abernethy secured fourth overall and first 4WD. Brad Harris overdrove a wee bit, overshot "that" hairpin and had to reverse (avoiding the marker) and dropped down the timesheets.

We had quite a few new faces at the event, as it should be as autocrosses are a great environment to get into the sport, but to drive them fast is not as easy as it looks! Rhys Ellison had a most cost-effective day of motorsport, his Undy-500 Chevette certainly trying to look the part with a Peugeot WRC paint job, and making it through the day with no more smoke than normal coming from the car. Lance Donald hadn't driven a competition car in anger for quite a number of seasons, and was having a barrel of fun in his newly acquired DX-4AGE Corolla. Ryan McDonald showed consistent improvement throughout the day in his Datsun 1200, Shane McKenzie in the Starlet also came to grips with the event throughout the day. Coming to grips with the monster RX7 V8 was always going to be a challenge in these conditions and avoiding the fences while keeping it pointing in the right direction was not out of reach for Peter Armstrong who piloted the beast around the course and avoided the markers all day.

The results were as follows:

Overall
1st Gavin Williams (CRX) 5m41.11s
2nd Dwight Parlane (CRX) 5m46.38s
3rd Doug Good (CRX) 5m49.29s

4WD
1st Peter Abernethy (WRX) 5m55.67s
2nd Matthew King (WRX) 5m57.47s
3rd Paul Jansen (Pulsar) 6m06.42s

2WD 1601+cc
1st Paul Stanley (Escort) 6m49.43s
2nd Peter Armstrong (RX7 V8) 7m08.93s

2WD 1301-1600cc
1st Dwight Parlane (CRX) 5m46.38s
2nd Doug Good (CRX) 5m49.29s
3rd Lance Donald (Corolla) 6m41.42s

2WD 0-1300cc
1st David Fletcher (Corolla) 6m10.49s
2nd Andy Reid (Corolla) 6m16.81s
3rd Shane Thornley (Starlet) 6m34.95s

Road Car
1st Gavin Williams (CRX) 5m41.11s
2nd Rodney Walls (MR2) 6m02.04s
3rd Rex Webb (MR2) 6m14.07s

CLICK HERE FOR FULL RESULTS (PDF)

Apologies go to Rex Webb who was entered in the wrong class, he should have been in the road car class and consequently missed out on getting his third place certificate at the prizegiving. Sorry again Rex! Also (and we're not sure if this is PC or not but we don't care, she deserves a certificate anyway!) missing a certificate at the prizegiving was Gemma Bone, who took out the ladies prize for the day.

Thanks go to John Weir for scrutineering, Michelle Reid, Huri Timothy and Kieron Telford for documentation, Shane Thornley for organising the paddock and helping set up the event, Josh Marston for being Clerk of Course, starter for the day, and organising the event and setting up the course, and David Fletcher for operating the timing equipment, helping set up the event, and being MC on the day. Organisers got more good ideas on how to run these events better in the future and a great day was had by all the competitors.

26 April 2004 - Ashley Forest Club Rally Goes Off!

A glorious warm and sunny morning set the scene for the Autosport Club Clubman's Rally on Sunday. ANZAC day provided crews with an opportunity to reflect on what was sacrificed by our forebears in order that we can enjoy days like this one skidding around the excellent and varied roads of the Ashley Forest.

Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson started the day as they would end it, in first place. Most of the EVO4 driver's overall lead was gained in SS1, where he finished well clear of the chasing pack. Deane was narrowly beaten by second place getter Wayne Muckle in SS2 but showed a clean pair of mudflaps in the last two runs to take the rally win. Trevor Crowe and Dermot Martin had a great battle for third place going on, Crowe coming out on the podium in his WRX.

Talking point of the prizegiving was the drive of the day from Tom Penrose in the 5K Starlet. 5th overall in a performance that impressed the socks off spectators, crews, and competitors alike. It was mentioned that there were a lot of beehives in that part of the forest and given John Silcock wasn't running Tom was the likely owner of those, but all jokes aside the drive was extraordinary as one still has to pilot the car around the corners and that kind of pace from a 1500cc rear wheel drive is amazing. Congratulations and well done Tom!

Simon and Sarah Curry had the ex-Possum Bourne recce WRX out for a blat and were showing a good turn of speed considering the lack of practice in the car. Sean Gray in the EVO had a tentative day out, getting a feel for the EVO on the slippery and tight forest roads. Regan and Nigel Ross had their WRX back in action after a break following a crash last year and were glad to be getting some time in the car. Leigh Marston and Dave Gallagher in the Group N WRX were keeping just ahead of the Subaru of Paul Dickson and Robin Wooding and extended the margin in SS3, Dickson losing almost a minute.

Ashton Wood with Ross Dixon alongside were having a skid around in preparation for the upcoming Otago Classic Rally where the ex-Vatanen BDA will be a top contender, and didn't disappoint, taking out the big 2WD class. Jeff Judd and Richard Atkins in the BDA were second in the class with Robert and Fran McCallum rounding out an Eccy clean sweep. Garry Cliff brought the Datsun Stanza home in 4th in the class. Brent and Glenn Buist were off the pace in the class due to a slight problem with Crusty's carsickness patch, it had fell off, and he was not a well man. Unconfirmed rumour also suggests that the pair's intercom had stopped working and Crusty was dispatched to the back seat of the car to repair it while Bert kept driving! Brent Rawstron had a nightmare SS1 but demonstrated his prowess to score a fastest stage time for the big 2WD class the second time through the stage. Geoff Bone started the day late and unfortunately it just kept getting later. The Corolla was off the pace, but the time comparison between the first time through the first stage and the second time was favourable so Geoff could take something positive from the day. Jim and Tony Hewlett in the Escort also showed good improvement in times between first and second runs through the stages, as did Brent Sibley and Sean Sands.

The mid-sized class was dominated by the aforementioned drive of Tom Penrose, in second was Andrew Sim and Tony Witheridge in the FX-GT, and in third was Hayden Spatcher and Ian Brough who were pleased to get the Corolla into a class placing. Stewart and Andrew Bufton had a few problems with the Starlet and were down the order, the exhaust breaking off didn't help matters much. Jonathan and Paul Bradshaw were a wee bit behind the sharp end of the class likely due to lack of miles in the car. In the small-engined class Bruce and Nicole France had a blinder to score top of the timesheets, staying comfortably ahead of the Suzuki powered Starlet of Graham Wilson and Chris Herdman in second. Bruce admitted to having a bit of an off at a tight corner in the twisty slippery bit, but other than that the rally went well for the father-daughter pair. Third in the class in his first rally driving the ex-Don Mathias Starlet was Josh Marston with Glenn Simpson alongside. Even with the Bart-ballast, Josh drove well, coming back well from an off in SS1. Barry Varcoe had a few troubles in SS1, losing a minute and a half, and he tried valiantly to make up time throughout the rest of the day, getting in the top three in class in the remaining stages, but it wasn't quite enough. Barry Deuart and Sue France brought the Datsun 120Y SSS to the finish after losing some time in SS3 dropped them down the cards a bit. Andy Reid and David Fletcher's Corolla bent a ball joint and accelerator linkage seeing them lack both wheel alignment and full throttle so were well off the pace.

There were a good many crews getting some experience and for some an introduction to motorsport at the back of the field. It's great to see people out participating and we were all in that position sometime in our careers (although some have more selective memories than others!). Shane Thornley with Nicole Summerfield in the co-driver's seat thought he had a puncture in SS1 and stopped only to discover the tyre was fine, he just wasn't used to the car's behaviour in the lumpy stuff. A lack of intercom in the Starlet also made for an interesting day for the pair!  Mark Taylor and Grant Paine were out for a skid in the Leone, Ben Johnston and Johnathan Hawke in the FWD 2 litre Pulsar caught the bug at Rakaia and came out for a fun day in the forest, and Shane McKenzie with Michael Marsen alongside showed massive improvement between first and second passes through the runs so had to be happy with that.

Coming out of stage 1 and driving across rutted paddocks with little evidence of a road one really felt "out the back", adding to the sense of adventure. There were a few that never made it out of stage 1, Luke Thelning with Haydo Riddle alongside went off the road just after the cautioned cattle stop after the long downhill. The brakes were not working quite right and Thelning threw the car sideways to slow down for a tightish right hander but it was too late and over it went, rolling twice and catching fire after ending up upside down well out of sight of the road. The crew were OK, the fire was minor, and they even had a hand in Josh Marston having a wee off into a tree on the corner after, Marston looking over and waving to Thelning and Riddle as he went by must have put his concentration off a bit. Another talking point was the hairpin that came out of nowhere on the slippery grass covered section after the fords in SS1 and 3. Many a handbrake got a workout at that one. A bank shortly after that was used as a bermed corner by someone, the tyre tracks up and around it testified to what must have been a fairly wild excursion. The fords were a bit rough but very passable, and a couple of deep rutty rough bits through gates in the forest didn't slow too many people down. Ben Pankhurst had another dose of bad luck, he and Kent Nurse's RX7 sidelined with oil pressure problems. Rene Spijkerman and Geoff Adams in the Escort Mk1 had an off into the bank at the top of Paringa Road and rolled the car onto it's side. Steve Carr and Craig Millar made it out of SS1 in the RX7 but a lack of third gear forced their retirement. John Weir and Tony Morrison broke a driveshaft in the Accord after SS2, Alec Doig holed his diff housing on one of the big rocks that appeared on the road in SS2, Fred Merkin's ex-WRC recce WRX was parked at the start of SS2, after his co-driver was so ill they decided not to continue. Chris Hughes displayed excellent parallel parking skills at the top of the hill in SS3, but people were wondering if it was an inappropriate time to be practising that. Unfortunately a turbo pipe had come loose and the EVO kept surging in power but this was not visible until they got back to the service park after withdrawing.

The weather, the relaxed atmosphere, the pleasant and smiling marshals and timing crews, and the great roads, made for an excellent rally. The prizegiving at the Southbrook Hotel was a good mix of humility and humour. Thanks went to Dave McCahon, our ever keen Clerk of the Course, also to Les and Andrea Summerfield, with Leigh Marston for their work in organising the event. Thanks to the MSNZ steward for the day Barry Higham, and the crew from Rangiora Rotary (organised by Graham Wilson) for the fantastic job marshalling and timing, Dave Lee for leading the marshals, John Silcock as Safety Officer, Scott Smith for arrowing the course, Derek Simpson for being safety car, Paul Stanley for putting the radio repeater on the hill and being sweeper car until a wheel on the Escort went manky, Paul Robertshaw for being the recovery vehicle. The Red Cross need thanks also for their presence, which is always reassuring.  Assistant C of C's Steven Stokes and Gary Mechan, CRO Geoff Combe, and of course a huge thanks to Royce Watson for scrutineering (the man was everywhere at service too, seen under Barry Deuart's and Andy Reid's cars,... did he wear a cape and his underpants on the outside in a past life?). Thanks also to all the competitors and crews who helped make it an enjoyable day for everyone involved.

For the use of the forest, without which we would be severely lacking in roads to use, a huge thanks go to:
CARTER HOLT HARVEY,    FBI RURAL FIRE SERVICES,    TAGGARTS EARTHMOVING

CLICK HERE FOR FULL RESULTS

22 March 2004 - Sprint Series Format Announced

This year's Autosport Club Sprint Series will consist of the following rounds:

1) Rakaia Zig-Zag
2) Makerikeri Road
3) Kaiwara Road
4) Mt. Thomas
5) Mt. Alexander

The points to count towards the final result will be the best 4 of 5, or in the event of cancellation of any event the best 3 of 4.

7 March 2004 - Rakaia Zig Zag Sprint Results

This year's Rakaia Zig-Zag Sprint was held in good conditions this past weekend. The road was in great condition (if a bit corrugated as usual - but that cleared throughout the day) after being resurfaced a month or so ago. The weather was great, not too hot and not raining although the lack of much wind meant the dust was a problem for the spectators but not too bad for the drivers as it slowly drifted off the road. The event ran pretty much to schedule all day, largely to the small number of on-the day entrants being able to be entered quickly into the timing computer, so thanks very much to all those who pre-entered.

There was some pretty fast drivers and machinery lined up among the 34 entrants and the fastest of the day proved to be the lightweight and grunty "Mazaru" of James Marshall, who picks up the very impressive Zig-Zag trophy this year. Congratulations James! John Giltrap pulled out the stops in run 3 and scorched to within less than half a second of Marshall into second place. Stu Weeber's very quick flame-spitting Subaru WRX came home in 3rd place, witnesses to Stu's driving around the last corner and down the straight to the finish confirmed just how much boogie that car and driver combo has got. Les Summerfield had been the pace-setter all day, but was pipped at the post into 4th in the final run. Sean Gray was driving smoothly in the yellow Lancer Evo VI and ended the day less than a second behind Summerfield in 5th. Leigh Marston had entered twice to get more experience in the new Subaru WRX STi and the car certainly looked the part as it headed up the hill. Allan Geddes has purchased Jeff Judd's WRX and was out for a blat for the first time at Rakaia in the car. His final run a great improvement over his first run time showing his coming to grips with the car well, swapping times in a good battle with Brent McDonald's Lancer Evo to beat the Mitsi driver by less than half a second. Chris Hughes was all smiles as usual in the Lancer and drove solidly although a couple of seconds off the pace in the class as the road is definitely one that is hard to get just right and experience counts for a lot on this hill. Kieron Telford was back in the GTiR after his off in the Nelson Rally and was understandably tentative but happy to be back in the drivers seat.

The dust proved a problem for the timing beam at the finish and where any doubt existed about a result the competitor concerned was allowed a re-run. Tony Witheridge did a great job in the timing van all day, keeping a close eye on proceedings to ensure the results were out in a timely fashion (excuse the pun!). Trevor Crowe's Skoda must be particularly shaped to avoid timing beams as he had two re-runs before leaving the event early having done enough to win the big-2WD class. Steve Carr had the RX-7 well prepared for the event, with no dramas throughout the day he cranked along into second in the class, followed in third by Robert McCallum who had his family out for the day and all seemed to be enjoying it. Brent Sibley in the Escort and Ben Johnson in the Pulsar GTi were running very close on the scorecards all day, the Eccy coming out on top but only by two-tenths of a second. Alec Doig had been up on the pace with the Escort V8 until a suspected broken valve spring brought his day to a premature end in after run 2.

Tom Penrose made a triumphant return to the sport in his 1500cc Starlet taking out the mid-sized 2WD class in a close battle with Luke Thelning in the FX-GT. It didn't take long for Penrose to jump back into contention after Thelning set the pace in run 1. John Weir improved well throughout the day to take third in the class. The Accord had dropped a bit of oil at the start after problems with a half shaft but John overcame this well to take on all three runs. Stewart Bufton and Grant Restall were exceptionally close in the final run, with Bufton eventually taking 4th by a bumper width. Peter Quinn had a consistent day in his immaculate Corolla AE86. Andrew Bufton was getting used to the new locked diff in the Starlet and his 8 second improvement throughout the day was a good start to the process. Jonathan Bradshaw had his now 4AGE powered Starlet out for the first time and liked the extra power afforded by the upgrade from the old 4K. Mike Barnes was having a bit of a troublesome day, being fined for leaving his logbook at home and then hitting a bank didn't make for the most enjoyable time for the CRX driver. Mike's off threw a big rock into the path of Grant Goile who suffered a very badly bent tie rod and the very unusual sight of the red KE25 Corolla on the end of a tow rope greeted the last of the drivers on the line for run 3.

In the 0-1300cc class things were really hot with Grant Goile and Andy Reid eight hundreths of a second apart at the pointy end after run 1. Josh Marston, David Fletcher and Barry Deuart were locked in a battle for third all within a second of each other. Run two saw a surge from Graham Wilson in his Swift GTi engined Starlet, lopping a huge 15 seconds off his run 1 time to take the lead in the class and he'd hold it in the final run, pipping Reid by a second with Goile in third after his mishap making his second run his last. Shane Thornley was enjoying his day, and improved 8 seconds over the three runs.

The prizegiving was held a bit late as the number of helpers to clean up after the event were few so keep in mind that there's a lot to be done after events wrap up and many hands make light work for the organisers. The Hororata Hotel was used this year as it's on the way home for most competitors, and is certainly a nice place to stop off for a beer and a pie. The results were as follows:

Overall and 4WD
1st James Marshall (Mazaru) 1m32.59s
2nd John Giltrap (WRX) 1m32.98s
3rd Stu Weeber (WRX) 1m33.53s

2WD 1601+cc
1st Trevor Crowe (Skoda V8) 1m38.41s
2nd Steve Carr (RX7) 1m40.23s
3rd Robert McCallum (Escort) 1m41.55s

2WD 1301-1600cc
1st Tom Penrose (Starlet) 1m41.17s
2nd Luke Thelning (Corolla FX-GT) 1m42.10s
3rd John Weir (Honda Accord) 1m44.19s

2WD 0-1300cc
1st Graham Wilson (Starlet) 1m45.50s
2nd Andy Reid (Corolla KE20) 1m47.09s
3rd Grant Goile (Corolla KE25) 1m47.53s

Click here for full results (PDF file)

Thanks go to Repco Wairakei Road and the Hororata Hotel for sponsoring the prizes, Don Mathias and sons for helping both set up the event and clean up afterwards, Tony Witheridge for operating the timing equipment and helping clean up the event, Andrew Sim and David Fletcher for organising the event, Simone Trezise for advice on organising the event, Michelle Reid and Andrea Summerfield for help with documentation, Kieron Telford for handling memberships, Rangiora Rotary for supplying marshals, Les Summerfield and John Weir for scrutineering and thanks also to MSNZ Steward Peter Ward.

17 February 2003 - Autosport Club Annual General Meeting

The AGM voted to increase club subscription fees for this year to better reflect the cost of running the club. Those who have paid their subscriptions will be required to "top up" their payments to the newly decided rates (see subscription form link at the top of this page for new rates).

Leigh Marston was re-elected president, and new committee members Grant Goile and Richard Towse were welcomed aboard, along with new Treasurer Kieron Telford. Secretary Simone Trezise was persuaded to remain and her considerable workload will be better shared throughout the committee. Incumbent committee members Don Mathias, Andrew Sim, Les Summerfield, Dermot Martin, Josh Marston and David Fletcher were re-elected. Leaving the committee after valuable contributions were Merv Hatcher, Deane Buist and Nicole France. The post of Vice-President was left pending, to be decided at the committee meeting next month.

There was much discussion about the cost of the Bulletin and considering an Editor has not been forthcoming whether it is worth having a Bulletin. Entry forms and a newsletter (being the "new" contents of the website) may be enough. This will be discussed and decided by the committee in the coming weeks.

Leigh Marston's President's Report for 2003

The 2003 year was a rather busy one for the committee but in the main a successful one. A pleasing aspect is the gradual increase in the Club’s membership albeit rather slow. Last year we had 151 members with a fair number being family memberships and interestingly the largest statistical group being in the 35 – 60 age bracket. This may indicate we need to do more to attract younger members to the Club - something this year’s committee may need to consider.

As far as events went we had a mix of the traditional with a couple of new ones thrown in for good measure. The year started as usual with the Rakaia Zig Zag hill climb which was a hard fought event in hot dry conditions. Following this was our Hanmer weekend, which was completely the opposite as far as the weather, was concerned. This didn’t deter a reasonable turn out of competitors for the double sprint on Saturday followed by a slightly drier sprint on Sunday. The wet conditions certainly gave the smaller cars a chance to excel and there were some real giant killing efforts. The first of the new events was next with a very fast sprint around Makerikeri/Mt Grey Rds enjoyed by a good field in fine weather. The only reported criticism being the right-hander just after the finish but as in a rally stage you have to drive to the conditions and it is the same for everyone.

Next up was our annual rally. This year we experimented with two night stages, a central service park and prize giving at the same venue. Thanks to Tony Morrison from Canary Furniture for picking up the main sponsorship rights. We copped some criticism for delays in getting results out during the event especially on Saturday night, which was caused by a computer programme failure. The committee is now looking at ways to improve the delivery of results during the event. However, all in all the feedback was positive especially the quality of the roads. Special thanks to Dave McCahon, Les and Andrea Summerfield and the rest of the organising committee. Gaining the right to organise the final of the NZ Club Rally Championship in October 2004 rewarded their effort. This should prove to be a benefit to the Club in terms of competitor numbers and exposure for sponsors.

Mt Alexander was next being a regular and favourite event with competitors. For the second sprint in a row it proved you don’t need 4 WD to win – and man did we hear about it! The BDA sounded great but Glenn’s boasting was almost unbearable!

The annual pilgrimage to Kaiwara Rd followed and despite a wet lead up to the event the weather was fine on the day. However the rain did cause the organisers to shorten the sprint because the fords were impassable. The final sprint for the year was another new one. Nine kilometres of some of the best forest roads in the country with a mixture of everything. The Tarn/Paringa Rd sprint also saw the winner, John Silcock, finally overcome his mechanical woes with a great drive against strong competition. Judging by the enthusiastic response I’m sure this event will be back in 2004.

In amongst this we had a fiercely competitive autocross series running. The courses were varied and challenging, which prevented any one type of vehicle having an advantage. In the end it was a couple of the “old” hands that battled it out for the overall win. The entries were always good and included everything from road cars through to Group A rally cars. Unfortunately, after consultation with Motorsport New Zealand, we have had to restrict entries to road cars and rally cars complying with Schedule A. As a result dirt carts, off road vehicles, bikes and quads are no longer able to compete, as we would void our insurance from MNZ. Thanks to the farm owners who allowed us to rip up their paddocks, and to other competitors don’t be shy about giving it a go – there’s a lot you can learn about car control without much risk of damage and it’s a great way for new members to get started in motorsport.

Congratulations to our new Club Champion, Merv Hatcher, brought about by consistently good results at all the sprints. In fact his lowest placing was 4th. Well-done Merv. Congratulations to all the other prize winners also and I hope you’ll be back to defend your titles in 2004.

On a sadder note 2003 saw the loss of one of our heroes. Thanks to Paul Bradshaw and Club members who helped set up the live video link of Possum’s funeral service. I’m sure the large crowd that turned out appreciated the opportunity to say goodbye.

On other matters, Dermot Martin and myself attended the MNZ Annual Conference in Wellington and managed to get our remit through allowing an additional Clerk of the Course at Clubsport Advanced events – one of only a few remits to make it. Also, late last year Andrea Summerfield and Dave McCahon attended the rally organisers meeting in Wellington. Information gained should further improve the running of our rally in 2004.

During the year much time and effort has gone into upgrading the Club’s timing gear and communications system. Thanks to all involved especially David Fletcher.

I would like to thank the committee members for all their work during the year. Organising events and running the Club takes a lot more effort than you would think. However, the committee did a great job and even managed a modest profit in the end – a very credible result considering the lack of pub charity funding. The small profit achieved certainly justifies the proposed fee increase since we can obviously no longer rely on outside funding.

There are some other specific “thank yous” I’d like to make. First of all to our secretary Simone – thank you for your fantastic effort during the year. I know that with safety concerns the paper war has grown dramatically but the committee at its last meeting has made a commitment to share some of these additional responsibilities. Maybe then you can get some of your personal life back again!

To our retiring committee members, Deane, Merv and Nicole, many thanks for your service over the years. Kieron, thank you for stepping in as treasurer and preparing our annual accounts.

Finally, thanks to all the organisers, marshals, timing crews and other helpers who have kept events running. There are far too many to mention individually but let it be noted that your assistance does not go unnoticed. Specific thanks also to Paul Stanley from FBI, Alan Green from Taggarts, Carter Holt Harvey, Hurunui and Selwyn District Councils, Red Cross and St John Ambulance, Tait Communications and of course the various sponsors throughout the year.

With planning already underway for a number of events in 2004 I’m sure the incoming committee will make this year just as successful as 2003.

9 December 2003 - Autosport Club Prizegiving

Class Prizes:

2WD 0-1300cc:

3rd – Andy Reid (Toyota Corolla)
2nd - Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla)
1st - Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet)

2wd 1301-1600cc:

3rd – Josh Marston (Toyota Starlet)
2nd –John Weir (Honda Accord)
1st – Luke Thelning (Toyota Corolla)

2WD 1601cc+

3rd – Richard Towse (Datsun Sunny)
2nd – Steve Carr (Mazda RX7)
1st – Robert McCallum (Ford/Nissan Escort)

4WD 1601cc+

3rd – Chris Hughes (Mits Lancer EVO2)
2nd – Les Summerfield (Subaru Impreza WRX)
1st – Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer RS)

Broken Diff Award: For the biggest bang of the year. There were a couple to choose from, John Silcock’s had a shocker with many things but mostly at other club’s events so it was felt that John deserves and honourable mention, but: with two terminal failures at this year’s Autosport events the winner is:- Royce Watson

Palmside Ladies Trophy: This went down to the final event of the year last Sunday, and coming out with the most overall club points the winner is :- Michelle Reid

Autosport Club Rally Trophy : For the highest placed club member in the club’s premier event of the year, the Autosport Club, Canary Furniture, Canterbury Rally: - Les Summerfield

Graham Brown Trophy : The club member with the most points that is less than 25 years age at start of year. For performing consistently well with the switch to a front skidder this year:- Luke Thelning

Raycroft Auto Trophy : For the club member who has been in the club less than 2 years and has the most points in the overall club championship: - Sean Gray

Autocross Trophy : Highest number of points from Autocrosses over the year. John Beasley’s spin at Hororata on Sunday made this a nail biter, and when Grant hit a marker on the last run it was down to the wire. But, hanging on by the skin of his teeth in a great drive in the mighty KE25 :- Grant Goile

Canary Furniture Trophy : Awarded for the most points gained in the overall standings from the first two sprints and the first two autocrosses and is not open to 4WD cars: - Grant Goile

International Rally Award :Awarded to the highest placed Autosport Club crew in the Rally of New Zealand. Special mention to Brian Stokes for his top placing as a club member with 25th overall, to Jeff Judd for all he endured at RallyNZ this year, and to Dermot Martin for his good finish. Trophy is the whole crew so goes to :- John Giltrap and Grant Marra

Cyclone Cycles Trophy :This is awarded for the most points from all events excluding rallies :- Merv Hatcher

Magnum Motors Trophy: This is awarded to the driver with most points from the Canterbury and Hanmer Rallies and the Hanmer Sprint. The double sprint on the Saturday at Hanmer was treated as arally for the purposes of this: - Merv Hatcher

Club Champion: Awarded to the driver with the most club points this year. With top performances at almost every event, it is taken home this year by: - Merv Hatcher

In addition to those mentioned at the rally prizegivings we’d like to note the contribution of the following to the other events and the general running of the club throughout the year:

Timing and Radios – Barry Deuart, Tony Witheridge, Andrew Wells, Gavin Henson
Marshalling - Derek and Glenn Simpson
Scrutineering – Royce Watson, John Weir, Jason Clark
Bulletin Editor – Hayden Riddle
Committee – Nicole France, Deane Buist, Merv Hatcher, Don Mathias, Josh Marston, Dermot Martin
Website - David Fletcher
Club Captain – Andrew Sim
Club Treasurer (retiring) – Jan McNally
Club Secretary – Simone Trezise
Vice President – Les Summerfield
President – Leigh Marston

Thanks also to all those unnamed who contributed in their own way. Have a great holiday season and see you next year!

30 November 2003 - Hororata Autocross

Competitors arrived at the Hororata Autocross to find the course laid out (thanks to the sterling efforts of Don Mathias and Josh Marston the day before) and a really nice paddock to have a skid in. Documentation went without a hitch with Simone Trezise getting the i's dotted and the t's crossed and John Weir scrutineering the cars. Driver's briefing was called pretty much on time and indian file gave drivers a glimpse of the challenging windey course (almost no straights here!). It was going to be an excellent event, and the weather was playing along with no wind and brilliant sunshine that was to last all day.

The windey course was an excellent test of car control, especially in run 1 where the ground was a bit slippery. The markers were taking a hammering and penalties were dished out left, right and center to those who got a bit keen. Mike White was doing it "For ze funn!" and had the Alfa doing donuts at a couple of places on the course. John Marston copied Mike at one time and managed to donut while avoid both of the markers he was spinning between (whether this was luck or good management is still being discussed). Josh's Starlet was going to be shared by brother Nick but due to the car not starting without a push the younger Marston elected to help out with the marshalling and spotting rather than risk stalling the car on the course. Shane Thornley moved his cows just before the event (there was ample evidence of this over everyone's shoes but you get that with the country) and was happy with tearing up his own grass to miss out on the small car podium by just 3 seconds.

Sean Gray in the EVO charged around the course, the banging from the anti-lag resounded throughout the paddock and did a bit more than resounding to the start crew. Even having to negotiate the last hairpin by reversing didn't affect the result with Gray winning the event by a considerable margin. Grant Goile had a dose of the flu and between sitting in the shade of his camper's awning had some great runs, although he hit a marker once and comments went around that it was the first time anyone had seen him do that, the sweat from the flu likely dripped in his eye. 2nd overall after run 1 is no mean feat when you're not feeling too flash. Don Mathias uncharacteristically clouted markers in each of his runs and suffered on the scorecard. Andrew Bufton hit a marker in run 2 and that dropped him down the cards a bit but in run 3 he was less than a second off the pace in his class.

Dave Fletcher was in a handy 4th overall after run 1, but heavy contact between his elbow and roll cage in run 2 (funny bones really aren't that funny apparently - there'll be some more padding going into the Corolla soon no doubt) saw the others in the class catch up but not enough to threaten his 2nd place. Andy Reid was showing great form with good accelerator control of the car around the sweeping corner by the pits in run 3 but hitting a marker in the twisting section leading to the back of the paddock put paid to his charge for the second podium spot in the small car class. Chris Hughes capitalised on his three clean runs to get his highest place in a club event to date. Nick Brownlee was sharing the EVO for the day and avoided all the markers to also post some good times. Although we think he could have gone a bit faster but Chris was sitting in the car with him and the starter overheard something said about that particular colour of white paint being very rare or something along those lines, we're not quite sure so don't take out word on that.

Gemma Bone confirmed that Geoff knew she had the keys to the Corolla and only just touched one of those nasty steel marker stakes in her first and second runs (we're sure there was no damage so as long as you put it back in the same place in the garage Gemma, Geoff will never notice!). Michelle Reid provided the competition in the ladies class and made the most of the advantage of having driven the TeamRFR Corolla before while this was Gemma's first outing in the red rocket.

Brent Sibley proved that number 13 is in no way bad luck taking out the big 2WD class with a clear 3 runs and showed good control despite the Escort wanting to spin the rear wheels all the way around the course. Stewart Bufton was lifting the inside front wheel in the Starlet 4AGE around some of the bends but we suspect soft suspension not the car trying to wheelie, it looked quite spectacular whichever it was. Groove McCallum spent a lot of his time spinning his wheels and in between putting on another show for the crowd, it was a good day for the whole McCallum family in the sunny countryside with his daughter impressed by Dad's second place in the big 2WD class. John Weir's Accord had a gearbox problem that stopped the car midway through his first pass in run 3 and the car was stopped for the day, an unfortunate breakdown as he was running 2nd in class at the time.

It was all on in the road car class with Andrew Diehl in the Legacy GT wagon throwing it about, the bang of one of the marker stakes on the left rear of the car could be heard in the pits at the start of the second lap of run 3 as he overshot a corner but chucked it in and had a go anyway. Usual overall contender John Beasley had a spin and then tagged a couple of markers so dropped down the order this time. Bruce Robertson in the Bond Equipe (a very rare piece of machinery) had a fun day out, the car attracting a bit of interest. Haydo Riddle was having mixed fortunes in his 323 GTX, another driver uncharacteristically hitting markers in two of his three runs, but he did enough to claim a class place nonetheless. The major scrap in the class was between Stuart and Greg MacIntosh, with both driving the same Mitsubishi Galant with aplomb, there was 5 seconds in it in favour of Stuart at the end of the day and 3rd overall to boot (not counting Sean Gray's second entry).

Due to a slight mistake in data entry, the certificates didn't adhere to the "only one entry counts" rule, but we'll get that sorted out and the results that follow take that into account. Well done to all the placegetters.

Overall
1st Sean Gray (EVO6) 5m28.97s
2nd Chris Hughes (EVO2) 5m43.75s
3rd Stuart MacIntosh (Galant) 5m49.08s

4WD
1st Sean Gray (EVO6) 5m28.97s
2nd Chris Hughes (EVO2) 5m43.75s
3rd Nick Brownlee (EVO2) 6m03.46s

2WD 1601+cc
1st Brent Sibley (Escort) 6m14.94s
2nd Robert McCallum (Escort) 6m50.87s
3rd Gemma Bone (Corolla) 7m01.03s

2WD 1301-1600cc
1st Stewart Bufton (Starlet 4AGE) 5m57.30s
2nd Andrew Bufton (Starlet 4AGE) 6m25.28s

2WD 0-1300cc
1st Grant Goile (Corolla KE25) 5m49.73s
2nd David Fletcher (Corolla KE20) 6m01.71s
3rd Andy Reid (Corolla KE20) 6m10.00s

A huge thanks go to Don Mathias and Josh Marston for organising the event and laying out such a great course. Josh fulfilled the starter's role and Don also did some course spotting, as did Grant Goile, thanks Grant. Shane Thornley saved the day by letting us use his paddock after the original venue became unavailable at the 11th hour, Shane also acted as course spotter so thanks for that. He had a ride in Sean Gray's EVO on a fun run and was pretty happy about it. "Gotta get one of those" is pretty much a standard statement after a ride in a top 4WD! Simone Trezise did her usual fantastic job of documentation and acted as clerk of course for some of the day, Leigh Marston also took on clerk's duties at one point and also acted as spotter out in the middle with Nick Marston, thanks. Michelle Reid had the hockey stick for a bit and Huri Timothy looked after logging the penalties that came flooding in on the Tait radios. Barry Columbus came out to catch up with some competitors and also filled spotter's duties for some of the event, thanks Barry. Dave Fletcher worked the timing computer and took the van and the dunny back to town which is much appreciated. It was a fantastic event to end the year on, things ran on time, the weather was amazing, the paddock held up really well, and by the sounds of things everyone had a good time. See you all at the end of year prizegiving!

15 November 2003 - Autosport at the 30th Westland Rally

• John Silcock's run of good luck that started at that Tarn Road Sprint continued for the rally, with the EVO 6 holding up very well. John was able to develop a lead by winning the first three stages and held onto it to win the rally - Congratulations John!
• Deane Buist won the final stage of the rally but it wasn't enough to overhaul Silcock, and the EVO 4 finished in a creditable second place. With that Deane claimed the Mainland Series overall title for 2003. Congratulations on that Deane!
• John Giltrap found good speed (could have had something to do with Possum's bumpers attached to the car?) and finished the rally in a solid third place overall. John ran a wet SS1 on hard Silverstones and was happy to emerge only a second behind Deane. On the second time through Kaniere in 5th gear and heading towards a tightening corner, Grant Marra in the co-pilot's seat braced himself, they got around by a whisker and John asked Grant "Didn't you think we were going to make it" - there was no reply and John admits he didn't think they would! Grant did a good job of settling the driver down and the finish meant 1st for Grant as Mainland Series navigator and 2nd for John as driver.
• Les Summerfield had a good rally and was snapping at the heels of the top three all day, finishing in 4th. Merv Hatcher finished one place behind Summerfield in what could be his last outing in the Lancer, and Dermot Martin came home 17 seconds behind Merv in 6th after a good battle in his EVO 4.
• Brent Buist brought the BDA home in 7th overall and first of the big classics, and in doing so took the first place in the class in the Mainland Series. Well done Brent!
• Alec Doig was rumoured to be hitting 230kph on the Old Christchurch Road stage in the v8 Escort Mk1 and had a great run to finish in 10th overall. Garry Cliff driving his Stanza was 4th in the big classic class.
• Andrew Sim suffered in the convoy that came out of SS1 after a car became stuck in a ford and was given a slow assessed time which dropped him down the field a bit. The car went well and he did enough to win the class B Mainland Series for the year. Well done Andrew!
• Hayden Spatcher also got a slow assessed time on SS1 and remained in contention all day, finally finishing 4th in class. Geoff and Gemma Bone had another fun time in the Corolla, finishing well and having a drama free day saw Geoff all smiles at the after party.
• Bruce and Nicole France were another crew to suffer the slow assessed time in stage 1 but Bruce overcame this to finish 2nd in the 0-1700cc classic class.
• Luke Thelning had random electrical problems causing car to not go well and finished the rally but well down on where he'd usually achieve. John Weir made it to the start of the rally long before his car did, it showed up with the crew just before he was due to start. Unfortunately he lost a lot of time in SS1 and SS2 due to punctures but made it to the finish of the rally.
• Steve Carr broke the throttle cable on start line of SS2 losing a lot of time, and also had fuel problems from crud in a jerry can. Eventually getting the RX-7 to the finish, Steve and co-driver Craig Millar were happy to get a result if a little lower in the order than expected. Ben Pankhurst blew apex seal in his RX7 in SS1 and retired early in the event.
• David Fletcher hit the same bank as Paul Dickson did early in the Lake Kaneire stage and lost 20 minutes extracting the car, co-driver Andy Reid repaired the broken suspension. They made it to service and fixed the car as best they could with the help of Ben Pankhurst and Kent Nurse, and finished the rally. A the time they were locked in battle with Bruce France for a class place and unfortunately the slip cost Fletcher 3rd place in the Mainland Series 0-1700cc class. Tom Pritchard in the ex-Berry Mirage Cyborg EVO with Glenn Simpson in the co-pilot's seat also hit the same bank, the car was too damaged to continue.
• Robert McCallum had the gearbox being to stick in every gear and rather than risk blowing it he withdrew after SS2. Wayne Julian put the AE86 down a bank on a tightening left in Mitchells SS3. They rejoined after the car was extracted.
• John Giltrap mused that he told Clinton Anderson of the corner where Paul and he stopped last year to look at the scenery, but it seemed that Clinton wanted to wash his car anyway! The EVO 6.5 ended up a long way under the lake.
• Leigh Marston had ongoing computer problems, right from the start of stage 1 the Impreza was way down on power and very lethargic, only managing 130 kph on the long straights. The problem got worse until eventually the computer shut the motor down on the touring stage from Kaniere to Hokitika and at this stage they withdrew, not wanting to risk damage to the engine. While being towed back to Greymouth behind the RDL service truck the tow rope broke and as the Impreza coasted off to the side of the road the truck disappeared into the distance, totally oblivious to the load not being there! The service crew got about 5km down the road before realising the car wasn't there any more!
• And on a "what's happening to the coast!!!???" note, the Jackson's Pub has closed!
• The Westland Rally is an institution in the Mainland Series that everyone would like to see retained. The roads used are fantastic, the environment is amazing and it's a real adventure. Long may it continue.

2 November 2003 - Tarn/Paringa Sprint

The final club sprint for the year proved to be a big challenge for both the organisers and the competitors, with drama aplenty making for a long but fun day in the Ashley Forest. It was however a long piece of road so naturally the event was going to take a bit longer to complete than normal. Things were going well until the timing computer crashed just before driver's briefing and a hasty disk copy of the entered data to the spare machine saved the day. It transpired that the rules for marshals on bent sprints have changed recently and the requirement to have a marshal every 1km on the course necessitated a whip around for people and some quick changes in plans and radio allocations to cover the course. Time was ticking on as the marshals were put in place, a radio test conducted and the all clear given by the Steward. The practise run revealed some newly gravelled road that was quite slippery in un-swept spots but only had one slightly rough patch leading into the first hairpin at the river. The rest of the road was in great condition, and there were many enthusiastic conversations in the service park about the mix of roads presenting drivers with lots of fun opportunities. Unfortunately the practise had some holdups and the first run didn't get underway until after everyone had lunch (which was a chance for Rocky Hudson to get around the service area and show off his kid's new HRT race suit, very swish. Better watch it Rocky, you're heading for some pretty expensive hobbies to pay for there!). Casualties from the practise run were Royce Watson who had blown the turbocharger in the DX Corolla, and Andrew Sim who trailered the car after discovering a spark plug had stripped it's thread in the FX-GT's cylinder head. Kevin Knowles didn't take the practise run suffering trouble with his car. Emma Gilmour took the practise slowly while making pace notes, a move that looked to be very fruitful after the run 1 times came out. Off the road in the practise run was Tony Morrison who was sharing John Weir's car. A tightening uphill corner with a ditch and bank on the outside that just seemed to suck cars in due to speed carried from the short straight prior, caught the Accord and it took some time to extract it.

The first competition run through the 9km course went well for most. John Giltrap had a re-run due to catching Shane Thornley in the Starlet who was ahead on the road and more of a gap should have been left, and a couple of minor agricultural moments by a few drivers were all that really caught attention. Don Mathias set a great time and a clean pair of heels in the small car class, with Dave Fletcher, Grant Goile and Bruce France looking to fight for the other placings. The next engine size up saw Luke Thelning take a slim lead from Tony Morrison with Grant Restall driving well to sit in third. The big 2WDs were having a great scrap and putting on a great show too. Ross Teesdale was flying in the supercharged Sprinter to sit in top spot in the class, followed by a hair's breadth by Trevor Crowe, and Groove McCallum had the Eccy dancing on the way down the hill near the finish to occupy third. Steve Carr was happy in fourth in the class with the performance of his rebuilt RX7 proving to be very good. The car required an air duct to the brake master cylinder to keep it cool but other than that no niggly first-time-out problems were had. Carr had his eyes set on climbing up the scorecards as he had not fully opened up the Mazda. The 4WD cars dominated the timesheet for the first run with John Silcock making his intentions obvious from the get-go topping the charts, Les Summerfield, Deane Buist and Emma Gilmour were less than half a second apart in the following places. Gilmour's double entry saw her impressing in her second pass through run 1, unofficially taking the lead of the event with a time fastest by 5 seconds. Grant Fisher DNF'ed in run 1 and withdrew from the event due to a gearbox that was left with only two forward gears. It looked like the day was chugging along nicely. It was about halfway through run 2 when things started to go a bit awry.

John Silcock continued where he started with a 10 second improvement from run 1, with Emma Gilmour cranking the Evo3 up into second place closely followed by Deane Buist. Sean Gray was making up for lost time by improving 20 seconds from his first crack at the road. The gearbox in Trevor Crowe's Skoda V8 lost 3rd gear and the car was packed up and taken home before run 2. Emma Gilmour chose not to start run 2 for her first entry or run 3 for her 2nd entry as her tyres were wearing badly and she wanted to save them for the last run. Grant Restall was sucked into 'that' ditch (or did he jump?) that claimed Tony Morrison in the practise. His car was blocking the road and following drivers had to stop, three or four cars were forced to return to the start for a re-run. Don Mathias took a spin at high speed at the top intersection of Paringa Road in run 2, which saw Dave Fletcher top the timesheets in the small car class for the first time with a good drive, beating Mathias's first run time by 3 seconds. Andy Reid and Grant Goile were locked in a battle for third in class separated by less than a second. The placings in the mid-sized car class changed with Hayden Spatcher slotting into third in the class, while the top two remained Thelning and Morrison. The big 2WDs were now in close contest, Teesdale a bit clear of McCallum with Carr improving nearly 20 seconds to be nipping at the heels of the Nissan powered Escort. The road surface in some parts was very abrasive. There were shagged tyres being removed from cars more often than the rabbits were running away from rally cars on the course (word has it that a couple of drivers actually swerved to try to hit the fleeing animals, pity the poor person who has to clean the car after the event). During run 2 a large log appeared on the road just after the top intersection, and it was causing concern amongst the drivers so it was removed by the marshals on that intersection.

Run 3 was brought to a halt while Stewart Bufton's Starlet was located and was driven out. A promising 13 second improvement between runs 1 and 2 would not be continued for the senior Bufton entry. Andrew Bufton also didn't finish the last run after posting a ten second improvement between his first and second runs. Geoff Bone improved a massive 23 seconds between first and second passes however dropped off the pace in run 3. It was reported that his very slow air compressor may have in fact put very slow air in his tyres and he wasn't able to crack the top three in his class. Geoff Hughes who was sharing Chris Hughes's Lancer pulled out of run 3 with a misfire. Other competitors having a better day out were Chris Hughes improving nearly 20 seconds throughout the day, and Paul Stanley matched that improvement in his newly acquired Escort MkII. When questioned about the roof vent installed in the car looking remarkably like a sunroof Paul quipped that he thought it best they installed an escape hatch! This was not to be needed as the Escort remained undamaged through it's first event, which is good to see, other first timers have not been so adept at keeping cars on their wheels. Barry Deuart retired the Datsun before run 3 due to a loss of oil pressure. John Giltrap hit a bank after posting a very competitive 2nd run time and the car was trailered before run 3 commenced as the damage had caused a bent strut to rub on the front wheel. John Weir's last run was cut short when all his wheel nuts came off and the wheel flew into the scrub. He took two nuts off another wheel and reattached it and drove out.

Much congratulations go to John Silcock who left his bad luck at the gate (the Canterbury Rally proved he doesn't hide it in his beehives) and came through with a scorcher in the last run to take the event win, five seconds clear of Les Summerfield in second. Summerfield was getting a double shot of adrenalin (1300's do generate some of that you know!) for the day by also running in the Starlet he built which is owned by Shane Thornley. Deane Buist made some tweaks to the Evo, removing the front sway bar which he reckoned improved things a bit, and came home in third overall a second or so behind Summerfield. Don Mathias had a great run in his last pass through the course, setting the 10th fastest time overall for the day and winning the small car class. Dave Fletcher put the rear end of the Corolla into 'that' ditch near the first marshal point and the car was handling very strangely all the way through the rest of his last run, ruining all chance he had of hanging onto his lead in the class, finishing in second spot. Turning into service it became obvious why, the main span of the left leaf spring was broken and the rear was hanging on by the skin of it's u-bolts. Bruce France thought he broke something in his suspension near the end of run two and didn't notice, so he continued and broke an axle in run 3. Andy Reid brought the Corolla he shares with Fletcher home in third in the class pipping Grant Goile by just over a second in a thrilling fight for the remaining spot on the class podium. Luke Thelning lopped another 6 seconds off his previous best to comfortably win the 1301-1600cc class from Tony Morrison, Morrison not starting run 3 . Grant Restall came back from his off in the second run to claim 3rd in the class. Ten seconds separated the top 3 in the big 2WD class with Ross Teesdale capping a great day for him with a 5 second gap back to Groove McCallum followed a further 5 seconds back by Steve Carr.

Leigh Marston's first outing in his very well presented new WRX STi was a learning exercise, and like many others he "torched" a new set of tyres over the course of the day. The RDL crew were very happy as the car had only been around the block at 11.30pm Saturday night, and the only problem was a continual cutting out of the engine at full power, which they think is related to over-boost because of running the standard computer with a restrictor. This will be sorted out by getting a new Link computer. Leigh commented that the car is great to drive and shows huge potential for a planned assault on the group N national championship. Ben Pankhurst didn't quite get into the swing of things after his spin in run 2 put him off his game although the smile on his face meant at least he enjoyed some of his day. His fan club at the start line were also having a good day enjoying the sunshine. Graham Wilson's return to the hot seat for this event saw him shave more than 20 seconds off his time over the three runs in the orange Starlet. Shane Thornley was having fun in his newly finished Starlet which has real potential given the amount of kick it had going off the start line. Geoff Combe with Nicole France riding shotgun took his 1500cc Starlet to within a second of third place in the 1301-1600cc class. Brent Sibley in the Escort completed all three runs with good improvement between runs 1 and 2 but not quite as big a leap between runs 2 and 3. After a long day in the foothills the results stood as followsm

Overall and 4WD 1600cc+

John Silcock (EVO6) 6m35.18s - 1,
Les Summerfield (Subaru WRX) 6m40.89s - 2,
Deane Buist (EVO4) 6m42.32s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+m

Ross Teesdale (Sprinter) 7m10.93s- 1,
Robert McCallum (Escort) 7m15.49s  - 2,
Steve Carr (RX7) 7m20.44s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600ccm

Luke Thelning (Toyota Corolla) 7m18.19s - 1,
Tony Morrison (Honda Accord) 7m25.27s - 2,
Grant Restall (Toyota Corolla) 7m30.54s - 3.

2WD 0-1300ccm

Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 7m20.05s - 1.
David Fletcher (Toyota Corolla) 7m32.08s - 2.
Andy Reid (Toyota Corolla) 7m38.62s - 3.

Due to the late hour that the event ran until, most of the placegetters had left the Southbrook Hotel before the organisers had packed up the event and made it back to the hotel. So, the prizegiving was abandoned. Thanks go to Steward Barry Higham, scrutineers Royce Watson and John Weir, documentation help from Nicole France, forest liason officer Paul Stanley, organisers and Clerks of the Course Leigh Marston and Simone Trezise, Les Summerfield for help with organising, Andrea Summerfield for help with finish line marshalling, recovery and arrowing crew and hockey stick operator Derek Simpson, marshal Glenn Simpson, Tony Witheridge for operating the timing and Deane Buist for his help while Tony took a ride, and Dave Fletcher for towing the dunny with the club van and arrowing to the event. Thanks also to Barry Deuart for his help with the Tait radios and repeater. The marshals endured some trying conditions in the wind up the top, not to mention the length of time the event took to complete so a huge thanks to the volunteers who did that vital job.

---

17 September 2003 - Sprint Series Trophies Awarded

The Autosport Club sprint series prizegiving was held at Robbies Bar and Bistro last night, and the small but voiciferous turnout were treated to very nice savouries and samosas before the trophies were handed out. President Leigh Marston thanked the organisers of the events and he and club captain Andrew Sim presented the Chris Shaw memorial trophy to series winner Merv Hatcher following the class presentations. The in-car footage (much more that what we got to see on the telly) from Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson from the Hawkes Bay rally was shown, along with some classic footage from the Manx Rally from the early 80's. It was an enjoyable evening, and everyone now looks forward to the upcoming Tarn Road sprint.

---

10 September 2003 - Committee cancels autocross and confirms sprint series results

The number of the RATEC club events scheduled for September, and the fact that the paddock will be full of little sheep, has resulted in the committee deciding to cancel the Autocross scheduled for the 21st of September. Club members are encouraged to support the RATEC events detailed on the Event Details page of the Autosport website. There is an Autocross, a two sealed hillclimbs. Go and pretend you're in Corsica or San Remo!

The results of the club's 2003 Sprint Series are confirmed after an inquiry into the class 2 entries and result at the Kaiwara Road sprint. Because cars must be entered in the class they are eligible for, and the people concerned did not make their intentions clear to the organisers with respect to the avoidance of gaining club points, the results and points stand.

---

10 September 2003 - Autosport antics at the Nelson Rally

The Nelson Rally was a great event this year, slick organisation and some great bits of road made it pretty enjoyable for the crews. Unfortunately the Autosport membership who went to the rally had a mixed bag of fortunes! John Giltrap and Grant Marra scored a fine second place overall in the rally. John was pretty happy with the extra grunt he had on tap after some mods to the car. Dermot Martin and Bede O'Connor also benefiting from some extra boost from computer tweaks came in 7th overall. Merv Hatcher finshed in 9th overall after having co-pilot Richard Atkinson carsick for most of the event.  Brent and Crusty Buist were beaten for top spot in the big classic class by Derek Ayson by 11 seconds! They achieved 11th overall nonetheless.

Andrew Sim had his trailer axle come off at Maruia Falls on the drive to Nelson. Luckily they were going slowly and no-one was coming the other direction to run into the Corolla on a big sled skidding across the road! After a stop to carry out repairs by bolting the axle back to the trailer, Andrew and co-driver Tony Witheridge were able to go on to win class B and be third 2WD car to finish.

Barry Varcoe and Andrew Bulman were locked in a huge fight with Stephen Petersen all rally, trading fastest class times throughout the event. Unfortunately they dropped a bit of time in the last stage and finished second in the 0-1300cc class in the silver Starlet. David Fletcher and Andy Reid had intermittant missing due to an electrical problem in the Corolla but benefitted from other's misfortune to take 3rd place in the 0-1700cc classic class.

Geoff Bone had a good rally in the Corolla (a good rally for Geoff is one he finishes!). He and daughter Gemma were using notes for the first time and both enjoyed the event. Luke Thelning and Will Johns lost a lot of time in stages 3 and 5, but put in some scorching times in the last three stages of the day to claw their way back to 4th in their class. Geoff Combe and Sean Sands drove steadily in the 1500cc Starlet to make it to the finish. They were 25th overall.

John Silcock and Josh Marston again had an early exit, losing a wheel in SS1 after the front wheel studs sheared off on one side. Wayne Julian put a hole in a fuel hose and ran out of fuel in the Peugeot. This was not before performing a spectacular nose dive at a spectator area ford/jump. Wayne and co-driver Wayne Saville rejoined and completed the last two stages.

Les Summerfield and Hayden Riddle had a dismal day, they lost the speedo and trip computer the night before the rally, then in SS1 the car lost second gear. In SS2 the car landed very heavily after the concrete ford/jump, bending the chassis rails, moving the radiator and turning the sump guard inside out! This caused the sump guard to pinch wires and they lost all power (to find the problem they built a test light out of a stop light bulb and two pieces of wire!). Unfortunately they had to put in a temporary withdrawal and were towed back to service. In the service the crew changed gearbox oil and started on changing the gearbox but decided they didn't have enough time. They also found the right rear strut was broken, and cracked arms in the front and back suspension. They rejoined on the 6th stage but the WRX's engine expired with a broken oil ring and that was it.

Hayden Spatcher blew two tyres out in SS5 and limped back to service with Ian Brough sitting in the boot to counterbalance the car. Unfortunately they were forced to miss SS6 and received a DNF for the event, but completed the last three stages after rejoining. Kieron Telford and Peter Sims in the Nissan Pulsar GTiR found themselves off the road and 70m down a bank in SS3. Not a good introduction to the pace notes! The car didn't roll but contacted several trees during it's descent and was not able to rejoin.

Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson also had wheel issues. Twelve km's into SS1 and a large vibration quickly turned into a missing front wheel (which went jetting off into the trees). He then stopped (not by choice as Deane is quick to point out) thinking he'd lost two wheels as there was one lying on the road beside the car. The car had in fact only lost the one wheel, it had bounced back off a tree and landed on the road again! All the wheel studs were broken so Deane used a rock to extract two studs from the opposite side and put them into the side that was missing them and continued (stopping to check the wheels every 2km). They lost 17mins in the stage and were out of contention. In SS7 they also stopped to try to tow Mark Tapper back onto the road but were unsuccessful.

Deane commented that he thought the officials printed the results upside down, as his name was at the bottom and he thought it should have been somewhere near the top. John Giltrap begged to differ as he didn't want to end up second to last!

Also contibuting to the atmosphere at Nelson were several club members in a service crew capcity and some spectating as well. Steve Carr was servicing for Neville Kidd from Invercargill, Michelle Reid forgo the TeamRFR overalls as it was apparently too warm in Tapawera to be wearing them while changing wheels, Andrew Wells was working on two or three cars as part of the Dermot Martin entourage, Barry Deuart was there to wield the spanners for Andrew Sim, Jonathan Bradshaw was enjoying the sun on a deck chair while waiting for the Giltrap car to need it's work, and Royce Watson was an event official being the service park scrutineer while also servicing for the Buists. Bruce and Sue France were spotted around the service area and out on the stages, not long returned from their trip to South-east Asia and looking very relaxed and tanned. Well done to everyone who made the effort to help out and to get out and watch, it made the event even better!

---

29 August 2003 - Autosport Club 2003 Sprint Series Results

The results of the club's 2003 Sprint Series are as followsm

Overall

1stm Merv Hatcher - 105 points
2ndm Deane Buist  - 56 points
3rdm Robert McCallum - 50 points

4WD 1600cc+

1stm Merv Hatcher - 105 points
2ndm Deane Buist  - 56 points
3rdm Chris Hughes - 49 points

2WD 1601cc+m

1stm Robert McCallum - 86 points (winner on countback)
2ndm Richard Towse  - 86 points
3rdm Steve Carr - 43 points

2wd 1301-1600ccm

1stm Andrew Sim - 82 points
2ndm John Weir - 80 points
3rdm Luke Thelning - 76 points

2WD 0-1300ccm

1stm Don Mathias - 113 points
2ndm Grant Goile  - 101 points
3rdm Andy Reid - 79 points

Congratulations and very well done to the placegetters. The prizegiving where trophies will be awarded is on the 16th of September at Robbie's Bar and Bistro Lancaster.

---

24 August 2003 - Kaiwara Road Sprint

The final round of the 2003 Autosport Club sprint series was held on a sunny day in picturesque North-Canterbury with a smaller than expected field of 32 drivers taking to the course. Considering the amount of rain in the region of late the road was in pretty good condition, firm and fast in some places with a few slippery bits to catch out the unwary. The course was shortened from last year, with the finish placed just before the ford, as it was deemed that cars at race pace would have torn the road exiting the ford to pieces and the road repair bill would not have been too cheap!

The first run saw Merv Hatcher signal his intentions with a time 5s clear of Brent Buist in the blue BDA. Merv was out to extend his lead in the club championship and if this run was any indication, he meant business. As it turned out, the pace of his first run would be good enough to win the event outright, and Hatcher showed good consistency to claim maximum points by holding the other competitors at arms length in all three runs. Well done Merv! Grant Fisher was extracting good pace from the 323 to lie in 3rd after run 1, but a wee moment in run three saw him slip to fourth overall at the end of the day.  The first appearance at one of our sprints of a bright yellow Evo 6 was a talking point, Sean Gray from the North Island has moved to Christchurch and looks set to take on the established Canterbury hotshots in club events. Sean slotted into a solid fourth place after run 1, but got used to the conditions well throughout the day and got within 2 seconds of Hatcher to claim second place overall for the event.

The big 2WDs were led all the way by the Bertbuilt BDA but the scrap for the other podium places in the class was between Geoff Bone driving the ex-Deane Buist Corolla for the first time (literally, even on the test drive Deane did all the driving; "It was like he was saying goodbye, I didn't want to interrupt!" said Geoff), and Richard Towse, enjoying a good day in the Sunny. The two traded seconds throughout the three runs, with Towse getting the better of Bone by less than a second. Tony Morrison was sharing John Weir's Accord for the day, and the rare outing for the Canary Furniture head honcho proved a good one, Morrison in a head to head battle all day with Wayne Julian in the AE86 and Jason Clark in the Corolla DX-4AGE. Clark pulled out a blinder in run 3, putting it all on the line and charging through the road to post a time one and a half seconds ahead of Morrison and claiming 5th overall, 2nd of the 2WD cars to finish! An outstanding performance considering how little shingle time Jason has had of late. Morrison wasn't giving up though, he had the hammer down, perhaps a little too hard as he managed to separate the rear bumper of the Accord from the body on a fence and that lost time may have cost him the class win. Wayne Julian had the neat Corolla Sprinter less than a second behind Morrison in 3rd in the class. The three in the class finishing 5th, 6th and 7th overall. In the 0-1300cc class, Stephen Petersen took 8th overall in the event and first in the class in his potent FWD Starlet. Interestingly it was his first run that was to be his fastest, but only by a whisker. Don Mathias was catching Petersen throughout the day and came within a second-and-a-half of the more modern Starlet to be second in the class. Grant Goile was third, a couple of seconds behind Mathias.

Among the other competitors enjoying the great bit of road were John Weir who finished 4th in the mid-sized engine class; Chris Hughes finished mid-field in the Evo 2, showing good improvement between first and second runs and gaining more speed and experience; Marchal Head's first time at this event saw him finish a second ahead of Luke Thelning's Corolla with Luke trying to catch the RWD Corolla throughout the day but not quite getting there. James Holder improved 5 seconds throughout the day, and was sharing the Corolla with his 14 year old brother David, who was in his first gravel sprint event and improved 30 seconds over the three runs to take the rookie award for the day. Brent Sibley was all smiles, enjoying the runs in the Escort and still taking taunts about finding the right side of the hills this year! Peter Quinn improved 8 seconds between first and last runs in the AE86, Kevin Hobson saw his times improve nearly 10 seconds over the event also, sharing the Corolla with Wayne Julian. Kieron Telford had a tentative start in the Pulsar GTiR but got into the swing of things knocking 18 seconds off his run one time in the following cracks at the road.  Steve Carr was seen among the spectators and had a spin of the wheels, even if it was just in his Falcon trying to extract it from the grass verge! Word is that Steve's replacement RX-7 is underway, so hopefully it won't be too long before he's out amongst it again. Crusty Buist arrived for a look near the end of the day and was reluctant to take the Falcon for a skid, apparently he was uncharacteristically tentative in the big car but according to some onlookers who shall remain nameless, washing cars is not Crusty's forte so perhaps he just didn't want to get it too dirty. Jo Giles was out for a look and managed to score a run in the passengers seat, apparently her first ride on the left side and she thoroughly enjoyed herself.

There was some hard luck in the event also. First mishap for the day went to Barry Deuart whose transit holed a float in the carb and ground to a halt on the way to the event. A diagnosis by Brent Buist saw Barry make it to the start line on time, and he had a good day (if you don't count the still-troublesome gearbox). First retirement of the day was Royce Watson who suspected the Corolla had loosened the flywheel bolts or run a bearing in the indian file. Next was Scott Reid who had the water pump fail in the 4-AGE powered Escort in run 1, and without a replacement he was forced to call it quits. Some were heard to say that the cause was the Eccy rejecting the transplant!  Anthony Reed had a nasty collision head on with a post just before the finish, the car in the road forcing Don Mathias to play thread the needle at 80 kph between the stricken orange Starlet and the other strainer post. Anthony was shaken but unhurt, the car had a fair shunt and the front left was pretty pushed in. Ben Pankhurst had a rear suspension arm break and it was hanging from the bottom of the RX-7. With no spare he trailered the car and sat out run 3. He'd done enough to score some club points in 21st overall.  In other "Minties moments", in run 1 Josh Marston was the latest on the brakes going into the first bridge and put on a bit of a show because of it. The Starlet was gathered in with a hair's breadth to spare and finished the run with no further incident. Dave Fletcher filled a rear rim with stones after going wide on the tight-ish right before the stone wall in run 2, hitting a small bank and tipping the Corolla onto two wheels but surviving and finishing the run. Andy Reid had a half spin on the first corner in his second run, as did Grant Restall. Reid and Fletcher driving the same car came within a quarter second of each other at the end of the day, Fletcher pipping Reid for 4th in the small car class.

The prizegiving was held at the very pleasant Greta Valley Hotel. The baskets of hot chips were excellent. It's the first time we've seen someone do a wee dance on his way to receive a trophy but Geoff Bone was obviously happy with both his performance and the performance of the recently acquired National 2WD championship winning Toyota Corolla. "I'm not used to coming up here" said Geoff.. "The car's not used to coming third" quipped Crusty.

The results came out as followsm

Overall

Merv Hatcher (Lancer RS) 2m42.90s - 1,
Shaun Gray (EVO 6) 2m45.53s - 2,
Brent Buist (Ford Escort BDA) 2m46.91s - 3.

4WD 1600cc+

Merv Hatcher (Lancer RS) 2m42.90s - 1,
Shaun Gray (EVO 6) 2m45.53s - 2,
Grant Fisher (Mazda 323 GTX) 2m53.78s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+m

Brent Buist (Ford Escort BDA) 2m46.91s- 1,
Richard Towse (Datsun Sunny) 3m04.82s  - 2,
Geoff Bone (Toyota Corolla) 3m05.20s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600ccm

Jason Clark (Toyota Corolla) 2m56.74s - 1,
Tony Morrison (Honda Accord) 2m58.39s - 2,
Wayne Julian (Toyota AE86) 2m59.65s - 3.

2WD 0-1300ccm

Stephen Petersen (Toyota Starlet) 3m02.45s - 1.
Don Mathias  (Toyota Starlet) 3m03.83s - 2.
Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 3m05.31s - 3.

As the day wound down a cold breeze signalled it was time to pack up and head for home. Most everyone had a great day and were well fed thanks to the Cheviot School's food stand (we think they set up so far from the road in order to make people hungry walking over there!). Thanks firstly to Royce Watson and John Weir for scrutineering.  A big thanks to Andrew Wells and Tony Witheridge for operating the timing, and to Derek Simpson for his Landcruiser's towbar doing great work yet again. The "Sampan Warriors" dragon boat team received a big thanks for start line duties and marshalling. The club's new radios passed an acid test on this event, with good communications throughout the course achieved by the Tait handhelds, thanks to Dave Fletcher for organsing those.  Thanks to Nicole France and Michelle Reid for documentation, Huri Timothy for looking after the indemnity stamping. A big thanks to Aaron Scott for his efforts with the traffic management for the event, which necessitates a very early start to the day and saves the club considerable expense! Thanks to St. Johns from Culverden for providing the ambulance. Many thanks to the principal sponsors of the event, Rubber Developments Limited, and Barry Lindon Gear Cutting. Thanks also to the Greta Valley Hotel for hosting the prizegiving. Of course we are all very grateful for the efforts of Merv Hatcher and Don Mathias for organising the event. It's a really fantastic bit of road and we look forward to returning to the valley next year.

---

10 August 2003 - Sefton Autocross

A huge field of 38 drivers took to the flowing course laid out in Michael Price's paddock near Sefton. It was a foggy morning to start with but as the day progressed the sun came out, the ground dried out and lots of fun was had. With the large number of entries it took a while to get everyone entered and scrutineered but with a nice day to sit in the sun this didn't matter at all. Many of the first competitors on the course went the wrong way near the end, all in the same place. There were marks on the ground from the last event held in the field and this meant people were following the wrong tracks. The organisers decided to put some more markers and tape into the course and re-run those people who had already run. More than one competitor was relieved, it was the right thing to do.

 John Beasley had the WRX suited up in it's snow tyres and even with his broken hand in a cast from a skiing accident managed to set the fastest time for the run. He repeated this feat in run 2 and run 3, taking smooth and fast lines  and so took the 1st overall placing for the second autocross running. Somebody put that man in a rally car! In one of the more interesting penalties we have seen in a while Grant Goile was docked 5 seconds for taking the indian file run twice. Grant was on a mission to get those 5s back and cranked around the course to set 6th fastest even with the penalty in run 1, and continued to gain time throughout the day to take out 3rd place overall in the event and first in the small-engined class. Mike Barnes from the Canterbury Car Club in a very lightweight looking Honda CRX took the next spot after run 1, and continued on his way to take second overall in the event with a consistently fast drive. Scott Reid in the 4AGE powered Escort was next behind Barnes after run 1, sadly an engine misfire appeared for the next couple of runs and Scott dropped to 6th overall but still managed to win his class, from Luke Thelning in the front-drive Corolla with the same powerplant. Thelning rolled a tyre off the rim of the FX-GT and changed to his spare and went and got the flattie pumped up agan at the local garage, all sorted!  Steven Loomes steadily climbed through the ranks throughout the day, and with rally tyres on the front of his Integra was setting some great times. He came through to win the big 2WD class. Chris Hughes got the hang of things in the Lancer EVOII and won the 4WD class. Run three saw the two course lapped twice and unfortunately Nathan Brownlee driving Chris Hughes's EVOII forgot about this, and came in after 1 lap, getting a slowest time penalty for taking the wrong course and dropping to third in the 4WD class. Nathan was a bit bummed out but had a laugh about it anyway.

The course was holding up remarkably well, and only a minor change to a couple of corners was required before things got underway for the second run of the day. Brent Sibley continued his good form at paddock skidding events and brought the Escort to the line in good time in all three runs, earning him a good second place in the big-engined 2WD class. Stewart and Andrew Bufton had a Corolla Sprinter road car out for a blat as the Starlet was still out of action. Suffering from marker trouble, not to mention a blown head gasket in his Starlet, was Don Mathias, who lamented that the course was just not one he could find a rhythm on. Merv Hatcher was also driving Don's Starlet and commented as to the length of first gear, obviously the rev limit was not being reached as fast as in his Lancer! Also sharing a Starlet were Josh and Leigh Marston, and this was a hum-dinger of a scrap with Leigh taking an early advantage thanks to Josh hitting a marker. Josh took the fight to Leigh by pipping him in run 2 and Leigh came back to beat the younger driver by just over a second in the final 2-lapper. The penalties were really taking their toll all round, Leigh beating Josh overall by less than 4 seconds. Gavin Henson had the Now TV Starlet out for a skid after an absence from competition since the Dunlop sprint. He was running third in the 0-1300cc class until being beaten at the last hurdle by a charging Andy Reid. Reid was all fired up however he hit a marker in his first run and undid all his good work. He was going great guns for the rest of the event, impressing the crowd and new son as well (at least we think the kid was impressed, it's hard to get any coherent comments from him at present). David Fletcher avoided the markers to take second place in the small-engined class by less than 4 seconds from Reid in third.

Geoff and Gemma Bone were sharing Royce Watson's Corolla DX turbo for the day, the 323 still a bit bent after the wee off  in the Catlins. Both had not competed in an autocross before and enjoyed the day out having a skid. Gary Hawkes and Nic Mulholland had a shiny red WRX entered in the road car class and all was going well until the car suffered a puncture in Nic's third run. The trouble for the pair was that the space saver spare didn't fit the car! John Beasley lent them the spare from his car to get them home so all was well in the end, although the rescue was not soon enough for them to  complete the runs. Among the three driver cars was Nick Marston, also sharing the orange Starlet. Nick drove well, clearing each course and continuing to learn sliding the car around. Another driver sharing with 2 others was Michelle Reid in the TeamRFR Corolla. Michelle's second run improved a second over her first and she was happy with things were going but disappointed in that she would not be able to do run 3 due to having to leave for a prior commitment. Ben Pankhurst and Kent Nurse were having a contest to see how many markers they could hit and how many donuts they could do in the RX-7, and provided a good show for everyone if not good times for the event! Of interest was the entry of a Nissan Navara ute with a 4l Lexus V8 under the bonnet, and a very nice job of it at that. The ute was not the ideal weapon of choice for autocrosses though.

Thanks go to clerk of the course and co-organiser Simone Trezise; Andrew Wells and Gavin Henson for the timing; Hayden Riddle, Don Mathias and Grant Goile for spotting the course; organisers Stephen Loomes and Josh Marston; Lynne McKenzie for helping with documentation and the start line; and David Fletcher for de-arrowing and taking the club van back to Christchurch. Special thanks to Michael Price for the use of his fantastic paddock; as Grant Goile said, it's the best we've had for ages!

Notem The organisers extend their apologies to Chris Hughes and Nathan Brownlee for not giving them their certificates at the prizegiving.

---

2 August 2003 - Catlins Coast Rally

There were mixed fortunes for the Autosport Club members who went south to contest the fantastic Catlins Coast Rally this year. WIth 72 entries this was the biggest event the Catlins had seen and everyone was really looking forward to it.

The great news is that Deane Buist in his Lancer EVO IV with Rocky Hudson alongside won the rally! The win extended Deane's lead in the Palmside Mainland Rally Series. He took a one second lead after Special Stage 2, extended it in the next stage and then proceeded to pull away to win by 53 seconds. After the rally he said "we had no real problems today, we took it easy at the start and then once we had a lead and John (Silcock) went out we eased off a bit. Then we had a go in the final stage again". For his efforts in winning the event Deane was presented with the Darryl Robinson Memorial Trophy. It was Deane's first attempt at the event and he won by 53 seconds from Wayne Muckle of Ashburton. Local hero Derek Ayson from Clinton was third overall in his Nissan powered Ford Escort. Ayson set the fastest time on Special Stage 4 and said later "The car never missed a beat, it was very strong. We gave the car a fair thrashing. It was all or nothing today, I'm third in my class in the series and we were either going to crash or finish. I had a ball".

Other Autosport members finished well, with Merv Hatcher and James Cowles 4th overall even after suffering many mechanical woes in the Lancer throughout the day, he was 18 seconds in front of Dermot Martin and Andrew Wells. John Giltrap and Grant Marra in the WRX rolled in Special Stage 2 but after a delay continued on and finished the rally in 11th place overall! Luke Thelning and Will Johns in the FX-GT were 25th overall. James and Tom Holder were 31st overall and Andy Reid and David Fletcher were 33rd, and took second place in the 0-1300cc class. 40th place went to Kieron Telford and Shane Thornley in the Pulsar. Wayne Julian and Chris Saville had a problem in SS5 which saw them fall to 41st overall. Hayden Spatcher with David Sidery alongside missed a corner and put the car into a bank in the first uphill section of SS5, but got back on the road and finished the event if well down the board. Barry Varcoe and Andrew Bulman had a number of 'agricultural moments' throughout the day which saw them roll two tyres off the rims in one stage and limp to service, but like Spatcher he was able to get going and finish the event. Geoff Bone and Murray Brown went off the road and hit a fence, tangling wire around the rear suspension and stuck on a strainer post the car was unable to be moved and they retired.

Andrew Sim and Tony Witheridge had the diff fail in the FX-GT a short way into SS5 while fighting for second place in their class. Dave Pettigrew had a recurrence of a serious sounding engine noise and parked the Escort for the day after SS4. Bryce Biggs and Richard Cocker had a huge crash in SS3, the Otago Classic winning BDA was left a wreck but thankfully the crew were able to walk away from the accident. Les Summerfield and Paul Millar's Subaru WRX was out early in Special Stage 3 when the main shaft through the gearbox broke. The crew frantically fought to change the gearbox and rejoin the event, and Les was able to complete a couple of the final stages. John Silcock trailered his Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VI with a blown rear diff in Special Stage 5. Brent and Glenn "Crusty" Buist went down a bank in Special Stage 5 and were able to rejoin after being pulled free, but the car suffered a broken half-shaft another stage down the track. Royce Watson and Sue France had the gearbox fail in the Corolla DX-4AGE turbo in SS4, the drag race of Hunt Road. At one point earlier in the rally people thought the car had blown a motor as the car had been beached at the side of the road and Sue gave it heaps while Royce shoved to try to free the car. All the smoke from the tyres caused confusion in the passing cars!

Congratulations to all the Autosport members who came away from the Catlins with trophies, and to those who finished the event. Commiserations to those whose luck failed them. With the event now a round of the Mainland Series the friendliness and hospitality shown by the organisers and stage crews ensured that the club feel of the rally was retained, and it's popularity will no doubt continue to grow as a result.

---

20th July 2003 - Woodend Hotel Mt. Alexander Sprint

After a lousy Saturday there was concern that the Mt. Alexander Road would be snowbound but as it happened the worst of it missed the hills behind the Hurunui Hotel and it was all on for Sunday's sprint. A frozen paddock greeted the 30 or so crews arriving at the pits on a crisp clear morning. Like last year there was a threat of roaming stock so the marshals on the course were keeping a close eye out. The road was a bit greasy to start with and while some parts dried out as the day progressed others got even more so, making for an interesting road with plenty of skill tests for the drivers.

Glenn "Crusty" Buist charged into the event taking line honours in the first run, the only driver to go under 3 minutes straight off the bat. "As greasy as a butchers apron" was the call from the blue BDA as it passed the finish. Although we lack video evidence of it this year, Crusty himself though he was all over the shop but the run time proves it may have been a bit tidier than he made out. Merv Hatcher was next, five seconds behind the flying Escort, Merv commenting that it felt like there was a problem with the rear diff in the Lancer as it was being very tail happy. Grant Fisher from the West Coast cranked up the 323 to sit in third overall after run 1.

Merv Hatcher came out swinging (a little less in the rear end this time!) and set the benchmark a hair's breadth in front of Crusty after run 2. He revised his earlier comment about the car being a bit off as it seemed better that time now that the road had dried out a bit and perhaps it was just the "butchers apron"  effect playing tricks earlier on. These front two were now some seven seconds clear of the chasing bunch, still led by Grant Fisher.

By run three the times were dropping like a stone, and Crusty took out his second sprint win in a row with an impressive performance in the Escort. Three seconds behind was Merv Hatcher who was taking it a bit easy as the car's diffs weren't quite set up right and he didn't want to do any damage. A fine second place seeing him safely extend his lead in the club championship. Both Robert McCallum in the Escort and Blair Logan in the Corolla turned up the heat in run 3 and both overtook Grant Fisher in the standings, the Eccy seeing the Corolla off by 1 second to take 3rd overall. Logan scoring yet another class victory in the 1301-1600cc class.

In the other classes, Steve Carr was really close to cracking three minute barrier despite the RX-7 having a slight turbo problem. The crew from Waipara were glad they got up early and tested the car on taking it off the trailer, as the oil cooler packed a sad and Steve had to rush back to Waikari to get another one and fit it. Steve was able to post a time that would see him take third spot in the big 2WD class, before the unfortunate accident that saw the car wrecked. Andrew McIntosh had the biggest off of the day, rolling the RX-7 severely after mounting the bank on one side of the road after the haybarn and then rolling onto the road and off the other side into the paddock. The car landing on it's wheels was small consolation for the crew who now had a very bent car to drag home. Brent Sibley in his Escort steadily improved between runs 1 and 2 but run three saw him fall well back in the placings.

Andrew Sim took second in the mid-size class, and John Weir was less than a second behind him in the rear-engined Accord. Scott Reid had a good day in the Escort, with a new diff ratio making the car perform much better than it had done, he beat Grant Restall's Corolla by just 6 hundredths of a second. Luke Thelning was having a bit of an off day, off the pace in the tricky conditions. Peter Quinn came out for a skid in the AE86 looking pristine again with a new windscreen after the Canterbury Rally. Dave Pettigrew had his misfire problem from Canterbury return and trailered the 4-AGE powered Escort before finishing the first run. Dave's trip wasn't in vain however, he scored a ride with Crusty and had a pretty big smile on his chops after that.

The small car class was once again dominated by Don Mathias, the Starlet looking nice and aerodynamic again after it's "thank goodness for that tree" incident at the Canterbury rally. Don was 5 seconds ahead of closest rival Grant Goile, Grant's Corolla having had some head-work done on it after breaking a valve spring at Mt. Grey. Andy Reid had a great third run (it must have been those tyres that Dave F. bolted on for his last run coming into their "zone") and beat Bruce France by a mere 12 hundredths of a second into 3rd in the class. Michael Rope had a great drive in his KE25, beating other class contenders Barry Deuart and David Fletcher for the first time. According to his crew Dave Fletcher should have been at home in bed sucking down the Lemsips and chicken noodle soup but with club points at stake they would never have heard then end of it if they had left without waking him up.

Newcomer Geoff Hughes driving Chris's Evo 2 had a taste of the action, getting in 2 full runs after a DNF in run 1. Josh Marston was suffering in the Orange Starlet, his suspension being too soft saw the car bouncing out of the fords almost uncontrollably and losing lots of time. Leigh was sharing the car for the day and despite taking his time to remember how to how to handle a more modestly powered 2WD, he had a grin from ear to ear and showed that there's nothing like just having a go for the fun of it! "So that's what those corners look like" he exclaimed, referring to the relative speeds of the Starlet vs. the WRX.

As Derek Simpson said, the organisers were running a show - not a circus, and the show rolled on with the runs being completed in quick succession. A fun run to take some of the helpers for a ride followed the competition which went like clockwork. Bulletin editor Haydo unfortunately had a CV joint blow out in his 323 and it was left sitting in the pits as everyone departed for the Woodend Hotel prizegiving. Steve Carr's crew called in a mate with a hi-ab from Waikari and the stricken RX-7 was retrieved from it's (hopefully not final) resting place. When the results were counted they came in thusm

Overall

Glenn Buist (Ford Escort BDA) 2m47.84s - 1,
Merv Hatcher (Lancer RS) 2m50.31s - 2,
Robert McCallum (Ford Escort) 2m56.58s - 3.

4WD 1600cc+

Merv Hatcher (Lancer RS)  2m50.31s - 1,
Grant Fisher (Mazda 323 GTX) 3m00.36s - 2,
Chris Hughes (Mits EVO 2) 3m17.17s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+m

Glenn Buist (Ford Escort BDA)  2m47.84s- 1,
Robert McCallum (Ford Escort) 2m56.58s  - 2,
Steve Carr (Mazda RX-7) 3m00.42s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600ccm

Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 2m59.27s - 1,
Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 3m04.98s - 2,
John Weir (Honda Accord) 3m05.91s - 3.

2WD 0-1300ccm

Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 3m06.52s - 1.
Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 3m12.06s - 2,.
Andrew Reid (Toyota Corolla) 3m14.58s - 3.

It was an awesome day in the hills, and the scenery was great with snow on the mountains. A big thanks went to Gavin Henson for operating the timing, Derek Simpson for his work on the start line and Glenn Simpson and his dragon boat team for the communications and marshalling. Thanks to Simone and Lynne McKenzie for documentation. Thanks to St. Johns, they almost had to go into action this time but thankfully Andrew MacIntosh and his passenger were OK after the roll. Thanks also to the Woodend Hotel for sponsoring the event.

---

28th and 29th June 2003 - Northern Exposure/Canary Furniture Canterbury Rally

Summerfield Successful Amid Canterbury Carnage!

Rangiora's Les Summerfield driving a Subaru WRX took an emphatic win in the Northern Exposure/Canary Furniture Canterbury Rally this past weekend. With competitors falling by the wayside through off road excursions and mechanical failures, Summerfield's consistently fast drive winning stages 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 secured him the victory. A turbo hose problem in stage 5 saw the Rangiora driver fall closer to the following cars but blistering pace once the problem was sorted sealed it. In another huge performance Brent Buist piloted his BDA Escort into second place and first place in the big classic class, with Lancer driver Merv Hatcher again securing a place on the podium with an eventful run. The gearbox of the Lancer developing a ugly noise didn't stop Merv charging down Mt. Grey Road to set the fastest time on SS6. The inner guard had parted company from the wheel arch and this was caused for even more concern and with Garry Cliff hot on his heels Merv had to work hard to retain the podium spot in what he described as "one of my most nerve wracking and enjoyable results in a while."

The epic scrap for the win that was forecast unfortunately did not eventuate. Former Mainland Series champion, Mitsubishi Evo driver Wayne Muckle from Ashburton tipped the car on it's side off the road in the second of the night stages and couldn't continue. Number 1 seed John Silcock set the fastest time on SS1 but was forced to retire after breaking 4th gear in his Mitsubishi EVO VI. Deane Buist in his EVO IV broke something in the front differential and with the car pulling to the right quite badly he came over a crest and had trouble slowing down, and ended up parked off the road and with the diff problems the car wouldn't drive properly in reverse, so he was there to stay, a DNF about 10kms into stage one. Apparently both Marchal Head and Stephen Peterson tried to run Deane over while he was parked there! It would have been great to see these drivers battle it out head to head but as luck would have it, this was not to be.

Garry Cliff was taking a break from the classic class and had the Evo out for a serious go at the Canterbury Rally crown. Like many others he was slowed by the dust during the night. The car slide a bit wide into a ditch in SS3 but drove out and continued, and spun on SS7 but otherwise he enjoyed the rally. It is his 30th year of rallying, Garry's first event was also in the Ashley Forest and along with many of the more experienced competitors, was driving like the trees looked familiar and wowed the spectators with some very fast rally action. Lincoln's John Giltrap went off the road and got stuck in SS1. Greymouth's Tracey Mann in the Mitsubishi Evo I was quick all rally, the car was going well and he was taking the fight to the newer machinery with aplomb, finishing in a fine 5th overall. Ryan Berry's potent four-wheel-drive Mitsubishi Mirage was unfortunately withdrawn before the event began.

The first stage of the Autosport Club's premier event was a true zetka-fest as it seemed every tricky corner had claimed a victim, there were little glowing triangle warning signs everywhere! Regan and Nigel Ross had a nasty off into a bank at the very first intersection of SS1 and severely wrinkled the passenger's side of the WRX. They were unfortunately unable to continue due to a suspected rib injury sustained by Nigel in the crash. Jason and Tracey Clark got caught out by the dust and an off camber open right, and slid into the ditch, beaching the car with most of it still on the road but just enough to stop the crew from being unable to push it free. They rejoined on day 2 and set some great times, with the DX-4AGE inside the top ten on stage 4 the highlight of the day for the Christchurch pair. Wade Henshaw retired with a broken diff pinion adn Neville Kidd was parked with the bonnet up, a mysterious loss of electrical power would see them work on the car at service to get it going for the next day. He and co-driver Gareth Irwin in the Starlet put in some good times on day 2 that would have seen them well in the hunt for the class E podium if they had not had to withdraw the night before. David Fletcher's alternator failed half way through the first stage and with the Corolla having no power to drive up a steep hill he had to withdraw, although knight with shining ex-police lights Alec Doig fixed the diode problem at 11m30pm, enabling the TeamRFR crew to return for day 2. Legendary service from the Rangiora AA man! Derek Ayson and Andrew Graves from Clinton had an off that saw the Nissan powered Escort beached in the water table in SS1. By the time they were extracted from the ditch they had used up all their lateness time and were out of the event. Like many others they rejoined on the second day and set some great stage times along the way. Wayne Julian didn't make it into day 2 with the AE86 on the trailer and not returning after exiting the event in stage 1.

Don Mathias was flying. A too-close encounter with a tree (that apparently saved them from a much bigger off) on Saturday night bending the passenger door and front guard but otherwise not affecting the obvious speed of the Canary Furniture sponsored Starlet. A persistent engine misfire developing some distance into the stages didn't stop him winning the 1300 class decisively yet again, Mathias's aggressive style is certainly a hit with the spectators, and this time also earned him the first 2WD main class prize. Gwynn Gilmour from Dunedin had a great weekend in the Porsche 911, finishing second overall in SS5 and ending the event without drama placed 7th overall. Jeff Judd with a stoked Glen "Bart" Simpson in the silly seat were wowing the spectators throughout the event and finished in second placed 2WD car. The screaming BDA going sideways into the top of the Dunlop Sprint course at the end of the last stage was a sight to behold. Dave Pettigrew had a good run in his new-liveried Escort 4-AGE, although running out of brakes didn't help matters much and he was forced to withdraw after stage 6. Hayden Paddon found a good turn of speed this rally, winning the 1600cc class in the Levin and setting some great times along the way. Barry Varcoe had a great run in his silver Starlet. Getting a bit agricultural at times saw various appendages disappear from the car but Barry's smile throughout the day showed he was enjoying the rally. Luke Thelning had put a standard gearbox into the Corolla FXGT after the blowup at Otago and drove to finish this event, which he succeeded in accomplishing. Richard Scholes was running in his first rally and the Toyota Sprinter was certainly going well in places, the crew gradually coming to terms with the car and setting some good times later in the event. Greig Johnston with Denise Chandler sitting beside him, all the way from Arrowtown in the Mk 1 Ford Escort had a good run apart from a bent front strut in SS3.

Bruce and Nicole France had a disastrous weekend. The exhaust broke, then second gear disappeared early on day 2 and in revving the 4K hard to go from 1st to 3rd a valve decided to give up the ghost a few k's into the Kowhai stage and their rally was over. David Fletcher and Andrew Reid came out to have a bit of fun on Sunday and were going a bit more sideways than usual through most of the event. While not good for the wee Corolla's stage times it certainly looked like fun (until backing it in a bit much on the Dunlop sprint downhill section ended up with the car swapping ends but luckily still on the road). Paul Dickson stopped about 10kms into SS3 with a dead turbocharger in the Leone RX. Stewart and Andrew Bufton had a broken gearbox but continued, and were perhaps wishing they had not as the Starlet 4-AGE disappeared off the road in the Kowhai stage on the approach to Lake Janet. Hayden Spatcher's rally ended with a hole in the FX-GT's engine block, the terminal damage being sustained in the repeat of the Paringa stage at the top of the hill. Geoff and Gemma Bone had a great rally in the Mazda 323, charging through the forest and getting loose in places the pair were making the most of the conditions to score a very impressive 8th overall.

Nigel Marshall was chewing through Kumhos at a great rate of knots, with the car flying through the stages, by the end of a couple of tests the tyres on the rear were practically bald. Rallying on slicks can't be good but the Wyndham Datsun 1200 driver was happy with how things had gone, although they did have gearbox issues which saw the crew working into the night on the first day to repair the transmission and re-fit it to the car for the second day. Steve Carr's newly acquired ex- Shane Thornley RX-7 had a few tweaks to the suspension and other bits and was proving it had the goods but unfortunately the coil fried itself and the Carr car retired. This was lucky for rally debutant Ben Pankhust in Steve's old RX7, a radiator swap seeing the latter able to continue with the rally after suffering big overheating problems. Ben had been going well, staying out of trouble and posting some good times for his first rally. Brendon Price's Subaru Impreza was going well. A change to the diffs in the car and the growing confidence of the driver saw him the top placed "rookie". While a bit tentative in the twisty bits the car certainly eats up the straights!

Barry Deuart secured a fine second place in the 1300cc class with a consistent drive. The gearbox sitting in their service area was only for looks as the Datsun 120Y completed all the stages without a problem. Nigel Milne had brought the AE85 up from the deep south and his co-driver Greg had switched marques and seats for this rally, his Datsun still ailing after it's suspension took a beating in Southland, they finished in 21st overall. Kieron Telford running in his first event in his new Nissan Pulsar GTI-R was going steadily through the stages, with Shane Thornley calling directions. Rumour has it that Kieron had not seen a gravel road until moving to New Zealand from the UK a year or so ago so a forest rally is certainly a big challenge.

Andrew Sim and Tony Witheridge were comfortably leading their class until disaster struck in the very last stage, hooking down the hill the Corolla driver gave it a bit much welly and overshot a corner, beaching the car in the ditch. They spent 14 minutes there until David Fletcher's Corolla came along and towed them out. Barry Mills and Craig Barclay from Balclutha in the deceptively quick Hillman Avenger took out the 0-1700cc classic class. Having not done a rally for a while, Richard Towse was cruising in the Sunny and having fun, ending the event in 17th overall. Dean Milligan drove the Lancer consistently well and ended up inside the top 10 overall by the end of the event.

Other notable retirements were Dermot Martin whose transmission failed and the car was trailered after stage 4, Bryce Biggs's Escort RS1800 suffered differential failure after that stage also. Paul Dickson in the Subaru Leone RX did not finish SS3 and retired from the event. Steve Parker suffered a puncture on the first stage of the event and was clawing his way back up the timesheets when a mechanical failure on SS6 saw his rally end. Jim and Tima Smale all the way form Gore in the Suzuki Baleno retired with gearbox failure while touring after SS3. Stephen Petersen had used up all his lateness time after getting stuck off the road in SS2 and was out of the event, so the exclusion on the second day for servicing their broken driveshaft outside the service park was an enforcement of the rules with no bearing on the result.

The event was based entirely at the Rangiora showgrounds and this proved very popular with competitors, service crews, and spectators alike. It was easy for service crews to get into the forest and see some action, which is always good. This year’s rally was observed by Motorsport New Zealand, who will decide whether it is good enough to once again be considered to be included as a round of the national championship. The history of the national championship has roots in Canterbury, where the first ever official national championship rally was run by a consortium of car clubs from the region back on May 3 and 4 1975. The classic section of this rally was missing the historic first winner in 1975, a Mazda RX-3, but the gaggle of RX-7's made up a good rotary contingent to contest the stages and were driven well.

A huge vote of thanks goes to all the organisers, stage crews, marshalls, timing crews, communications people, and all the others who made this fantastic event run smoothly.

Click here to see the Table of Results

Click here to download the Printable Results (PDF file, go to Adobe website to download the free Acrobat Reader)



Dave Pettigrew cranks the Escort past Lake Janet.

---

25 May 2003 - Mt. Grey Sprint Report

It was a dull and cold Christchurch morning when the townie crews headed out dodging elderly church goers who like to get their pews early and runners with headphones on who assume that no-one else will be using the road at that time of the morning. Cruising out through Rangiora the dull and cold turned into sunshine and colder! With the damp dew (formerly frost) on the ground the road was sure to be in great condition with little or no dust for the day's event. It was brass-monkey conditions at the service area but clear as a bell. The scene was set for a great day.

There were some new faces at the event which is always great to see, Ben Pankhurst was driving the ex-Steve Carr RX7 (Steve is very enthusiastic about his project car that is coming along well at the moment, a peripheral ported 13B RX7 weapon that he expects to have on the road "all in good time"). Richard Scholes was another new competitor in a Toyota Sprinter, along with Chris Hughes in the ex-Nigel Beck EVO 2. Incidentally, also building a new toy is Jonathan Bradshaw who is putting a 4-AGE into his Starlet.

The indian file revealed a very fast piece of road sweeping along a valley floor, with some blind crests to charge over, and the only tricky bit being a dry ford with a gravel base and a mild right over a crest on the exit. After a 90° right that tightened afterwards it was off up a hill with a couple of tight lefts and rights and then a more sweeping section, then along the top on a wide a fast road with a couple of deceptive corners taken at high speed over long crests. To finish was a 90° right into a downhill straight to the finish with an interesting tight right just after the line. Spectators had a bit of a hike to find the good spots but there was some action. Some competitors out-braked themselves going into the final right hand corner before the finish and lost a bit of time, and the tight right after the finish certainly came up fast at race speed. There were a few people going fairly sideways into that one, some accellerating and some hard on the anchors!

Out of the blocks on run one and Merv Hatcher in the Lancer RS notched up the quickest time by a whisker from Glenn Buist (driving the blue Bertbuilt BDA), showing the course was more about power and top speed than about traction. Les Summerfield cranked the WRX into third after the run, and the top three cleared the rest of the pack by 5 seconds. Brent Buist (also in the blue BDA funnily enough), Ryan Berry in the Mirage EVO and Jeff Judd in the Hannu Mikkola Escort BDA (or is that the other way around?) led the chase. In the classes Toyota FX-GT's were to the fore with Blair Logan showing he'd lost none of his pace from missing a few events and led from Andrew Sim. Don Mathias predictably led the small cars but not by much from Bruce France and Grant Goile. Jason Clark had a wee moment at the last intersection, the car swapping ends and going backwards down the slippery road for a bit. Ross Teesdale squeezed into the top 10 in a rare outing for his Toyota Sprinter.

Les Summerfield came out swinging for the second round and absolutely blitzed the field, nearly 4 seconds in the clear at the top.  Trevor Crowe had the big banger WRX out for a blat and scorched through the second run improving 15 seconds from run 1 to sit in second place. Merv Hatcher's grip slipped as he had to swtich his anti-lag off for the run and the resultant lack of response saw him nudge a bank in the uphill twisty section and lose time. Brent Buist reversed the battle of the blue BDA and beat his brother into third by a couple of ticks. Jeff Judd found some inspiration from the name on his car and was about to come knocking on the Buist's door by the end of the run. Andrew Sim closed the gap on Blair Logan to 2 seconds, with Stewart Bufton's Starlet 4AGE third in the class after a good improvement between runs. Andrew Bufton was also driving the car and showed good progress in this event, piloting the car into 4th in the class and a mid-field position overall. Michael Rope had a great run, improving 14 seconds from his run 1 time. Hayden Spatcher found a turn of speed also and took 11 seconds off his previous run, and James Holder continued to come to grips with front wheel drive, 12 seconds better than before. Hard luck hit the small car class, with Grant Goile trailering the car after a broken valve forced him to retire from the event. Don Mathias extended his lead from Bruce France and Barry Deuart who were locked in a very close battle for second and third in the class, less than half a second separating the Starlet from the Datsun. David Fletcher braked far too late for the first intersection, having blasted through the ford and at full tilt the whole time along the valley floor he got a bit carried away and hit the now-slippery t-junction going too fast, and with not enough drive the car sledged into the boggy muck on the outside of the corner and into the ditch.

Someone must have tweaked something the right way in the blue BDA because on run 3 both of the car's drivers showed a clean pair of heels. Brent cut 7 seconds from his run 2 time but it was Crusty who sealed the win by 2.5 seconds with an improvement of 11 seconds from his previous best. It turns out that Mr Crusty Buist was somewhat lucky on two accounts to have the opportunity to actually complete a third (and winning) run. On the very wide section of road through the logged out area there was a fast open right-hander (5 tightening to a 4 over small crest in safety notes vernacular) where he was seen to exit the corner a minimum of 2 car widths wider than anyone else and within 6 inches of a 6 foot bank - with Crusty half way through the corner and obviously well out of shape, spectators were either hurriedly heading for higher ground and/or eagerly anticipating souveniring various parts of the car - fortunately neither was either necessary or possible as catastrophe was avoided by the smallest of margins, some would say down to blind luck and others no doubt down to consummate skill.  On the same run the same driver had the misfortune to spin up on the final right hander before the short straight to the finish - in itself no great thing other than there was a very large tree stump hidden in the broom fringing the inside of the corner - reverse gear was clearly indicated but for unexplained reasons our experienced master-driver selected first and proceeded to see if he could move the offending stump out of the way for following competitors!

Merv Hatcher had the Lancer back on song and set a great time although two seconds behind the second Buist to complete the podium. Other standout runs this time were Andrew Bufton going 12 seconds faster than his run 2,  Ben Pankhurst lopping a whopping 25 seconds from his card, Andy Reid going 13 seconds quicker (coincidentally David Fletcher in the same car took the same amount off his previous time), and Chris Hughes getting more comfortable in his recently acquired EVO with a 20 second better time. John Giltrap had a problem and didn't take the third run in his WRX and Bruce France lost oil pressure in his Starlet before run 3 and had to sit it out.  Barry Deuart in his 120Y over-drove the final run and let a class placing slip through is fingers after a great drive in the previous two runs. Various passengers had a great day being scared by the blind brows that the drivers knew well. Taken flat out, crests are a bit disconcerting for someone going over them for the first time!  By this time the drivers were fast and smooth, cutting the corners in all the right places and making good time, and the spectators were loving it in the sunshine. When all was said and done the results came out as followsm

Overall

Glenn Buist (Ford Escort BDA) 4m06.72s - 1,
Brent Buist (Ford Escort BDA) 4m09.30s - 2,
Merv Hatcher (Lancer RS) 4m11.98s - 3.

4WD 1600cc+

Merv Hatcher (Lancer RS) 4m11.98s - 1,
Les Summerfield (Subaru WRX) 4m12.70s - 2,
Trevor Crowe (Subaru WRX) 4m16.22s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+m

Glenn Buist (Ford Escort BDA) 4m06.72s - 1,
Brent Buist (Ford Escort BDA) 4m09.30s - 2,
Jeff Judd (Ford Escort BDA) 4m15.34s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600ccm

Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 4m20.40s - 1,
Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 4m24.29s - 2,
Stewart Bufton (Toyota Starlet 4-AGE) 4m33.35s - 3.

2WD 0-1300ccm

Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 4m35.77s - 1.
Andrew Reid (Toyota Corolla) 4m44.29s - 2,
David Fletcher (Toyota Corolla) 4m47.74s - 3.

Northern Exposure in Rangiora sponsored the class winner's prizes, and Castrol and Motor Up provided the placegetters spoils, thanks to them for that. A big thanks again to to Gavin Henson for operating the timing system, and to the Sefton Girl Guides for the BBQ. Thanks also to Simone Trezise for documentation, Leigh Marston and Les Summerfield for organising, and to Bart Simpson's dragon-boat team for supplying marshalls. Barry Deuart supplied the Tait radios for the event comms and these worked exceptionally well, thanks for that Barry. It was a very successful blue-sky day in the Ashley Forest for most of the crews. With a well timed après'-event screening of the Otago Rally on the big screen at Northern Exposure to finish the prizegiving the day rounded off just nicely. Bring on the Rally!

---

18 May 2003 - Sefton Autocross Report

A cloudy morning with little wind (pretty good for Autocrosses really!) greeted crews at the Price property near Sefton for the first autocross of the 2003 club championship. The first course had already been laid out the night before and with documentation out of the way 19 drivers took the indian file. The course was quite open and fast, suiting the larger capacity cars well. With times being accumulated throughout the day to decide the winner, everyone would have to keep it fairly tidy. An interesting piece of machinery entered was paddock owner Michael Price in a Cortina (listed on his entry as a "Ford Slow") he had dragged out from under a hedge, put a battery in and pumped up the tyres! It was great to see a number of new competitors at the event, most in road cars.

Hayden Riddle laid down quite a challenge to the rest of the drivers in his Mazda 323 GTX road car, going just over a second quicker than the following cars. Brent Sibley charged into the course and scored the second fastest time in the first run in his Escort. John Beasley in the road-going WRX equalled Sibley's time for the run. Scott Reid's brother Nathan brought his grass kart along for a blat and set a time equal again to Sibley and Beasley's (and interestingly also drove Scott's Escort to a time seven seconds behind that of the grass kart,.. we wonder what vehicle is more suited to this environment!). With the short course being only 40s or so in duration, the times of the chasing pack were very close indeed. Don Mathias was half a second further back in the Starlet and Grant Goile's car sounded like it was only running on three cylinders and he was a further second in arrears. Bryan Chang in the Commodore Ute off-roader was going well, albeit with a little too much ground clearance for this type of event! Michelle Reid in the TeamRFR Corolla led the ladies class from Juliet Abbott driving Brent Sibley's Escort.

Run 2 saw a few fortunes change, along with the course which got a couple more kinks and some tweaks to rutted corners to bypass the holes. Nick Marston sharing brother Josh's Starlet clouted a marker early in run 2 and suffered a penalty. Don Mathias clipped one also, and Grant Goile hit a cone in the finish chute so both these close competitors were going to have to drive hard in the final run to catch up. Benefitting from the two class leaders mistakes was David Fletcher in the Corolla KE20 who went into the lead in the small-car class following the second run. Funnily enough the same car in the hands of Andy Reid was 0.05 seconds faster over the run. Anthony Reed had repowered his Starlet with a 5K and found corners coming up a bit more quickly than previously, making for a fun day down on the farm.

In run 3 Hayden Riddle snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, running into two markers and transforming a fastest of all 1m34s into an ordinary 1m43s. Brent Sibley got half way around the course when the electrics failed on the Escort bringing it to a stop (I'm sure you all know the acronyms for "Ford" that we could dredge up here but we won't go there as it is quite frankly just too easy). The car was towed out by Andy Reid in the temporary recovery vehicle that conveniently was sitting on the start line as Sibley's car had it's mishap. Michelle Reid made a comeback in the ladies class to take the win. Josh Marston, while not happy with his run 1 time, got steadily faster throughout the day and took third in the 1301-1600cc class with a consistent performance. Marchal Head in the Corolla DX-4AGE took the win in that class (and third overall) followed by Scott Reid in his 4AGE powered Escort (which incidentally had not blown a motor at Hanmer as previously reported, but in fact suffered drivetrain damage). With the grass kart not eligible for overall points, John Beasley in the WRX road car, who cranked around the course and didn't put a wheel wrong all day (apart from in the "fun run"!) took out the overall win, followed by a resurgent Grant Goile. Fastest rookie of the day was Patrick Sullivan in his Mazda GTX, followed by Matthew Paulson in his Starlet road car.

There was a healthy amount of spectators at the event so thanks to all those who took the time to come out and support the sausage sizzle, and watch some cars throwing around bits of paddock. Everyone agreed that the courses that had been laid out were excellent, a great mix of sweeping and tighter corners. Event organiser Simone Trezise (thanks Si!) was happy with the day, which ran very smoothly, and there was even time for a fourth "fun run" after the certificates were handed out to the winners. Thanks to Royce Watson for scrutineering and witty repartee, David Fletcher and Gavin Henson for operating the timing gear, and to Michael Price for the use of his land. Thanks to everybody who helped pack up at the end, it proved that many hands do indeed make light work. Thanks also to Don Mathias for bringing the club van (and taking it back again!). See you all at the Ashley Forest sprint!

---

12 May 2003 - Otago Rally Successful for Autosport Club

This year's first South Island round of the NZ Rally Championship was a successful trip south for the majority of Autosport Club crews competing.

• Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson won the national 2WD rally championship class by 1m11s from Dave Strong. The Corolla had some issues during the event but nothing unsurmountable, and Deane finished in 11th overall, yet again beating home a good many 4WD cars. Deane was also first in the Mainland class.
• Andrew Sim and Tony Witheridge were first in the 1301 to 1600cc class.
• John Giltrap and Grant Marra finished in 12th spot and 4th in group N, 2nd in the Mainland class.
• Dermot Martin and Bede O'Connor were 15th overall and 3rd in the Mainland class. Dermot had a close call with Geoff Bone in the super special stage on the streets of Dunedin.
• Jeff Judd co-drove for Mark Tapper and they were 5th in group N.
• James Holder brought is new FX-GT home in 8th in the 1301-1600cc class, the hole in the exhaust on day 1 making the car sound a tad more tractor-like than your run of the mill Corolla.
• Les Summerfield in the Peugeot 306 had gearbox problems and fuel pressure issues that would see him retire from the rally late on day2.
• Wayne Julian's Peugeot 306 withdrew after 4 stages with suspension failure.
• Geoff and Gemma Bone had a bizarre end to their rally, sliding across a damp road in the super special last stage and taking off the right front suspension of the 323. They had expected the normal super special rules to come into play (the same rules that saved Wayne Julian's result last year, whereby if you do not finish a super special you are given the fastest time plus three minutes) but this rule was not applied by the organisers and the pair ended with no result.
• Hayden Spatcher and Dave Sidery's rally ended on SS10, the long and rough Berwick Forest stage with mechanical woes.
• Luke Thelning and Will John's weekend started badly and got worse, they blew the motor of the service van on the Kilmog hill the night before scrutineering, then clouted a bank in the rally damaging the front of the car but not seriously, then the gearbox failed in SS6 and they were forced to withdraw.
  
  The Dunlop International Classic Rally was run in conjunction with the National Championship round, and with both Bjorn Waldegard and Hannu Mikkola competing it was a real drawcard.
   
• Brian Stokes and Bryce Biggs won the event for the second year running. Congratulations! The event went down to the wire, with stokes emerging the winner by a mere three seconds!
• Following Stokes by those three seconds was a charging Brent Buist who had the blue BDA really on song throughout the rally.
• David Fletcher and Hayden Riddle won the 0-1300cc class with a committed performance that saw the pair take a big lead into the second day and end up very thankful for it, a bent strut in SS10 seeing them lose a lot of time but not enough to relinquish the class.
• Bruce and Nicole France were third in the same class, the loss of third gear and two punctures not helping their cause at all.
• Alec Doig blew a head gasket in the V8 Escort, and withdrew.
• Aaron Scott suffered a big accident in the last gravel stage that injured his co-driver Tony Johnston. The stage was stopped while the crew received medical assistance. The car slid wide on a right hand bend and rolled several times, coming to rest on it's wheels back on the road.
• Gary Cliff withdrew the Datsun Stanza after stage 9 with mechanical problems.
  
  Congratulations to the class placegetters and commiserations to those who did not finish. The Otago Rally is a fantastic event, with a good variety of roads to test the crews. This year's single service park at Waihola meant that service crews were able to get out and view some of the cars in the forest stages nearby, which is always a bonus. Now, if we could just work on the weather...

---

1 May 2003 - Club Raffle Results

The club raffle was drawn with much pomp and ceremony today and the results are as followsm

1st Prize - Ticket number 10 - Jeff Judd
2nd Prize - Ticket number 25 - Mike Turfus
3rd Prize - Ticket number 72 - David Fletcher

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who bought tickets to help fund the prizes for the Club's sprint series!

---

24 April 2003 - Autosport at High-profile Events

At the Rally of New Zealand, Brian Stokes was 25th overall in the Lancer Evo 6 and 4th Kiwi home. Another great performance from the seasoned campaigner showing that experience counts in this game. Dermot Martin finished the event 43rd overall and 10th kiwi driver home. Martin said he was happy with how he went, and with the performance of the car. The crew had a great time as well by all accounts! Jeff Judd co-drove for Mark Tapper and suffered a cracked vertebra in his neck when their car ploughed into the rear of another competitor who was crawling across the flying finish to the last stage. John Giltrap came home in 47th overall in the Group N Subaru Impreza.

Last weekend the Race to the Sky was held in perfect blue-sky conditions at Cardrona. Leigh Marston finished well, winning the clubman's rally class and the crew apart from being unhappy with one set of tyres they used were happy with the performance of the car. Deane Buist went well, a blown tyre and bent rim due to the wheel dropping into a hole the only mishap of his weekend meaning he didn't make it to the top on one practise run, and he ended the day second in the open 4WD class. In the open 2WD class Royce Watson in his Toyota DX-4AGE turbo was going head to head with the Lancer turbo of Ross Dunkerton, only being pipped by 8 seconds in the final run by the Aussie legend. Brent Buist was second in the classic rally competition.

---

31 March 2003 - Hanmer Motorsport Weekend Results

Double Sprint -

An overnight deluge on Friday produced road conditions described as "challenging" by some, "bloody good fun" by others, and "diabolical" by the remainder! The event got underway from the Hot Springs Hotel on time and with the rain still coming down the crews headed for the start line in the forest. A delay was experienced while the organisers changed a few caution points and arrowing setups through the course at the advice of the MSNZ steward. At first the road conditions didn't look to be too bad, and one by one the competitors roared off the line and down the long straight to the spectator corner. The slightly slippery conditions at the 90-left belied what was in store up the hill, with the climb getting more and more greasy and across the top the large sharp gravel had been exposed by the rain, offering some level of grip but deepening jagged ruts as the day went by. The end of the first course had a couple of small lakes developing on the inside of some sweeping corners and passengers were well occupied opening and closing roof vents to keep the splash out! The second course was a tighter, mostly downhill run and the ruts in the road soon became rivers of mud with rocks being exposed underneath. Good speed could be had on the more open sections of the road, but some care was required in the slippery mud of the tighter parts, with some drivers reported as having had the odd wee moment going at "walking pace"!

First off of the day went to Ian McKee in Brent Tiney's Escort Mk1, with the car sledging off the road and into the trees on the practise run after a bit of a straight leading into the tight and slippery downhill section of Course 2. Ian contends that after years of sitting alongside Brent Rawstron in the BDA he thought it best if he continue in that vein and try to get alongside the Rossendale Escort in front. Unfortunately some particularly slippery pine needles (although we had heard it was the passenger grabbing the handbrake) appeared out of nowhere and the car took to the trees, with luckily only a few dents and scratches the result of the escapade. Trevor Crowe had parked up the Skoda on the top bit of the climb up the upper road with fuel pickup problems. He would sit out the first run to have the car going again for the second.

Down to business and the first timed run through course 1 saw Les Summerfield and Merv Hatcher signal the fight was on with a dead heat that would stand as the fastest time through that road for the day because the conditions deteriorated. Brent Rawstron showed his experience in all conditions with a time only 5 seconds slower than the two 4WD cars in front. A gaggle of 4WDs followed, then rookie driver Chris Barnett in the RX7 from Nelson only two seconds behind Leigh Marston's WRX. Dermot Martin was taking it easy in the Evo4, obviously saving the car ahead of his Rally NZ trip, but Stewart Bufton was not taking it easy, posting a good time to lead the mid-sized engine class in the 4-AGE powered Starlet. Grant Goile was another showing his experience in any weather leading the small car class after the first run. Bruce France suffered an unfortunate differential failure on the first run and would retire for the day, a shame considering his great performance at Rakaia had thrown down the gauntlet to the other drivers in the class. Engine failure put paid to the 4-AGE in Scott Reid's Mk2 Escort halfway up the hill, his weekend coming to a sad end there and then, although reports have it that it was not too sad as there were two lady marshalls at the point he stopped.  Nelson's Sara Randall had the exhaust come unstuck from her sparkling (well, not any more!) new AE111 Levin and the other Randalls (with the help of some wire from the first aid crew stationed between the stages) made great use of kiwi ingenuity and soon had the car ready to continue. Sara was spending some time getting used to the front wheel drive and had an up-and-down, but relatively consistent day.

Don Mathias would have gone faster in this run had it not been for a bit of an off. He ran off the road at the second left hand corner, splashed up the water table, kept his boot up it while cleaning the windscreen of muddy water, and all of a sudden arrived at the tightening right hander. Needless to say he didn't get round it, sledging off the road, just missing a tree hit the bank. Backing out and continuing, he watched the temperature all the way back to service but all was OK with the radiator, although he had bent the left front wheel backwards about 40mm! He ran like that for the rest of the day.

The first run through Course 2 saw a great drive from Kaikoura's Regan Ross in the ex-Rocky Hudson WRX. He pipped Brent Rawstron's BDA by just 3 seconds and four from Les Summerfield and a charging Wayne Julian in the Peugeot 306. John Giltrap appeared on the radar not far in arrears as did Merv Hatcher and Grant Fisher all the way from the West Coast in his 323 sporting a Citroen WRC colour scheme (Oui! Eeet iz a Mazda!). Mixing it with the 4WDs was the renegade Starlet of Don Mathias, clearly a man on a mission, Mathias was using the lightness of the car on the descent to great effect, setting a time only 14 seconds behind the leader's WRX. Competitors were mostly driving to the conditions and very little major drama was experienced (although more than a few wide eyes showed that there was drama nonetheless!). Andy Reid ruptured a rear tyre at the start of the course and ran the whole run on the rim with the tyre still attached but deflated as he didn't notice it, putting the sliding around and lack of traction down to the slippery road. Shane Thornley in the RX7 got a fright when a rear wheel came off when the bolts holding it on mysteriously disappeared! Shane commented that perhaps some silly person had not done them up tight enough. When pressed he recalled that it was him!

Run 2 through course 1 saw most drivers go slower than in their first, although improving were Lloyd Owen in the Evo 6.5 shaving 10 seconds off his first run time; Dermot Martin, who decided to switch off the air-con for this run and went 17 seconds faster (Air-con would not be a bad idea in these conditions! - Ed.); Steve Carr having fun in the RX7 improved 10 seconds; Don Mathias put his foot down (and the car on two wheels) and went 20 seconds better; Geoff Bone rung 11 seconds more speed out of the 323 4WD; Andy Reid in the TeamRFR Corolla took 10 seconds off his run 1 time, commenting that 14" tractor tyres would be more appropriate than the used Bridgestones the car was running. Blenheim Lancer RS driver Kevin Newton would go 8 seconds faster in run 2 than run 1; Josh Marston in his first outing in the newly built Starlet (with a lovely "polished knob" as one observer put it) shaved two seconds from his opening score and Brendon Price in the WRX, trying a new setup of the car's ride height and differential settings for this event, blew an astonishing 36 seconds off his previous effort (trying a new technique of taking his foot off the brake - Ed.).

Aaron Scott would finish running in his newly reconditioned engine in the BDA Escort (completing the first part of the run-in process the day before!) on this run then trailer the car, satisfied with it's performance in the lead up to his annual assault at the Otago classic rally. Retirement from the event came for Gary Grant in the interesting Mazda 323 rotary, firstly his exhaust broke but then it became more terminal for the Nelson driver with 3rd gear disappearing, and with no spare gearbox he was unable to continue.

The second run through course 2 was again won by Regan Ross with an identical time to his first go. Merv Hatcher upped his pace and was three seconds behind the WRX in his Lancer, followed closely by Brent Rawstron who tied the run with Garry Cliff who was 8 seconds faster this run than previous in the Evo4. Grant Fisher was locked in a battle with Don Mathias and spectators were beginning to talk of whether power and traction would win over lightness (and madness? - Ed.) would win the day there. Grant Goile was tied with Les Summerfield for this run in another interesting comparison of light 2WD vs. power and 4WD. An even mixture of drivers gained and lost on their first run times, indicating that the road conditions had not changed drastically between the two runs, rivers of mud were flowing down the ruts throughout both! Steve Carr in the RX7 had a problem that saw him lose a lot of time over his prior effort and Josh Marston had a disastrous time, putting the Starlet off the road and into the water table, finally emerging from the stage 23 minutes later after being towed back onto the road by the recovery crew. No damage was done to the car except a dislodged mudflap, Luckily the results are based on fastest time of day. Les Summerfield's WRX had lunched second gear so the day was over for the Rangiora driver who was on the pace all the way.

For a number of drivers the second time through the second course was enough, and ten or so decided to call it a day, believing that the road would not allow them to go any faster. Most also said that the conditions were too risky and with the sprint series round the following day they would rather save their cars for that. Dermot Martin's concerns were well founded ahead of Rally NZ, having had an instance of non-control, going up a bank which was luckily shallow enough in angle that the car rode up it and not into it. Subsequently he discovered however that the suspension setting was on 'tarmac' which may go some way to explaining why he couldn't seem to get round the corners very well. (Don't let that man set up your video recorder - Ed.).

Regan Ross grabbed his chance to get more experience and launched into course 1 for the final time, setting a time only 1 second down on his run 1 time, and gaining confidence in the conditions. Lloyd Owen was quick too, a tick behind Ross, followed by Garry Cliff who bettered himself to the tune of 12 seconds and Geoff Bone in his 323 4WD found some herbs to match Cliff's improvement. Don Mathias took a further 6 seconds off his score. Ian McKee had recovered from his off in practise and gained himself 16 seconds in the process. Stephen Peterson shaved 4 seconds off in a consistent drive that would set him up well for an overall result. Andy Reid lopped a whopping 19 seconds off his previous best for the course. Running new Silverstone S55's to see what kind of difference new tyres make, he gained confidence in the grip, allowing him to push harder and proving that maybe they do help a bit! Barry Deuart was another driver to make up some time by taking the last run, although the ruts up the top were starting to glow in the bottom and his low sump guard had him floating along like a slot car in a couple of places.  Gavin Henson put in a consistent run to score his best of the day by 4 seconds.

The last crack at course 2 was the moment that Regan Ross took the bull by the horns and put the event in his pocket. The WRX scorched through the run, setting fastest time by 8 seconds from a hard-charging Garry Cliff who also seized the opportunity to improve taking 16 seconds off his previous time. Lloyd Owen did the same, putting a time 18 seconds faster than his best until then on the card. There were more than a few gasps at the time posted by Don Mathias in the Starlet. When the card were tallied a time of 7 minutes 21 seconds was confirmed, only 1 second behind the Owen Evo 6.5! Mathias was peddling like a demon even in the atrocious conditions, an inspired drive. Onlookers could only imagine at what it would have been like inside the car on it's way down that slippery hill! Grant Fisher came in only 2 seconds behind the Starlet, so the power/traction vs. lightness debate still rages! Geoff Bone had his 323 placed at 6th for course 2, having much better luck than last year at the Hanmer event. Andy Reid's confidence had grown in leaps and bounds and he went 21 better in the final pass. Gavin Henson blitzed his previous best taking 35 seconds off, and getting to grips well with the new locked diff in his otherwise fairly standard Toyota Starlet. Run three saw Steve Carr again have a bit of a problem, getting out after 30 minutes. Josh Marston was being careful after the second run. Barry Deuart improved 7 seconds but it would not be quite enough to get amongst the class placings.

Given the very challenging conditions it was a credit to all that there were no major accidents and only the odd minor 'off' to scuff some paintwork, bend a few panels and scare a few passengers. Demisters got a workout, Don Mathias recommends getting these checked out before every event, because a towel on a stick is just not effective enough!

After a nice long soak in the hot pools the prizegiving was well attended with the Hot Springs Hotel serving up some very nice meals and many nice cold beers (and stronger stuff for some!). Running against tradition the rest of the evening was rather subdued by Hanmer Weekend standards, with most crews vacating the premises by 11m00pm. Nevertheless a good time was had by all. The final results for the combined runs were as followsm

Overall + 4WD

Regan Ross (Subaru WRX) 14m25s - 1,
Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer RS) 14m37s - 2,
Garry Cliff (Mits EVO4) 14m37s - 3. (Hatcher took 2nd on countback).

2WD 1601cc+m

Brent Rawstron (Ford Escort BDA) 14m42s - 1,
Chris Barnett (Mazda RX7) 15m07s - 2,
Wayne Julian (Peugeot 306) 15m15s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600ccm

Luke Thelning (Toyota Corolla) 15m49s - 1,
Stewart Bufton (Toyota Starlet) 15m51s - 2,
John Weir (Honda Accord) 16m17s - 3.

2WD 0-1300ccm

Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 15m06s - 1.
Stephen Peterson (Toyota Starlet) 15m44s - 2,
Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 15m45s - 3.

Click the following links to display the full resultsm

Hanmer Double Sprint - Course 1  -  Hanmer Double Sprint - Course 2   -   Hanmer Double Sprint - Combined Results

               

Sunday Bent Sprint -

Sunday dawned a little brighter than the day before and every now and then the sun tried to break through, but didn't quite succeed, although the a halt to the rain and the warmer conditions the road dried out slightly. The sprint was run backwards down the first 3km of the first course from the day before, and it turned out to be a heck of a lot of fun. Like the previous day, no major dramas were had, and the event ran very smoothly, with some competitors getting to take a 4th run through.

Royce Watson spent some time under Bruce France's car after ferrying a new diff up from Christchurch the previous evening and Bruce was able to take the start but was pipped for third in the small car class by a great drive from Barry Deuart in the Datsun 120Y. David Fletcher had a coil lead come off and stopped to re-attach it and then continued run 1. Andrea Summerfield did not take run1 due to the WRX not wanting to run. Apparently Les had driven the car too hard the day before! Fortunately the problem was tracked to water in the map sensor (where would that have come from?!) so the Summerfield crew stripped the sensors off a road going Subaru and put them into the rally car, which seemed to cure the problem. Andy Reid had a big tank-slapper on the first slippy right over crest which didn't seem to slow him up much but put some good marks on the road. Brendon Price registered a DNF for run 2 event though he completed the course, a timing computer mixup the likely cause. The Blenheim driver suggests however that the car was going too fast for the timing gear to register, but the time would not have been great as the car had jumped out of gear off the start line and wouldn't re-engage. Sarah Randall's Levin was jumping out of gear and the car would be off to the Buist's after the event for some investigation. Stu Weeber broke a rear half shaft in Leigh Marston's WRX on the start line of run 2. Grant Goile's Corolla KE25 developed a misfire in run 3, a problem that remained unsolved. Royce Watson had a turbo hose come off in run 3 and did not complete the run. Jo Giles blew not only most everyone's but her own socks off as she scorched through the run in Deane Buist's Lancer to record 5th overall. You go girl! Chris Barnett again put in a great drive in only his second ever event to finish 4th in the big 2WD class. Don Mathias was 9 seconds faster than anyone else in the small car class!

At the business end of the classes, Deane Buist had the best of first outings for his recently acquired Evo 4 taking the fastest run of the day, three seconds clear of Merv Hatcher who had another second placing for the weekend. Stu Weeber grabbed third in the Marston WRX, a very good performance considering the start line mishap mentioned previously. The green machine at the hands of Robert "Groove" McCallum took out the big 2WDs by a nose from the charging Alec Doig in the V8 Mk1 Escort, in a great return to Autosport events for the Rangiora driver. Less than a second back was Royce Watson in the Corolla DX turbo, another driver to do well despite not completing all the runs. Andrew Sim cleaned up the mid-sized 2WD class by 7 seconds, going hard even in the absence of class rival Blair Logan. Luke Thelning is revelling in the FWD Corolla, taking second place ahead of John Weir's Accord by less than a a second. As mentioned, Don Mathias put in a scorcher in the Starlet to take the small engined class from a resurgent Barry Deuart. The Datsun 120Y driver commenting that the roads were much more suited to the car in this event. Continuing the close runs for second and third, Grant Goile was only 0.12 seconds in arrears for third.

The event was done and tidied up by 3m30pm and after a few drinkies and a feed at the sponsor's establishment the trophies were presented to the deserving winners of the classes, then it was off into the wild grey yonder as the crews headed for home.

The results werem

Overall and 4WD

Deane Buist (Mits EVO4) 2m02.20s - 1,
Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer RS) 2m05.27s - 2,
Stu Weeber (Subaru WRX-RA) 2m06.54s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+m

Robert McCallum (Ford Escort) 2m15.44s - 1,
Alec Doig (Ford Escort V8) 2m16.54s - 2,
Royce Watson (Corolla DX 4AGE-t) 2m17.41s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600ccm

Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 2m18.89 - 1,
Luke Thelning (Toyota Corolla) 2m25.70s - 2,
John Weir (Honda Accord) 2m26.42s - 3.

2WD 0-1300ccm

Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 2m20.65s - 1,
Barry Deuart (Datsun 120Y) 2m29.38s - 2,
Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 2m29.50s - 3.
 

Click the following link to display the full results of the Hanmer Sunday Sprint.

Thanks again to the organisers, radio crew, time crews, first aid, fire crews and marshalls who made the events of the weekend run so well. In particular Mr. Dave McCahon for his Clerk of Course role, Tony Witheridge for his work on the timing spreadsheet, and Gavin Henson for his work on the timing equipment. Thanks to Carter Holt Harvey and FBI for the use of the forest. Special thanks to the Hot Springs Hotel, without whom we would not be able to enjoy the great forest roads of Hanmer Springs.

---

3 March 2003 - Rakaia Zig-Zag Sprint Results

The first event for 2003 and also the first sprint in the Autosport Sprint Series was again held on the popular zig-zag road above the Rakaia Gorge and proved a great day out for most of the crews competing. Leaving the grotty Christchurch weather behind and heading for the sun and warmth (some say too warm!) of the Canterbury foothills was very prosperous for Garry Cliff, who took the trophy home in an extraordinarily close-run contest with visiting driver Mike Turfus of Dunedin. "Turf" announced his arrival by setting the fastest time on the first run. This put the wind up the locals who came out firing in run 2 and upped the ante, with Deane Buist going fastest in the Martin EVO by a whisker from Merv Hatcher in his Lancer RS. With some big rocks appearing from the edges of the road and some even bigger holes appearing in the middle, the final run saw Garry Cliff come from behind to steal the show from Turfus by just 16 hundredths of a second! Deane Buist snuck into third ahead of Merv Hatcher by half a second.

With the lack of rain in the area over recent weeks the road was bone-dry. The usual corrugations soon disappeared and the dust begun to hang in the air down low on the course, but up the top a light NW'er was blowing and ensured the visibility was OK for the competitors.

Many experienced drivers turned out for the event which saw the 4WD class as the most popular. Brian Stokes made a too infrequent appearance in his fearsome and brutal sounding Escort Cosworth, getting back in to the swing of things prior to contesting Rally NZ in April in an Argyle Group A Evo-6, with further pre-RNZ conditioning being provided via a joint lead car run at this month's Taihape rally. Emma Gilmour once again entered her Evo twice for road experience and put in some great times (and given the comments in this month's Speedsport we now know why she didn't show up at the prizegiving). Tracey Mann made the long and winding trip from the West Coast, Stu Weeber shared Leigh Marston's Impreza and Rex Visible shared Jeff Judd's.

In the other classes, new club member Marchal Head signaled his arrival in the region with the potent ex-Kerry Evans Corolla DX-4AGE, which sounded incredible as it screamed up the hill, taking third place in the 1600cc class in his first visit to the zig-zag. Wade Henshaw had a great day out on the gravel winning the big 2WD class in Fred Merkin's weapon RX7 (although the car seemed to spend most of the day being pushed around the pits it seemed to do the business when it counted!). Bruce France's new engine proved itself right out of the box with the small car class winner showing a clean pair of mudflaps to take the class by 2 seconds from last year's class champ Grant Goile. Josh Marston took the rookie award for the day in his great drive of Dave Gallagher's Starlet, the young driver acquitted himself well on the tricky surface, just beating Brent Tiney in the very nice Mk. 1 Escort. Luke Thelning was having a great day out in his newly acquired ex-Hayden Spatcher FX-GT, enjoying the front wheel drive and adapting well to it. As the event progressed the holes in the road caused a few issues, with Andrew Sim hitting the big one on the second corner and denting a rim. Not content with one dent, the Corolla driver hit the same hole on the last run and took another chunk out of the same rim!

Hard luck story of the day must go to Gavin Henson who was sharing his Starlet with Jo Giles. Jo took the first run in the car, and on the first left hand hairpin the car's differential failed, seeing both drivers sit the event out (although we can thank Gavin for once again operating the timing computer). Also having trouble were Scott Reid with his Escort developing mysterious fuel pressure problems, and Leigh Marston who lost second gear and trailered the car before run 3. Jon Bradshaw's engine was sputtering and inconsistent for the three runs, and Emma Gilmour popped a tyre off the rim in the last of her runs. Deane Buist dropped from second overall to third overall as a result of boost loss caused by fuel surge from too little in the gas-tank. Now the crew know how much fuel is required for steeper events! Others were quick to point out however that it is hard to corroborate this story given Deane did not carry a passenger on the affected run.

The day was a fun time for most crews in attendance, with not many reports of adverse occurrences either with cars or on the course so it would seem most were very well prepared for the zig-zag this year. The prize-giving was held at the South Rakaia Hotel who sponsor this event, and with jet-boaters and fishermen in town Rakaia was bursting at the seams. Organiser Merv Hatcher commented that the day went well, with competitors doing their best to line up to get the runs through quickly and good behaviour in the pits. This makes things a lot less stressful for organisers. Thanks went to the CRC crew for the radios, Aaron Scott for traffic management, Nicole France for documentation and David Fletcher for organisational logistics and towing the dunny. A fitting start to the year and the sprint series, where the next event is the Sunday bent sprint as part of the Hanmer Motorsport Weekend.


Leigh Marston - Rakaia Zig-Zag

 The final scorecard was as followsm

Overall

Garry Cliff (Mits EVO4) 1m36.55s - 1,
Mike Turfus (Mits EVO6.5) 1m36.71s - 2
Deane Buist (Mits EVO4) 1m37.15s - 3.

4WD 1601cc+

Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer RS) 1m37.43s - 1,
Emma Gilmour (Mits EVO3) 1m37.92s - 2,
Dermot Martin (Mits EVO4) 1m39.06s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+

Wade Henshaw (Mazda RX7) 1m46.66s - 1,
Robert McCallum (Ford Escort) 1m46.87s - 2,
Richard Towse (Datsun Sunny) 1m50.88s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600cc

Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 1m44.24s - 1,
Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 1m46.76 - 2,
Marchal Head (Toyota Corolla DX-4AGE) 1m49.57s - 3.

2WD 0-1300cc

Bruce France (Toyota Starlet) 1m50.72s - 1,
Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 1m52.97s - 2,
Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 1m53.30s - 3.

19 February 2003 - AGM Summary and Autosport Club Raffle announced

The annual AGM was held at Robbies Bar and Bistro Lancaster on the 18th of February, attendance was a little down on last year. The meeting lasted an hour, and the proposed constitution changes regarding financial year change and written information to include e-mail were passed.

Leigh Marston is the new club president (congratulations Leigh, thanks for putting yourself forward for the role), and the present committee remains unchanged into 2003.

The club will be running a raffle to raise funds for the prizes for the club's sprint series this year. Tickets are $20 each and there are 150 of them so the odds are pretty good!  Tickets can be obtained from committee members and club members with ticket books.

---

30 January 2003 - Autosport Club 2003 Sprint Series Announced

The upcoming Rakaia Zig-Zag bent sprint will be the first round of the 2003 Autosport Club Sprint Series. The club is currently looking for sponsors for the series and expressions of interest are invited from any organisation or business wishing to become involved at this entry-level of motorsport support. The second round of the series will be the Sunday bent sprint at the Hanmer Weekend of Motorsport. Mt. Alexander will be the third round and Kaiwara Road will be the fourth. Keep an eye on www.autosport.org.nz for announcements of further events in the series.

---

30 January 2003 - Hanmer Weekend of Motorsport Announced

On the weekend of the 29th and 30th of March 2003 the Autosport Club returns to the forests of Hanmer Springs. This year the format will change slightly. The rally is replaced by two rallysprints, run concurrently on the Saturday, and a bent sprint on the Sunday. The bent sprint on Sunday will be as part of the Autosport Club's 2003 sprint series.

Normal entry for the two rallysprints on the Saturday will be $150, and this will get you 80km of forestry roads (1 timed practise run and three competitive runs). Sorry but no two-driver cars or two-car drivers will be permitted in the Saturday rallysprint events. Sunday's bent sprint will be on a 5km course and will cost $65. A discount will be offered to drivers entering both the Saturday and Sunday events, details to be advised.

Club members are encouraged to seek accommodation now for this fantastic weekend of gravel sprints through the Hanmer forest roads!

---

20 January 2003 - Membership renewals due

Club members should send in their membership renewals as soon as possible using the membership renewal form (PDF). Please assist the secretary by filling in the form clearly and enclosing the correct payment.

Please note that no responsibility will be taken by any official of the club for cash posted to the club for membership/entry fees. A cheque is the preferred means of payment.

Thanks very much!
 

---

 

10 December 2002 - Club End of Year Function and Prizegiving

 Club Championship

2WD 0-1300cc:

•  3^rd – David Fletcher (Toyota Corolla)

• 2^nd - Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet)

• 1^st - Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla)

     2WD 1301-1600cc:

• 3^rd – Stewart Bufton (Toyota Starlet)

• 2^nd -Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla)

• 1st -Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla)

2WD 1601cc+

• 3rd - Carl Balani (Mazda RX7)

• 2nd - Brent McAllister (Ford Escort Mk1)

• 1st - Glenn Buist (Ford Escort BDA)

4WD 1601cc+ 

• 3^rd - Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer)

• 2^nd - Leigh Marston (Subaru Impreza WRX)

• 1^st – Ryan Berry (Mitsubishi Mirage)

Broken Diff Award:

For the biggest bang of the year. There were many to choose from, a few engines went this year but the winner’s one made the loudest noise and arguably did the most damage:- John Silcock (blown motor)

 Palmside Ladies Trophy

      This was taken out at the final event of the year on Saturday:-    Simone Trezise

 Autosport Club Rally Trophy

For the highest placed club member in the club’s premier event of the year, the Autosport Club, Robbies Bar and Bistro Lancaster, Canterbury Rally: -     Ryan Berry

    Graham Brown Trophy

The club member with the most points that is less than 25 years age at start of year. For performing well at two Autocrosses this year, to Bulletin Editor:-          Hayden Riddle

    Raycroft Auto Trophy    

     For the club member who has been in the club less than 2 years and has the most points in the overall club championship: - Don Mathias

 Autocross Trophy

Highest number of points from Autocrosses over the year. This went down to the last event of the year also. In the end the winner last year continues his excellent performance in the wee Corolla:-            Grant Goile

 Magnum Motors Trophy

     This is awarded to the driver with most points from the Canterbury and Hanmer Rallies and the Hanmer Sprint: - John Giltrap

    Cyclone Cycles Trophy

    This is awarded for the most points from all events excluding rallies :- Ryan Berry

Canary Furniture Trophy

Awarded for the most points gained in the overall standings from the first two sprints and the first two autocrosses and is not open to 4WD cars: - Don Mathias

International Rally Award

Awarded to the highest placed Autosport Club crew in the Rally of New Zealand. This year there were no complete club crews entered, but given his considerable international rally activities this year we felt this should go to:-   Jeff Judd

 Club Champion

Awarded to the driver with the most club points this year. With top performances at almost every event, it is taken home this year by: -  Ryan Berry

---

7 December 2002 - Robertson's Autocross

A recently ploughed paddock greeted crews at the Robertson's Autocross last Saturday, with the furrows left by the ripping still quite deep, causing concern among competitors and organisers alike. Driving the same line as the tractor didn't present a problem, but when the car was turned to run across the mounds, it proved very rough and would be quite hard on suspension. All the drivers (36 in all, a really great turnout for an Autocross) got to sample the course a couple of times prior to the driver's briefing, and a consensus was reached whereby the course would be run the same all day, in the hope that it would be flattened by the cars, and that people could sit out the first runs if they wished. The event was switched from accumulated time to fastest time of the day to allow this.

The dust was to prove a problem in the breeze, with some of the more powerful 2WD cars occasionally getting lost in their own dust (although Carl Balani didn't have to worry about falling down a bank in this event due to not being able to see!). The course was challenging, with only a few open sections and quite a few tighter corners which some of the 4WD cars with their awesome traction had trouble negotiating. It was well described as a "busy" course by Autocross afficianado Grant Goile. Grant elected to sit out run 1 as did Merv Hatcher.

The first run through was bone rattling, with the first cars on the course doing their best to flatten it out a bit. Most everyone managed to steer clear of the markers despite this being the first Autocross for a while, and by the time the final cars went out the course had improved slightly. Signs of big ruts were however starting to from on the outside of some of the corners, which would make for interesting moments later on! Ryan Berry set the pace, 4 seconds ahead of Kevin Bell riding his Yamaha Raptor quad. Leigh Marston and Les Summerfield's WRXs were a full 5 seconds and six seconds respectively down on the flying Berry, perhaps showing that the shorter wheelbased car was more suited to the course. Brent Sibley in the Escort (the first competitor to arrive at the event, not wanting to repeat the effort of getting to Kaiwara Road this time!) pulled one out of the hat and beat everyone else into 5th place after run 1, closely followed by Bulletin Editor Hayden Riddle in the first of the road cars, his Mazda 323 4WD. Don Mathias in the Starlet led the 0-1300cc class after the run in 7th place. John Beasley had his road going WRX next and Mike White, driving Royce Watson's Corolla Rally car was a couple of seconds back. Carl Balani's RX7 was moving a lot of dirt! Leading the 1600cc class was Stewart Bufton, matching times with the Mazda.

Run 2 saw Berry's fast time of run 1 stand as still fastest of the day, but Berry still set fastest time in this run although a little slower than his cracker effort first up. It was interesting to note that the times for the majority of the competitors got slower in the second run and even slower in the third as the ruts began to get interesting. Grant Goile went straight into the lead in the small engined class, bettering the time of Don Mathias by 2 seconds. Steve Carr improved a full 10 seconds over his run 1 time, returning to the sport after a few months working in the USA.  In run 3 Brent McAllister's Escort start to make lots of steam however it didn't stop him getting a reasonably good time and finishing third behind Brent Sibley and Carl Balani in the big 2WD class. Mike White almost equalled his run 2 time to bring the Corolla home in third in the class.  The ruts almost caught out Michael Rope who understeered slightly ito the last corner and catching the front wheel on a rut tipped his Corolla up onto two wheels. The ladies battle was between Michelle Reid in the KE20 Corolla and club secretary Simone Trezise, another driving Royce Watson's Corolla DX 4-AGE. Trezise led the way by 5 seconds in each run, and won the ladies certificate for the day and in doing so claimed the club ladies trophy for the year.

No-one bettered the run 1 time of Ryan Berry and he convincingly won the day from Kevin Bell's Raptor (which was deemed not eligible for club points from the event), and Leigh Marston in the WRX. Hayden Riddle was first road car in 5th overall (despite rolling a tyre off the rim), with Grant Goile less than a second behind taking the small-engined class. Nightmare of the day was had by Merv Hatcher who elected to sit out the first run and then had tyres come off the rims in the second and third runs. A dismal day in the country for the Evo driver.

The results were as follows:

Overall and 4WD 1601cc+

Ryan Berry (Mits Mirage) 1m34.73s - 1,
*** Kevin Bell (Yamaha Raptor) 1m38.25s ***
Leigh Marston (Subaru WRX) 1m39.78s - 2
Les Summerfield (Subaru WRX) 1m40.34s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+:

Brent Sibley (Ford Escort) 1m42.48s - 1,
Carl Balani (Mazda RX7) 1m43.58s - 2,
Brent McAllister (Ford Escort) 1m45.28s.

2wd 1301-1600cc:

Stewart Bufton (Toyota Starlet) 1m45.28s - 1,
Scott Reid (Ford Escort) 1m46.54s - 2,
Andrew Bufton (Toyota Starlet) 1m48.74s - 3.

2WD 0-1300cc:

Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 1m41.82s - 1,
Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 1m43.96s - 2,
David Fletcher (Toyota Corolla) 1m44.74s - 3.
 

---

 
23 November 2002 - Kaiwara Road Sprint Report and Results

It was an early morning start for the organisers and crews competing in this favourite North-Canterbury event. A great day in the heart of the Hurunui greeted people arriving at the start, and recent rains had not filled the ford at all to everyone's surprise (given the amount of water in the Hurunui River!).The indian file confirmed to everyone what great condition the road was in, and some fast times were on the cards with all the drivers fired up to have a crack at the 5-odd km of flowing road, with some fast straights and a couple of tricky tighter corners thrown in for good measure, and both up and down hill sections. A relaxed atmosphere pervaded the event with the sprint series tied up for the year, and the crews were out to have a good bit of fun. Although the gloves soon come off when there are club championship points at stake!

There was concern afoot at the double entry in the same car of Dunedin's Emma Gilmour, and it was decided that in fairness to all, only the visiting driver's first three runs through the road would count towards the result. Emma was using the event to gain valuable experience in driving with pace notes, and it is great to have drivers from further afield competing in these great club sprints. Other visiting drivers were Nelson's Sara Randall, Geraldine's Haydon Paddon, and Grant Fisher from the West Coast. Brent Sibley may well have been a visiting driver with the distance he travelled to get to the event! The Escort pilot heading for the other end of Kaiwara Road near Culverden, before turning around and eventually making it to the right side of the ranges!

Merv Hatcher in the Lancer opened the scoring with fastest time in run 1, 2 seconds clear of nearest challenger Dermot Martin in the EVO 4. Deane Buist, driving Dermot's car, was less than half a second behind the vehicle's owner. A further second back was Emma Gilmour, driving very quickly for her first time on this road (admittedly on pacenotes but going very quickly nevertheless!). A characteristic cautious first run saw Justin Prattley slightly off the pace, with Nigel Beck also taking a steady-as-she-goes approach to the first run. Top 2WD after run 1 was Blair Logan in the 1600cc Corolla FX-GT, laying down the gauntlet for other 2WDs. Clutch problems in the Escort BDA saw Glenn Buist start later than expected and the car was a little down on pace according to the driver however the timesheets still showed a very respectable score albeit 3 seconds behind Logan. Grant Goile again leapt into the lead straight out of the blocks in the 0-1300cc class in his KE25 Corolla, 5 seconds ahead of David Fletcher in the Corolla and Don Mathias's Starlet who were tied for second place. The leading drama of run 1 was had by Michael Rope, braking too late for the downhill left into the bridge with no sides resulting in the Corolla going straight on, hitting a fence post and spinning the car around. A bit of a surprise and some panel damage were the only "injuries" sustained in the incident.

Run 2 saw the times steadily decrease in all classes. The road had stood up well to the rigours of 35 competing rally cars and was still in great condition. A few big rocks had started to emerge from the verges being cut but these were removed from the road by drivers returning from the turn around point. Deane Buist scorched through the course, shaving 9 seconds off his run 1 time and winning the run by nearly two seconds from Dermot Martin. Ryan Berry and Leigh Marston were separated by only 5 hundredths of a second, effectively tied for third place, with Merv Hatcher a mere tenth of a second behind the pair. Nail biting stuff at the pointy end of the field! Justin Prattley took 5 seconds off his run 1 time to be off the pace again. Conversely Nigel Beck had the hammer down, improving a massive 17 seconds between passes! Blair Logan and Glenn Buist were almost tied for top 2WD again this run, this time the BDA leading by just a 10th of a second. The top three remained the same in the small engined class, although Don Mathias extracted more from the go-pedal and pulled 3 seconds clear of the challenge from David Fletcher, to come within 2 seconds of Grant Goile.

The final pass through the road, which was still in very good shape, saw Deane Buist again win the run with a 4 second improvement over his hot run 2 time. A tenth of a second saw Dermot Martin take 2nd place ahead of Merv Hatcher with Nigel Beck breathing down both their necks only 2 tenths in arrears. Emma Gilmour in the EVO3 scored a fine 5th place. In an uncharacteristic move, Justin Prattley did not pull out the traditional late charge, although having sewn up the Autosport Club's sprint series the Mazda GTR driver was perhaps a little more restrained than usual. Glenn Buist came out on top of the 2WD battle in the 2 litre Escort BDA, 6 seconds clear of Andrew Sim's 1600cc FX-GT Corolla. Sim's result of first in the mid-sized class confirming his comment that this is his favourite piece of sprint road! Wayne Julian in a rare outing in the Peugeot 306 2 litre was a second behind Sim and second in the big 2WD class. Carl Balani's drive of the RX7 improved in leaps and bounds throughout the day and was third of the big 2WDs on the scorecard. Behind Andrew Sim in the 1301-1600cc class was Blair Logan who had done enough in his first two runs to secure the spot from Stewart Bufton in the Starlet 4AGE. Logan did not take the start of run three due to missing bolts from the gearbox mount. The 1300cc class went the way of Don Mathias after an extraordinary run which saw him improve nearly 6 seconds from run 2 and overtake Grant Goile by 3 seconds. David Fletcher showed good form in his best Autosport Club sprint result to date, coming home in 3rd, a second behind Goile in the hotly contested class. The rotten luck of run 3 was had by Brent McAllister with the Escort stopping just after the start.

There were a few sunburned faces at the prizegiving at the Woodend Hotel, and the beer tasted good after a hot day of competition. Thanks went to Leigh Marston and his helpers who organised the event, Gavin Henson for the timing, and the marshalls, first aid and radio crews who made the event possible.

Overall and 4WD 1601cc+

Deane Buist (Mits EVO4) 3m12.06s - 1,
Dermot Martin (Mits EVO4) 3m14.10s - 2
Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer) 3m14.21s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+:

Glenn Buist (Escort RS2000) 3m20.58s - 1,
Wayne Julian (Peugeot 306GTi) 3m27.17s - 2,
Carl Balani (Mazda RX7) 3m30.90s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600cc:

Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 3m26.40 - 1,
Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 3m27.27s - 2,
Stewart Bufton (Toyota Starlet) 3m37.71s - 3.

2WD 0-1300cc:

Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 3m37.55s - 1,
Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 3m41.28s - 2,
David Fletcher (Toyota Corolla) 3m42.28s - 3.

 

---

 
9 November 2002 - Prattley crowned 'King of the Sprints' for 2002

On a dismal day in the Canterbury foothills, Justin Prattley narrowly beat Merv Hatcher through the mud to take out the Mt. Thomas Sprint, and seal the Autosport Club's sprint series trophy for 2002. Leigh Marston put in a consistent performance all year to finish third. In the big 2WD's, Glenn Buist had already scored enough points to win the class but it was down to the wire for second place, with Robert McCallum doing just enough to sneak in ahead of Autosport Club president Deane Buist. Blair Logan of Ashburton showed a clean pair of heels again to win the mid-size 2WD class at Mt. Thomas, and clean sweep the class for the series. Andrew Sim in a similar car took second with John Weir in his rear-engined Honda Accord in third. The small engined class was won by Grant Goile after a season long battle with Don Mathias for the honours. Andrew Reid pipped other contenders at the post to take third in the class.

Prizes will be awarded to the 3 placegetters in the 4 classes at the Autosport Club's end of year function.

Autosport Club Sprint Series Results 2002

Overall and 4WD 1601cc+

Justin Prattley (Mazda GTR) 105 points - 1,
Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer) 86 points - 2,
Leigh Marston (Subaru Impreza WRX) 81 points - 3.

2WD 1601cc+:

Glenn Buist (Ford Escort) 90 points - 1,
Robert McCallum (Ford Escort) 63 points - 2,
Deane Buist (Toyota Corolla) 56 points - 3.

2wd 1301-1600cc:

Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 120 points - 1,
Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 101 points - 2,
John Weir (Honda Accord) 63 points - 3.

2WD 0-1300cc:

Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 112 points - 1,
Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 108 points - 2,
Andrew Reid (Toyota Corolla) 72 points - 3.
 

---

 
9 November 2002 - Mt. Thomas Sprint Report and Results

A warm nor'wester day in Christchurch saw competitors and crews head for the very cloudy looking Canterbury foothills in a return to the Mt. Thomas sprint. The event would be run in the opposite direction to earlier in the year, and the contest would be hot given it was the final round of the Autosport Sprint Series for 2002.

The rain started only a few kilometers from the turnoff into the Mt. Thomas forest, and with news that they'd been logging on the sprint road, everybody got the feeling it was going to be a mudbath. A late start was on the cards as the drivers gathered in the pouring rain, the logging crew finishing up (lunch!) just as the event was due to get underway. Through the indian file the road proved to be in not bad nick, apart from one very bumpy and very muddy section featuring a log chipper as big as a house and a matching pile of chipped logs. The browed intersection into an off camber downhill right at the end of a fast flowing section would be an interesting challenge in the slippery conditions.

Ryan Berry got things off to a flyer with the fastest time in run 1. Snapping at the Mirage driver's heals was John Giltrap, fresh from an excellent showing at the Timaru spring rally, although conditions here could not have been more different from that event. Merv Hatcher was just as quick out of the blocks less than a second behind. Visiting driver Emma Gilmour of Dunedin in the EVO3 immediately went into the top times with Blair Logan in the 2WD Corolla pulling out a scorcher to almost equal the 4WD time. Leigh Marston having a good run in the WRX (apart from a wee moment at 'the brow') and Deane Buist was fastest of the 2WDs with 5th fastest time, even in the slippery conditions. Overall Sprint Series leader Justin Prattley was a bit off the pace in his Mazda GTR. Leading the RWD charge was Robert McCallum, followed by Stewart Bufton in the 4AGE Starlet. Grant Goile and Gary Hawkes hovered on similar times just behind Bufton. Back from an extended break was James Goile who put in a good time first up to be second in class behind Grant. Sean Sands missed run 1 having problems in the Escort and Andy Reid's Corolla was overheating during David Fletcher's run in the car and continued to do so on the start line. This was traced to a stopped fan, and Andy elected to miss the run and repair the fault.

The road was starting to churn up in places (the logging site was well past "churned"!) but with most drivers having a feel for the level of grip the times began to drop. Merv Hatcher was fastest in run 2, posting a mark around a second ahead of nearest challenger John Giltrap.  Improving 10 seconds over his previous run was Justin Prattley who was now well within the top 10. Deane Buist was nipping at Ryan Berry's heals this time through and Les Summerfield in the WRX got amongst it, stopping the clock in 6th fastest time. Emma Gilmour posted a steady improvement in conditions not unlike some of the slippery Whare Flat forest sections at the Otago Rally this year. Blair Logan improved 3 seconds and seemingly put his seal on the mid-size 2WD class staying well ahead of the Corolla FX-GT of Andrew Sim who was closely followed by Jason Clark in the 4AGE powered Corolla DX with the car looking immaculate once again after the wee 'ooops' at Hanmer. Robert McCallum blasted through the run, shaving 10 seconds off his run 1 time and leading in Carl Balani by 7 seconds. Balani in the RX7 positively lopped time off his first run effort, but that was perhaps due to a little game of "chicken" with a mini-tanker in run 1 (see photo from KeenKiwi). Don Mathias sneaked back ahead of Grant Goile in the small engined class by a second with James Goile again going well in third.



The game of "Chicken" - Carl Balani vs. Mini-tanker. Photo: KeenKiwi.

The scene was set for a tight finish, and what a time to pull a 'blinder' out of the hat (or should that be seat of the pants!). Run of the day went to Justin Prattley, knocking a further 8 seconds off his run 2 time to take out the event by less than half a second from Merv Hatcher who also stormed through the run determined to set a good time. Prattley rose to the very big challenge from his competitors and in winning the sprint also took out the Autosport Sprint Series for 2002. Hatcher's time was pushed all the way by Ryan Berry in the Mirage 4WD who finished also less than half a second behind the Lancer driver. Emma Gilmour had a good final run to finish 4th in her first visit to the Mt. Thomas sprint. After a great start John Giltrap looked to be in with a shot but didn't quite match the pace of his rivals in the final run, finishing but a half second behind Gilmour. Deane Buist topped the 2WD's yet again with a fine skid into 6th place overall.

The two larger 2WD classes were dominated by the top driver in each, Deane Buist as mentioned and Blair Logan in the 1301-1600cc class, each winning their class by around 5 seconds. In the mid-size class Andrew Sim was beaten into 2nd place by Gary Hawkes in the Escort. Hawkes improved in leaps and bounds throughout the day on his return after a break from the sport. Grant Goile won the 0-1300cc class in a great drive that put the KE25 Corolla into 14th overall, closely (!) followed by Don Mathias a third of a second back and a deserving James Goile came home in third in the class.

Further back in the field there were some stories to tell of woe and misfortune. Both Brent McAllister and David Fletcher suffered from "last run exuberance" and went off the road, although the former's Escort was much more unlucky than the latter's Corolla! The Escort hit caught the inside of the 90 right at the bottom of the hill just before the finish, pitching the car across the road and into the clay bank. Brent's first ever crash ended with a very bent front end and to top it off the accelerator pedal jammed under the brake pedal and the resulting revs combined with going nowhere ruined the clutch and gearbox in the car. Fletcher's moment was far less severe, braking too late for the very same corner and turning in going way too fast saw the car back itself into the ditch on the outside of the corner, and very nearly score a couple of fence posts on it's way to a halt further along the ditch. A lucky escape.

With the sun finally deciding to come out, everyone packed up and headed for Northern Exposure in Rangiora for a few beers.  Prizegiving for the sprint was at club night, and with the sprint series decided we look forward to congratulating the winners at the Autosport Club end of year function.

Overall and 4WD 1601cc+

Justin Prattley (Mazda GTR) 2m23.84s - 1,
Merv Hatcher (Mits Lancer) 2m24.22s - 2,
Ryan Berry (Mits Mirage 4WD) 2m24.66s - 3.

2WD 1601cc+:

Deane Buist (Toyota Corolla) 2m29.61s - 1,
Robert McCallum (Ford Escort) 2m34.22s - 2,
Carl Balani (Mazda RX7) 2m38.73s - 3.

2wd 1301-1600cc:

Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 2m31.53s - 1,
Gary Hawkes (Ford Escort) 2m35.42s - 2,
Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 2m37.62 - 3.

2WD 0-1300cc:

Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 2m42.41s - 1,
Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 2m42.71 - 2,
James Goile (Toyota Starlet) 2m46.25s - 3.




---

 
27 October 2002 - Autosport Club at the Timaru Rally

In a titanic battle that went down to the wire it was a successful event for almost every Autosport crew that made the trip to the Grosvenor Hotel Spring Rally in Timaru.

When local event favourite Chris West had steering failure 300m into SS2 the event was thrown wide open to the other top contenders in non-national championship cars. Dunedin driver Mike Turfus had withdrawn his EVO and the top runners were expected to be Hugh Owen of Blenheim, Jeff Judd, Dermot Martin, Leigh Marston and John Giltrap (all Autosport Club members) and there was much speculation about the arrival on the rally scene of sprint sensation Nigel Beck (RATEC).

Other runners expected to be in class contention were Glenn and Brent Buist in the Escort BDA, Carl Balani and Tony Clark in the RX7, Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson in the Corolla FWD, Bruce and Nicole France in the Starlet, and Barry Varcoe with Andrew Bulman in their Starlet. Crews from Autosport also making the trip south were Andy Reid and David Fletcher with their Corolla, Geoff and Gemma Bone with the 323 4WD and John Weir and Richard Kelly in the rear engined Accord.

John Giltrap with Paul Millar alongside burst from the starting blocks setting second fastest time on the first stage, conceding 5 seconds to Chris West. Jeff Judd and Grant Marra were a further 8 seconds back sharing their time with Canterbury Rally winner Wayne Muckle. Murmurings of the swept road playing into Giltrap's hands seem to be borne out by his setting a blistering pace in the 24km second special stage, posting fastest time by 9 seconds from Judd. The third stage saw Giltrap extend his lead by a further 9 seconds from Judd who was third on the stage behind an impressive drive from Nigel Beck with David Calder sitting beside him. Beck's time was seven seconds in arrears of a hard charging Giltrap. Judd pulled out the stoppers on SS4 and was nine seconds faster than anyone else on the stage.

Stage 4 saw many movers in the field. Deane Buist stormed through the stage to set 4th fastest time, only pipped by Judd, Owen and a surging drive from Paul Dickson in the Subaru Leone RX. Dermot Martin was driving consistently well, setting top 5 stage times throughout the event, including the third fastest time in SS1. Leigh and Josh Marston's Impreza was going well and this stage they set a time 2 seconds ahead of Nigel Beck. Things got really interesting in SS5 where the times of Jeff Judd and John Giltrap were tied, with Hugh Owen only a second back and Leigh Marston cranking up the Impreza to follow only another 2 seconds behind. The sixth special stage was yet another close run contest with Judd pulling away another two seconds from Giltrap with Hugh Owen giving away 5 seconds to the leading pair, consolidating his third place with a safe drive on the last of the gravel stages. Nigel Beck and Dermot Martin tied their times on this stage, and Martin would take a slight lead into the tarmac final test.

The event result was still up in the air and the fingernails of a few crews got a really good chewing watching the cars take to the Levels racetrack. Sadly for John Giltrap he stole defeat from the jaws of victory as Judd sprinted away to win the stage by 10 seconds and in doing so take the event overall win by 9 seconds! Owen held a comfortable third place from Nigel Beck who did enough on the racetrack to overhaul Dermot Martin for fourth. Leigh Marston finished only 5 seconds behind the EVO and was happy with the performance of the Impreza this outing, and only 1 brake rotor was destroyed during the event, not really affecting the outcome for the father and son pairing.

Deane Buist spent the day watching over his shoulder at the challenge from Mike Verdoner. In the end the well earned gains on stages 2 and 7 saw the Autosport Club president take a comfortable class win by 46 seconds over the Balclutha driver. The day would see no major dramas for either Deane or co-driver Rocky Hudson. Dean Milligan is getting progressively quicker on gravel in the Lancer and with Blair Smith alongside set top 10 stage times all day and in a controlled performance took the stage win on the final test around Levels raceway, sharing the top time on that stage with Hugh Owen. Glenn Buist had a huge scrap with Brent Rawstron, the two Escorts being within four seconds of each other on the first three stages. In SS4 Buist lost 20 seconds to Rawstron and in an impressive performance clawed it all back (and then some) over the remaining 3 stages to win the big classic class by 14 seconds! Bruce and Nicole France were third in class E, the small classic class, even after losing 6 minutes in SS3 with the Starlet leaving the road. The co-driver got in the drivers seat while Bruce got out and pushed and with the engine valve-bouncing the driver had extra incentive to push harder!

Another father-son pairing in the event was Stewart and Andrew Bufton. Bufton senior put in a great drive to take second place in the 1301-1600cc class, their Starlet conceding only 19 seconds over the event to Haydon Paddon's Toyota Levin. John Weir brought the Accord home in third place in the class after a day of high dramas. After an oil fire touring to SS4 was put out and running repairs done, the Accord's clutch packed up which saw them drop quite a lot of time. The rest of the rally was done with no clutch, using the starter to get off the line. With some high speed sections seeing the Honda hit 180kph, the car was going well all things considered, but they were to suffer further misfortune by catching other cars who had also had problems in stages 4 and 5 and following in their dust. The clutch failure was traced after the event to the clutch cable link melting due to an exhaust leak immediately next to it.

Geoff and Gemma Bone's run of bad luck continued, with the handling of the Mazda sorted and going well the gear linkages failed and they lost 2nd and 4th gears. With this rally lending itself to 4th gear and the intersections being mostly second gear the Bone's lost a lot of time. The consolation was making it to the finish in the event in a season with more than their fair share of bad luck. Bad luck also continued for Andy Reid and David Fletcher with the Corolla holing a piston 5kms from the end of SS2 and going no further.  Carl Balani lost half an hour in SS3 due to "becoming lost in his own dust" as the man himself put it. Spinning up and waiting for the dust to settle Carl found he was 90 degrees to the road, and backed up to turn the right way, unfortunately his rear wheels were already on the edge of a bank and the car disappeared over the edge to be trapped but a car length from the road. A tow from recovery saw the car able to rejoin, to the delight of spectators who saw a fine display of "hiff it in sideways" driving at Levels from the RX7.

Story of the day was the effort of Barry Varcoe and crew who blew the engine shortly after the start of SS1 and rushed into Timaru, found a replacement engine at a wreckers, and carried out a transplant in time to rejoin and contest SS5 onwards, and set very respectable stage times to boot. A legendary effort!

All in all it was a very successful event for Autosport Club crews. The top two overall, 5th through 7th places, top 2WD, top big classic, 2nd and 3rd in the mid-sized class, and 3rd in the small classic class. Arguably the best performance of any club at the event. Well done to all the crews who took part, we are all looking forward to similar success next season!
 

---


 
Silcock Supreme at Hanmer Motorsport Weekend - 28 and 29 September 2002

The 2002 Hot Springs Hotel Autosport Club Hanmer Rally

John Silcock in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI reigned supreme at the Autosport Club's Hot Springs Hotel Hanmer Motorsport weekend, doing the double by taking out both the rally and the bent sprint. With brother Andrew in the co-driver's seat for Saturday's rally, the pairing had a very tight battle for the top spot with last year's winner Deane Buist and third placed Jeff Judd, both in Subaru Impreza WRX's.

Judd won the first stage by three seconds from a drawn Silcock and Buist, with Silcock fighting back in the second stage to take it by 5 seconds from Buist with Judd a further 5 seconds back. With the autocross stage time not counting in the final results, the return to the forest saw Silcock again claim the stage win by 4 seconds from Judd with Buist a further 2 seconds in arrears. The stage was set for an exciting final test, but Buist's 3 second stage win from Silcock was not quite enough to overhaul the Rangiora driver's lead. John Silcock won the rally by a mere 8 seconds from Deane Buist with Jeff Judd 10 seconds back in third.

Deane commented that he had a great time over the day, the car he had recently acquired from Rocky Hudson had run well all day apart from a misfire which developed between 5 and 6 thousand RPM which lost him time although he concedes he still would not have been able to overtake John. Deane was also quick to point out that the top 7 cars were all running on Silverstone tyres. An impressive statistic for the brand, and an obvious testament to both their quality (no problems had with tyres by those top seven) and Deane's ability to sell them! Deane's co-driver for the day Dermot Martin was wholeheardedly impressed by the performance of his pilot for the rally, saying that the quality of Deane's driving was second to no-one he had ridden with. High praise indeed from the Evo IV driver who has been known to go quickly on occasions himself!

The chasing pack was lead by John Giltrap in his WRX. Giltrap put in some consistently fast times throughout the day although slightly off the pace of the top three until the final run through the forest stage where he scored an impressive time only a handful of seconds down. Leigh Marston with Glenn "Bart" Simpson alongside for this event were trading times with John Giltrap all day. Marston had new diff settings in the Impreza for the rally and was getting used to the changes during SS1, and ended the day 25 seconds back. Merv Hatcher and James Cowles made it to the finish albeit with a small raft of problems that did not help the performance of the Lancer RS. The VR4 engine installed under the bonnet produces good power but there were problems with the wiring of the computer which caused the car to drop onto two cylinders, and only a strategically placed foot on the wires by the co-pilot ensured the car ran well.

Dean Milligan showed that he is coming to terms with gravel events in the Lancer EVO III, with a run of consistent times to lead home the top 2WD finisher by nearly a minute. Blenheim computer mogul Brendon Price finished his first rally in24th place after being sidelined in his first two attempts, with a blown engine at Canterbury and a dead fuel system in Nelson. Apart from flooring it and dropping the clutch on the start line only to find the car in neutral (sorry Brendon but there are little birdies everywhere in that forest!), the day was without incident and the novice driver enjoyed his day in the WRX. Price's co-driver Tim Herd did very well to score a second equal place in the publicity autocross stage.

Class placings were interesting contests in themselves with the big 2WD class, 1600cc and over, won by Chris Banks and Scott Ballingal by nearly a minute in a Mazda RX3. Interestingly the last time that John Silcock won the Hanmer Rally was driving an RX3. Bryce Biggs driving the Otago Classic Rally winning BDA Escort RS1800 owned by Brian Stokes came in second with first placed lady driver, 16 year old Sara Randall from Nelson in the Datsun Sunny, 3rd in the class with another rally finish under her belt. Sarah enjoyed the twisty parts of the stage and said "the rally was absolutely awesome, a good mixture of wicked roads and friendly people". Sarah echoed the comments of other crews who said that Hanmer's hotpools are a real treat after a hard day's rallying.

The mid-sized 2WD class, 1301-1600cc, went to Hayden Spatcher with co-driver David Sidery in their front wheel drive Toyota Corolla.  David Gallagher driving the Starlet with Darren Nankervill in the left seat finished in second in the class. The "dark horse" in this class was former 0-1300cc performer Jason Clark in his recently rebuilt and very pristine Corolla DX-4AGE. A little on the rusty side after not driving on gravel in anger for more than two years, Jason with his wife Tracy (who proved she wasn't too rusty as a co-driver by being one of the only ones who checked the road book pages at documentation) alongside ran wide on a downhill corner mid-way through the first stage and in correcting the error which he called a "rusty driver cock up" the car clipped the grader spoil and tipped on it's side. By the time it tipped it had scrubbed off speed and the damage was minimal. After righting the Corolla the pair were on their way. Other dramas for the Clarks were nothing out of the ordinary,... getting a bit keen in a slippery left and switching windows to drive while looking out the passenger one, and fuel floating around in the car after a tank bung had been left off (well, that's not very ordinary). They finished 3rd in class after having a very enjoyable day.

The small capacity 0-1300cc class was won convincingly in a commanding performance by Bruce France and his son and co-driver Vaughan France in the Toyota Starlet. This had to be a top contender for the "drive of the day" award! The pair also finished a fine 10th overall in the rally, and second 2WD home. Bruce commented that he had really enjoyed the day, the car had run well. Second place in the class went to seasoned campaigner Grant Goile with co-pilot Anthony Reed in the KE25 Corolla with a string of similar times throughout the day. David Fletcher and Andrew Reid in the KE20 Corolla took in 3rd in the class with a drive that saw the 31st seed climb to 16th overall. The event was not without incident for the pair who suffered an alternator wiring failure that was repaired just before the start, and a very near miss with that big tree on the outside of the downhill off camber right a few corners before the concrete bridge. The new flares on the rear of the car came very close to being "un-flared"! Jonathan Bradshaw continuously improved his times throughout the day and got through the rally unscathed and with drivetrain intact unlike the last couple of rallies.

The publicity stage, run in an autocross format over a 2km course in a paddock just south of Hanmer, put on a great show for the 40 or 50 odd carloads of spectators that turned out to watch. Paul Russ in the Subaru Omega from Nelson won the stage, closely followed by Deane Buist who drew for second with Tim Herd. Mike McMillan from Greymouth did really well to place his 1300cc Starlet as top 2WD car in the stage, in 6th place. Darrin Burke from Motueka put on a great show of high revving sideways driving in his Mazda GTX.

The rally had its fair share of bad luck, with 12 of the 39 starters failing to finish. The first stage claimed 0-1300cc class favorite Donald Mathais with two tyres off the rims and the car beached on one of the last left hand intersections near the finish. Don had a couple of minor moments earlier in the stage and these may have contributed to the tyres going flat, culminating in his exit from the rally. Big 2WD class favorite Glenn Buist broke an axle in the second stage and retired from the event. The biggest crash of the event was had by local driver Chris Brereton whose Corolla left the road on a tightening downhill corner and the steep forested terrain resulted in a badly damaged vehicle. Thankfully the crew escaped without serious injury.  Geoff Bone's run of dismal luck continued when he broke a front right ball joint in the windey, rutted, uphill section not far into the final stage. To top it all off the car partially fell off the trailer on the way back to Hanmer and dragged two near-new tyres along the road.

The horror stories continued with Les Summerfield's turbo sucking in something foreign and saying goodbye to it's compressor fins mid-way through stage two. Andrew Sim's Corolla completed the first stage before going no further. Luke Thelning's Datsun 1200 gave up with electrical and fuel system problems during SS2. Stewart Bufton's Starlet didn't make the start of the publicity stage. Royce Watson's newly acquired DX Corolla did not start the final stage. Robert McCallum's Escort failed after the publicity stage. Barry Varcoe and Andrew Bullman were running well in the small car class in their Starlet but they lost two minutes in the last stage of the day allowing third place to be snatched from their grasp.

The rally roads were in great condition, unaffected by a few showers in previous days, and were a great mix of twisting narrow and wide flowing sections, with a thin bridge and a few off camber downhill corners to catch out the unwary. Apart from a few rutty sections in the slippery sections with heavy tree cover the surface stood up well to the repeated use, with the improving times throughout the day testament to the quality of the course and the quality of the crews.

The prizegiving at the Hot Springs Hotel featured huge meals, lots of drinking and some speeches by people receiving the (very appropriate for a pub) printed beer mug trophies. Birthday boy Nick Marston got sung to and everyone had a grand old time (although we did miss the netball team from last year!).

The 2002 Hot Springs Hotel Autosport Club Hanmer Bent Sprint

Sunday's bent sprint was run on the final four kilometers of the rally stage but in the opposite direction. The committee and helpers of all shapes and sizes turned up early on Sunday to help organise the event and things ran really smoothly. A big thanks goes to Gavin Henson and his ever keen CRC team with the radios and timing gear performing well (both for the rally and the sprint).

Again the first few placings were hotly contested between the 4WD turbo cars. Merv Hatcher in his Mitsubishi Lancer RS opened the scoring with a second's lead over John Giltrap in the Subaru Impreza WRX. John Silcock fought back in the second run with a scorching time 5 seconds faster than his first which was to be the winning time for the day. Hatcher had problems with the car's computer and was down on pace in the second run. Silcock's third run was slower than his second and it was left to Hatcher to go for the win in his final run. With his passenger holding the computer plug in place Hatcher blasted through the course but a slight loss of time in a rutty corner saw him stay in second place by just 0.2 seconds! Third place went to Justin Prattley in his Mazda GTR, two seconds down. Leigh Marston finished a further two seconds down and commented that the sprint went well with only problem being getting off the start line due to too much traction while experimenting with "launch control". The WRX also scrapped another pair of rear brake rotors in a recurrence of the problem that has plagued Marston's rally season. Hopefully that can be brought under control by the time Timaru rolls around.

In the big 2WD class Glenn Buist piloted his repaired BDA Escort into first place by 4 seconds from Brent Rawstron's similar car, which is not often seen at sprint events. Bryce Biggs brought home the Escort RS1800 in third. A great drive by Blair Logan saw him again win the mid-sized 2WD class in the Corolla by four seconds from Andrew Sim in another Corolla FXGT. Two seconds back in third was rally stalwart Chris Paddon in the Levin driven in the previous day's rally by his son Hayden. Don Mathias was a man on a mission after a DNF in the rally and he put in an awesome drive to win the 0-1300cc class in the Starlet. Don was running 9th overall after the first run and that time stood to take the class win. Five seconds down and second in the class was Grant Goile, followed by rally class winner Bruce France only 0.1 seconds behind! First lady driver of the day was won by CTV presenter and regular sprint competitor Jo Giles in the Henson Motorsport Toyota Starlet, and novice driver of the day went to Scott Reid in his Toyota 4AGE powered Ford Escort.

After the runs were done the prizegiving at the Hot Springs Hotel handed out the printed schooner glass trophies and everyone headed into the teeth of the southerly that had held off until the events were completed. With the drivers commenting that both events were a lot of fun, and that the roads were great, both the rally and sprint had a level of success that bodes well for next year's Hanmer Motorsport Weekend. The event has proven again that motorsport at a club level is alive and well and that a relaxed and friendly atmosphere can go hand in hand with tight competition. These sentiments were also expressed by visiting crews from Nelson, the West Coast and Mid-Canterbury.

A full list of results is available from the Hanmer Motorsport Weekend page.

Autosport at Mincorp and Total Nelson Rally - 8 September 2002:

Sunday the 8st of September dawned wet and misty, and with heavy rain overnight the clay based roads of the Golden Downs Forest promised some interesting conditions. Stage 1 was very slippery in some parts and this saw the demise from the rally of Autosport club captain Dermot Martin and co-driver Bede O'Connor's Evo 4. Leaving the road on a tightening downhill left hander and rolling into the forest, the crew scrambled back onto the muddy road with no injuries sustained.

After performing some pre-rally alterations to the suspension geometry in the carpark of the scrutineering venue, Geoff Bone and co-driver Sue France had a rather forgettable time. Getting a bit loose and out in the soft stuff, Geoff wedged the car in a ditch with the two right hand wheels still on the road but not providing enough traction to extricate the Mazda. After losing more than half an hour another 323 came to their rescue. A couple of stages later, and with the car in FWD after the efforts to get out of the first ditch wrecked something in the drivetrain, it would all be over. An overcooked left hand downhill and the rear of the car stepped out. The resultant trip into the ditch and ensuing collision with a rock put paid to the front suspension, tearing it from the car.

On a more successful note, Glenn and Brent Buist finished 11th overall and first in the big classic class. This was despite the accellerator cable sticking in SS1. For Glenn's view of the event click here.

Leigh and Josh Marston finished in 16th place, and while their brake rotors held together this time, the car had other problems which slowed them down. He lost a lot of time on stages 3 & 4 when the left front axle broke at start of SS3. This meant they had to drive both stages (a total of 54km) with the axle flailing around under the car. As a result about 12 minutes of stage time were lost, dropping them well down the order and ruining any chance of having a go at the Club Rally Championship. Fortunately the crew changed the axle and they just avoided incurring any further lateness. Leigh was having some difficulty getting the car to turn in which has been traced to diff settings being too tight. He assures us it will all be right for Hanmer!

Bruce and Vaughan France took out a good second place in the small classic class in the Starlet. Garry Cliff brought the Stanza home in 17th overall and third in the big classic class with a consistently paced run of stage times.

Merv Hatcher suffered from an unfortunate series of events whereby his service crew went to his rescue when he didn't need it, he turned up to service and with no crew, borrowed some fuel, only to find that the fuel was the wrong mix for the Lancer and it sputtered to a stop soon after. This after setting the third fastest time on SS2! Ryan Berry and John Giltrap failed to finish the last stage after both posting some very impressive stage times throughout the rally. John went well in the first stage apart from two big "moments". The WRX driver had no problems and was pushing hard to make up the time lost in the first stage but come the 4th stage had nearly lost all the brakes and then the complete exhaust system was ripped off on a large bump. After service he was going better and were catching Malcolm Stewart when the left front wheel studs broke and the wheel came off, so their rally ended watching other cars go by.

Andrew Reid's Corolla broke a driveshaft universal in SS4 and missed stages 5 and 6 while a replacement was found and fitted. Les Summerfield's brand new Impreza WRX suffered suspension problems and missed SS5 and 6 while intensive servicing was being carried out. The crew had been working hard to finish the car for the event, having to put a new engine in it immediately before travelling to Nelson as the original lunched itself on a test drive two days prior to the rally.

Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson had yet another good solid run finishing 4th overall. Deane also cleaned up the 2WD Club Championship for the 2nd year. The pair were consistenty faster than their competitors throughout the day. An amazing 3rd fastest time through the slippery 1st stage, and another 3rd fastest through the long 59km last stage were the stand out performances for the Autosport Club president. They had no real dramas, with the car running faultlessly - again.

Chris West secured a convincing victory in the event, followed by seasoned campaigner Hugh Owen in the Evo 6.5. Only 28 seconds back separated Owen from Deborah Kibble.


 

Photo: Les Summerfield, Nelson Rally

Sefton Autocross - 1 September 2002:

Sunday the 1st of September was another great day to be out skidding around in cars. Bright sunshine and warm temperatures helped to dry the ground slightly after the dampness earlier in the week leaving the Sefton paddock in great condition for the event. Entries were good, with 28 cars taking to the short flowing course with a couple of tight tricky corners. Four of those entries were from lady drivers so it was shaping up as a good contest in all classes (apart from 4WD where David Fletcher and Michelle Reid's WRX road car with some old rally tyres on it was the only entrant).

Grant Goile drove with more than all cylinders firing and took out the first run from charging "Bulletin" editor Hayden Riddle in his Mazda 323 4WD. Jonathan Bradshaw pulled out a blinder also in his Starlet taking third place after the first run, even though the car sounded slightly off song.

In the ladies contest Michelle Reid, in her first event, edged the WRX ahead after the first run, followed by a mere half a second by Simone Trezise driving the chequered gold Escort who was in turn leading by just 5 hundredths of a second from Tracy Birdling in the big-winged Starlet 4AGE. Judith Harrington put in a good effort learning paddock skidding and followed in fourth a couple of seconds behind Tracy.

The small car class was of course headed by Grant Goile and Jonathan Bradshaw with Don Mathias and Bruce France both in Starlets drawn for third after run 1. The mid-size battle was led by Gerald Birdling in his very tidy Starlet 4AGE with aforementioned big wing, closely followed by  Sean Sand's Escort in turn followed by Scott Reid in his Escort Mk2.  In the big 2WD class Brent McAllister's Escort led Brian Chang's Holden Ute off-roader (Brian was using the event to get used to the new gear shift system in the ute, which had a tad much ground clearance for this event!), followed in third by Brent Sibley in the newly repaired Escort after the accident at Mt. Thomas.

Run 2 saw lots of drama unfolding as people pulled out the stoppers to try and gain some time. With the three runs of the day being added together for total time of the day as the result, some threw it all away and some gained handsomely. David Fletcher moved the WRX up into the podium positions with the fastest run followed by Grant Goile and Don Mathias. Hayden Riddle dropped off the pace slightly. Also on the up was new club member John Beasley in his road going Subaru WRX-RA, drawing with Jonathan Bradshaw for fourth place in run 2. Thirteen year-old Nick Marston showed a great improvement of more than 5 seconds between runs 1 and 2, sharing brother Josh's FWD Nissan Pulsar.  Steven Loomes in the Honda Integra and Andy Reid in the Corolla were others to improve between tests, with Paul Bradshaw taking a "steady as she goes" approach to the event improving slightly as well. Mike White driving the Fiat 131R in the road car class was a model of consistency, posting times between runs within 6 hundredths of a second of each other.

Sean Sands had a shocker in run 2, as did Josh Marston in after posting a good road car time in run 1. Michael Rope was another to suffer, driving his KE25 Corolla with the TTE livery and posting a better time in his first run than his second. The Birdlings really tried a demo job on the course with Tracy attempting to finish what Gerald started and both consequently slipped down the order. Shane Thornley in the ex-Garry Mechan RX7 was having trouble getting the power to the ground while still learning the car, but improved 4 seconds between runs 1 and 2.  Gavin Henson in the Starlet didn't have Jo Giles to push him along on this day and saw himself posting almost equal times between runs but overall not too far off the pace in the small car class.

The third and final run would be two laps of the previous circuit and it was Hayden Riddle who had the hammer down to take the fastest run time by more than a second from David Fletcher. Only 5 hundredths of a second seperated the WRX from Grant Goile's flying Corolla, who in setting that fantastic time took out the event win by a second from Riddle by a second with Fletcher in 3rd, a quarter second behind. Sean Sands had a blinder in the final test and hauled his way back up the ranks as did Gerald Birdling.

Grant Goile obviously took out the 0-1300cc class with Don Mathias in second after putting in a solid performance in run 3. Jonathan Bradshaw had a bit of a disastrous last run but held on to round out the top three in the class. Bruce France and Gavin Henson also had a bad time of it in the two-lapper, finishing behind a solid performance from Paul Bradshaw. The 1301-1600cc class was led home by Scott Reid in the Escort who is driving well on little experience, followed by Sean Sands in second place with novice autocross driver (he is an experienced off-road driver) Daniel Powell in the newly aquired ex-North Island AE85/86 Corolla in third. The 1600cc+ 2WD class was won by Brent McAllister in a consistently paced chequered and gold Ford Escort Mk1, with Bryan Chang's off roader Holden ute in second and Brent Sibley's Escort Mk2 in third.

The road car class had a good turnout and was an interesting contest, with Hayden Riddle cleaning up the class finishing second overall in the event. Novice competitor John Beasley was six seconds behind in second followed by the orange Fiat 131R of Mike White. Josh Marston came back up the ranks with a better run this time. In the ladies class Tracy Birdling flew through the final test in a good display of car control but it was not quite enough to overhaul the comfortable lead of Michelle Reid or the second place of Escort driving club secretary and event co-organiser Simone Tresize.

It was a great day out skidding on the grass. These are good events to learn at and to build up some points in the club championship. Everyone was going out the gate with smiles on their faces and nobody did too much damage to their cars. Congratulations to Grant Goile on an inspiring drive!

Results are as follows:

Overall

Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla 1300) 3m08.75s - 1,
Hayden Riddle (Mazda 323 4WD) 3m09.58s - 2,
David Fletcher (Subaru WRX) 3m09.74s - 3,

2WD 1601cc+

Brent McAllister (Ford Escort Mk1) 3m17.16s - 1,
Brian Chang (Holden Ute) 3m19.62s - 2,
Brent Sibley (Ford Escort) 3m24.29s - 3,

2WD 1301-1600cc:

Scott Reid (Ford Escort) 3m18.42s - 1,
Sean Sands (Ford Escort) 3m20.33s - 2,
Daniel Powell (Toyota AE86) 3m27.80s - 3,

2WD 0-1300cc:

Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla 1300) 3m08.75s - 1,
Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 3m14.40 - 2,
Jonathan Bradshaw 3m19.85s - 3.

Ladies

Michelle Reid (Subaru WRX) 3m35.66s - 1,
Simone Trezise (Ford Escort) 3m38.47s - 2,
Tracy Birdling (Toyota Starlet 4AGE) 3m41.71s - 3,

Road Car

Hayden Riddle (Mazda 323 4WD) 3m09.58s - 1,
John Beasley (Subaru WRX-RA) 3m16.10s - 2,
Mike White (Fiat 131R) 3m23.90s - 3.
 

RATEC Ashley Forest Sprint - 25 August 2002:

Sunday the 25th of August saw a gaggle of Autosport members take to the Ashley Forest for a  RATEC run rally sprint. As it turned out, the top three results were claimed by Autosport members over the 6km course which many described as "excellent" .

After the first run, Nigel Beck in the Lancer was setting an amazing pace, coming in about 7 seconds faster than Jeff Judd driving his Subaru Impreza. The fast run took it's toll on the young pace-setter with the Lancer splitting an oil hose and retiring from the event. In an interesting twist Judd's Impreza also failed to go any further, developing terminal gear selection problems.

Following the second run of the day another Impreza with Rocky Hudson at the wheel launched into second place, though still a second slower than Beck's first run time. The third run of the day decided it, with Hudson claiming top spot by just over a second from a charging Justin Prattley in the Mazda GTX. Jeff Judd made up for the Impreza's failure with a scorcher in his BDA Escort, grabbing third place in style.

Dermot Martin had a great day until a "minor miscalculation" on his blistering final run saw him nearly send the Evo over a bank. He narrowly missed a pine tree and had to reverse onto the road again, seeing his chances of a placing disappear over the edge.
 

Woodend Hotel Autosport Club Mount Alexander Sprint - 18 August 2002:

The trip from Christchurch under a clear blue sky with snow covered mountains on the horizon made it worth getting out of bed just to travel to the event. Many wondered what the road condition would be like following the heavy rain or the days preceding but all concerns were put to rest through the indian file. The road was in close to perfect nick, with some loose gravel around but not enough to concern anyone. The fords were dry so the scene was set for some very fast times through the course, which comprised short straights interspersed with windey sections alongside a creek in the bottom of the valley, followed by a flowing uphill section to the finish.

With the timing gear and radio crews in place in good time, it was get your numbers and get into gear. There still wasn't a cloud in the sky for the start of the sprint, however there were cows on the road. A few close calls were had by the first drivers to take to the course and repeat runs were on the cards. Once the bothersome bovines buggered off, it was all on! With the start line immediately adjacent to the pit area, it was great to be able to watch the cars take the first two corners from the comfort of the service vehicles.

Jeff Judd made his intentions clear on the first run setting the benchmark time, but with Merv Hatcher hot on his heels after the first run Jeff really turned it on, lowering the bar by a further 6 seconds in run 2 and taking out the event by shaving yet another two seconds off that in the final charge up the valley. Jeff had a busy day as he also drove his Escort BDA to great effect after a recent diff replacement. Merv also set the second fastest time in run two and the scene was set for a final run showdown however after charging through the first half of the course the Lancer came mysteriously to a halt, and the battle was over. The fault was traced to the kill switch and a disappointed Hatcher was able to drive to the finish. That problem allowed season sensation Nigel Beck to sneak through and gain second place after solid improvement between runs one and two and edging out Justin Prattley by half a second in the final run of the day, who in turn pipped Ryan Berry by three tenths of a second for third. A great battle at the top of the field! Leigh Marston's brakes were causing headaches again with another rear rotor biting the dust. The brakes in the car were under extra strain this event as Roger Townshend was also using the Impreza and put in some great runs for his first time in a 4WD turbo on gravel. Berry, Marston and Townshend took the three top honous in the 4WD class with overall prizes being ineligible for class prizes this time.

The big engined 2WD class saw speed and drama with a hard charging Glenn Buist providing arguably the most spectacular sideways driving of the day (if you don't count Robert McCallum's sideways driving after the finish line!). The video evidence of Glenn's "Minties moment" at the bridge, shows the BDA missed tagging the high side by a hair's breadth, followed by a tank-slapper rivaling that of the Ford Falcon in a certain "Speed Kills" ad. The rubber mark on the final bolt on the side of the bridge proving just how close Crusty came to making the car crustier than the duct tape and house paint repairs effected after the off road excursion at Catlins. Even with all the sphincter-clenching, Glenn put the Escort into a deserved first place in the class. Second went to Deane Buist in the FWD Corolla, having a great time trying to make the car look like a RWD on the tighter corners, and third in the class went to the Escort of Robert McCallum, who's last run provided entertainment for the spectators even after it was finished.


Deane Buist, Mt Alexander Sprint. Photo by KeenKiwi.

The other contender for "Moment of the day" went to David Carr in taking the ex Steve Carr RX7 on a ride more suited to the farmer's Hilux. Carr took to the grass at the right hand brow into a tight left hander through a small concrete ford with a bank on the outside and a drop on the inside. The RX7 missed the bank, going across the road and down next to the creek. With David's attempt to drive out up the bank to rejoin the road not quite working, a short trip back along the valley floor was required to gain the road and carry on with the run. Keenkiwi caught this little excursion on film (below), it's always good to have a memento of such an occasion!



The mid-sized 2WD contest was yet again the domain of Blair Logan, who cranked up the road to take a 7 second victory in the class from event organiser Andrew Sim in a similar Corolla FX-GT. The video evidence showed a polished performance from the Ashburton driver Logan, who was back to winning ways after a second place in class at the Catlins rally. Another visitor from far flung places, Hayden Paddon in the Toyota Levin, took out the third place in the class with a solid improvement of 15 seconds throughout the day.

In the small capacity class Don Mathias proved too quick for the competition, with the Starlet running on new Silverstone tyres. Puncturing at the end of the first run didn't seem to affect Don's great time. Beaten in the second run by Grant Goile, he pulled out the stoppers for the third run, finally succeeding by 3 seconds over the Corolla driver. Barry Deuart in the Datsun 120Y broke the Toyota stranglehold on the class in a clear third place with a good run. No real dramas were reported in the class, with everyone commenting that the road was excellent and a lot of fun. Corolla driver David Fletcher commented that with an extra hundred horsepower he may have been able to get out of second gear up the hill. Apparently you just need to get a better run-up at the bottom!

The only retirement of the day was Richard Towse who unfortunately had to trailer the Datsun Sunny after the diff made a graunching noise on the start line of run 2 and promptly failed to provide drive to the wheels. While loading the car onto the trailer backwards (that's the only way it would go) a philosophical Towse commented that it was the car's first mechanical failure at an event for 8 years so there was no real need to get worked up about it. Richard set a good time in his first run and it would have been interesting to see how he improved over the day as everyone else did, but it was not to be.

The event's completion was almost timed to perfection, with cars being loaded onto trailers and some quick shovel work taking care of the worst of the start ruts just as a southerly blast struck the area. The blizzard deposited heavy sleet over everything, including the timing gear which was in mid-packup when the bad weather arrived. Thanks to all those who stuck around to help drag everything into the vans.

The prizegiving at the Woodend Hotel was a subdued affair for no particular reason, with almost everyone quietly happy with their day. Appreciation was expressed to the radio and timing crews, the organisers and helpers, and of course the sponsors, who without them these events would would not be the great day out in the hills that they are. Results are as follows:

Overall

Jeff Judd (Subaru Impreza) 2m51.69s - 1,
Nigel Beck (Mits EVO2) 2m54.82s - 2,
Justin Prattley (Mazda GTR) 2m55.31s - 3,

4WD 1601cc+

Ryan Berry (Mirage EVO) 2m55.58s - 1,
Leigh Marston (Subaru WRX) 2m57.01s - 2,
Roger Townshend (Subaru WRX) 2m58.22s - 3,
 

2WD 1601cc+:

Glenn Buist (Ford Escort) 2m57.24s - 1,
Deane Buist (Toyota Corolla) 2m58.17s - 2,
Robert McCallum (Ford Escort) 3m06.24s - 3,

2wd 1301-1600cc:

Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 3m01.73s - 1,
Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 3m09.05s - 2,
Hayden Paddon (Toyota Levin) 3m16.24s - 3,

2WD 0-1300cc:

Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 3m16.52 - 1,
Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 3m19.86s - 2,
Barry Deuart (Datsun 120Y) 3m24.53s - 3.



Andy Reid, Corolla 1300, at the Mt. Alexander Sprint. Photo by Keenkiwi.

Autosport members at Catlins Coast Rally - August 3rd 2002

A good contingent of club members took to the road south for the Eastern Southland Car Club's 2002 Catlins Coast Rally. The rally was held on popular roads around Owaka with a lot of the event the same as the previous year.

The first stage was a short 2.8km blast through an open section of public road and saw no dramas. Dermot Martin and Andrew Wells got off to a flyer in the Evo IV setting third fastest time on SS1. Stage 2 was where it all went wrong for Dermot last year where a left hander over a brow claimed the Evo in a tangle of No.8 wire.  He commented that this year the question "where the hell is that brow with the left hander that got me last year" was half out of his mouth when they went over said brow in fourth gear! It was a major scramble to get back onto the road but at least he didn't end up through the fence again. It would have been hard going to explain crashing through the same bit of fence two years in a row!

The very same corner saw Dave Pettigrew break an axle in the Escort. The rapid loss of drive caused Dave to take to the fence and damage the right hand side of the car. Trying to regain the road, the Escort got caught on the edge of the ditch and stopped. Unable to extricate the car due to lack of drive saw Dave retire from the event.

Leigh and Josh Marston got off to a flying start also with the Impreza scoring second fastest time in the short sprint of SS1.  The car was going well and they posted top 5 stage times in SS2, 3 and 4. Dermot Martin's dramas from SS2 developed a twist in SS3 with the gearbox popping out of fourth gear. This made for a bit of an exciting moment while finishing the windey stage holding the gear stick in fourth. With only one hand on the wheel they had a fairly major off road excursion on fourth gear right hander. This resulted in having to drive on a flat rear tyre for last 4 kms of the stage. This was a huge disappointment as at  the start of SS3 they had been in second place overall, and at end of  the stage they were down to 5th. By stage 4 the Evo's gearstick couldn't even be held in to retain fourth gear so it was driving from 3rd to 5th and vice versa and they were down to 8th place at end of stage and had filled out the retirement for but they decided to press on and due to the demise or others, ended the rally in 5th overall.

Things started to go wrong for Leigh Marston at the start of SS5 with the gear selectors falling to pieces which meant the car was stuck in 3rd gear. Then, 2.5km from the end of stage 5 the WRX's motor went off song and dropped a couple of cylinders. A final climb to negotiate before a downhill run to the finish proved too much and they came to a halt tantalisingly close to the brow of the hill. The problem was tracked to a split in the intercooler water pipe split and water had run down inside of front bulkhead into the computer terminals. Retaining a sense of humour (what else can you do) Leigh commented that the only part of rallying they seem to be able to win at the moment is first car on the trailer back at the motel!

Dean Milligan and Blair Smith in the immaculately prepared Evo 3 came home in 9th overall after being seeded 22nd. A great climb through the ranks for a driver with few gravel rallies under his belt. Dean was well pleased with the trip south, saying that the car had run sweetly all day and that they had a very clean run. Geoff and Gemma Bone's Mazda 323 came in with a 19th placing after a rally which Geoff was pleased to get through with no panel damage to the car! The father-daughter team put in some pretty good stage times and thoroughly enjoyed the event.

Garry Cliff brought his Evo home in a very well earned 4th overall, with the switch from the RWD Stanza to the 4WD for this event not seeming to affect Garry's performance in the slightest, although he commented that it took a bit to get used to the change. Consistently paced, and placed, throughout the day meant a solid result for himself and co-driver Wayne Barnard. Even after spinning a couple of times, once in SS3 at the first slippery T-intersection, and again in the Cannibal Bay stage, no major damage was done to the car and it ran well all day, apart from a slight hiccup resulting from running a standard computer, which saw them speed limited to 180kph on the straight and very fast Hunt Road, SS4.

Second place in the 1600cc class saw Blair Logan and Julie Boddy again on the podium after a great finish at the Canterbury Rally. Blair commenting that the Catlins Rally was always worth it and that they had a reasonably trouble free run with the car. A few moments were par for the course and one particularly "interesting" one had Blair thinking he'd caught a puncture but it turned out this wasn't the case. The Cannibal Bay stage ate Glenn and Brent Buist's chances of a placing, with the Escort being pulled back onto the road by the recovery crew after going a long way down a bank into the bush. Belting into the Kaka Point service area the crew were quick to refuel the car, and with the rear pushed in but no serious mechanical worries it was off again at a gallop.

Carl Balani and Tony Clark in the RX7 had a real up and down event with the up being recording the fastest speed of the day of anyone in the event through the SS4 Police speed radar. Going 193kph in the RX7 would have been a blast! After suffering a puncture in SS3 they posted a great time in SS4 only to back the car off the road in SS6, only a few corners down the road from Glenn Buist. Again the Cannibal Bay stage gobbled up an Autosport contender. Upwards of 40 minutes were lost waiting for the recovery crew to return the Mazda to the road. And on SS8, the final test of the day, the RX7 spent around half an hour bogged down in a swamp after leaving the road and taking out a few concrete fence posts while trying to return to it under it's own steam. Happy to reach the finish, Carl commented that all things considered they'd had a good fun rally.

Fred Merkin and Greg Kennedy in their beast of an RX7 ended up off the road near the end of SS3 and lost a lot of time, eventually DNFing on SS4. Rocky Hudson and David Calder's run came to an end also in SS3 when the gearbox in the WRX lunched itself. David Fletcher and Andy Reid were glad for a strategically placed tree in SS3 which saved the Corolla from a plunge into a steep creek bed in a slippery section of the stage. The Arrowtown pair of Greig Johnson and Jeremy Skeggs stopping to try to help but could not tow the stricken Corolla back onto the road. The car was wedged against the aforementioned tree, it's front wheels in the air, and the crew lost 12 minutes before being pulled back onto the road by the recovery crew.  David posted some good stage times throughout the rally, especially the Cannibal Bay stage where he scored a third fastest stage time in class A.

Jeff Judd and Speedsport "co-driver for a day" contest winner Greg Honnor were going great guns until the differential in the BDA cried enough in SS4. Greg, who has had rally driving experience in the past, commented that even the short time he had in the car with Jeff at the wheel was better than his wildest dreams. It was Jeff's return to the Catlins after a break from contesting the event and SS1 was a great start, with Jeff posting an awesome time even though he thought he was being conservative. He had a wee moment at "Dermot's Brow" but all was going well until the car started misbehaving in SS3 where the rear brakes decided to lock on, sending the car and crew spinning off the road. Luckily no damage was done but in SS4 a growing noise from the diff signaled the end of the charge.

Brent Rawstron and Ian McKee in the Escort BDA again wowed the crowds with a display of fine driving. Their second place overall behind event winner Wayne Muckle in an Evo 3 proving that the 2WD's can foot it with the 4WDs when a skilled crew strikes the right conditions. The Catlins Coast Rally is a well run, relaxed and friendly event. The touring times are easy and servicing (for most!) is unrushed. For many it is a "must do" event on the South Island rally calendar and the Autosport Club contingent this year generally suffered at the hands of lady luck. Maybe next year!
 

29 July 2002 - Buist 1st 2WD at Hawkes Bay

Autosport "El Presidente" Deane Buist in the Palmside NZ/Silverstone Tyres Toyota Corolla FXGT came home first two wheel drive in the Bayswater Vehicles Rally of Hawkes Bay this past weekend. Running in 13th overall after the two night stages, Deane climbed up to as high as 9th overall after special stage 8. The front wheel drive 2l Corolla was showing its pace, however with two stages to go a small off-road excursion in the second Gwavas stage lost the crew one place, so they started the last stage 10th overall. With the final 11km stage being flooded, the Corolla was getting water into the airbox. Deane had to feather the throttle to prevent serious engine damage which meant they slipped back to 15th overall, but were still first two wheel drive car home. Congratulations and well done!
 

7 July 2002 - Robbies Bar and Bistro 2002 Autosport Canterbury Rally

The Autosport Club's 2002 Canterbury Rally, sponsored by Robbies Bar and Bistro Lancaster, was run yesterday in the Ashley Forest. It proved to be a rally of attrition, with around a third of the field retiring. Those that survived the challenging roads were full of praise for a well run classic-style forest rally.

Documentation and Scrutineering was held at Rangiora Toyota on Saturday, along with a display of the competing cars. A tyre changing contest was held during scrutineering (change the tyre while one crew member peels a potato!) and this was won by Stephen Petersen and Robin Wooding with a lightening-fast time of 1m01s.

Top seed Jeff Judd led after stage 1 only to score a DNF due to a blown turbo after stage 3. Second seed Wayne Muckle with Neil Preston alongside grabbed the day by the horns scoring 6 stage wins out of seven to win the event from a charging Brent Rawstron with Ian McKee who obviously felt at home in the forest in the BDA. Third place went to Paul Dickson in a fast steady run in his Subaru Leone RX.

In the 4WD class the aforementioned first and third overall were followed in third in this class by Ryan and Rob Berry in the Mirage. John Giltrap put in a steady run into 4th equal in this class and Kevin Bell will be very happy with finishing a rally, in 5th equal overall and 4th equal in class no less! Dermot Martin and Bede O'Connor suffered at the hands of lady luck in SS2, having a stone lodge between a brake caliper and wheel slicing the rim and resulting in a sudden(!) loss of tyre pressure. By the time they diagnosed the problem and changed the wheel 5 minutes had gone by.

As the classics run seperately, in the 2WD class Deane Buist and Rocky Hudson again put their stamp on first place even after stopping to change a wheel after a puncture that cost 3 minutes (apparently Rocky was searching for a Potato to peel). The pair also had a bit of drama on Stage 4 involving a narrowly missed gate (was it in the book or not?) and stalling the Corolla. Blair Logan took second and Andrew Sim 3rd in the 2WD class.

In the 1301 to 1600cc class, it was FXGT's in the top two spots with Blair Logan and Julie Boddy taking the class win, and Andrew Sim/Tony Witheridge in second. The "silver bullet" 4AGE powered Escort of Dave Pettigrew and Leighton Baker came in third. Dramas in this class included Stewart Bufton with Andrew Bufton sitting alongside inverting the Starlet 4AGE in stage 3 but able to continue. Hayden Spatcher and David Sidery lost a lot of time off the road in SS1 and also in SS6.

The 0-1300cc class win was taken by Don Mathias and Nigel Tyson in the Starlet RWD followed by Stephen Petersen and Robin Wooding's FWD Starlet with Barry Deuart in third in the 120Y. This class had it's own dramas unfolding with Neville Kidd and Martina Hipp doing a lot of the rally with minimal brakes and breaking a coil lead in the final stage. Stephen Petersen suffered a broken accelerator resulting in a ride for Robin out of stage 4 sitting on the front/radiator working the throttle (ouch!). Numerous minor "offs" were had by most finishers in this class.

In the big Classic class, Brent Rawstron's fine drive took out another first place trophy for this class, there must be something in that Rossendale wine! Robert and Fran McCallum took a well deserved second place (incidentally looking the pick of the bunch mid-SS5 where the author was spectating from). Third 1700cc and over classic was Steve Parker and Grant McKenzie's Nissan Sunny.

The 0-1700cc Classic class was always going to be an interesting result with a lot of close competitors entered. Ross and Christine Dixon powered away to take the class victory in style from Grant Goile and Anthony Reed. James and Tom Holder scored a third place in the class in their first rally in the 1600cc Avenger, which again proves that to finish in the places first you've got to finish!

Along with Judd, many of the competitors suffered mechanical woes that ended their rally. Accidents also claimed a fair share. Special Stage 1 saw Brendan Price and Hayden Riddle in the recently run-in WRX retire with a cracked engine block. The differential in Andrew Reid and David Fletcher's Corolla blew halfway through the stage and Luke Thelning/John Will's Datsun came to a halt with suspected electrical failure that turned out to be a fuel line problem. Noel Simmon's Escort, and the Darren Galbraith/James Bracefield EVO were withdrawn after SS1 also.

In the accident department Fred Merkin's RX7 collected some scenery in the very fast uphill straight through the recently logged area in SS1, finishing with a rearranged front left.  Geoff and Gemma Bone's rally came to an end against a tree also in SS1. Geoff Combe with Sean Sands in the Starlet didn't emerge from S22 while Justin Prattley with Andrew Dunsmuire crawled late out of SS2 and withdrew the car from the rally soon after with a blown turbo. Jonathan and Paul Bradshaw's gearbox let go in SS4. Bruce and Vaughan France's run came to an end in SS4 with a broken driveshaft. SS4 also claimed Brent and Glenn Buist with steering failure at a high speed moment and the ruts in the road and grader spoil at the edge saving the car from certain significant panel damage by somehow keeping the car from going off and into the trees. Rear differential failure in SS4 put paid to Leigh and Josh Marston's troublesome run as well, they had been fraught with problems from the start with both rear shocks locking up and a broken rear half-shaft in SS2.

Gareth Erwin and David Calder's run of bad luck continued with the 4AGE Corolla DX becoming airborne at speed in SS5, landing nose down and bouncing up a bank and into retirement. James Goile retired in SS6 after posting some great stage times throughout the rally.

The prizegiving function was well attended with competitors and crews enjoying a relaxed atmosphere at the sponsor's establishment. As usual, some acceptance speeches were long and some were short. Thanks and applause went to the organisers and stage crews and volunteers, in particular Les and Andrea Summerfield for their efforts. As the night went on conversation surfaced of the very competitive times of the '0' car, adventures both on the road, off the road, and in the air!, and much speculation on how a 4WD BDA Escort could have passed scrutineering!   : )

All in all it was a good turnout for a great event.


 

2 June 2002 - Wet and Wild Southland Rally

Autosport Club members featured prominently at this year's Rally of Southland. The saturated conditions turned the rally into an adventure with water lying on the road in places and some of the surfaces were very muddy and slippery. This was mixed with some rough sections (the road book read "caution: really really bad ruts") and also some very nice roads to the north and west of Invercargill that seemed to have dealt well with the very wet weather leading up to the event.

The 'allcomers' Mainland class featured a number of Chrstchurch crews. Club Captain and Lancer Evo 4 pilot Dermot Martin took overall victory by 26 seconds from the hard charging Club President Deane Buist in his Corolla FWD. Ryan Berry brought the Mitsubishi Mirage 4WD home in 3rd place to give the Autosport Club a clean sweep of the podium in the event. David Fletcher finished in 15th place overall and 3rd in the 0-1300cc class in the Corolla KE20.

Bad luck seems to be following Brent Buist around at the moment as the recently rebuilt blue Escort RS1800's BDA engine expired on SS2 after setting a very quick time in the Pebbly Hills stage that opened the rally.

In the main NZ Championship section, John Giltrap from Lincoln in his Subaru Impreza WRX came a respectable 14th place, and 4th in the Mainland class.

Click here for Rocky Hudson's article on the Southland Rally.
 

12 May 2002 - Mixed fortunes for Autosport Club members at 2002 Otago Rally

Several crews from Christchurch made the trip south for the two day event on the roads around Dunedin. With the prolific blind brows and very fast flowing roads this rally is quite a challenge. Brian Stokes won the Dunlop Classic Rally, continuing his winning streak after Westland and the success of Autosport Club members in the rally scene.

In the Dunlop Classic Rally Fred Merkin's RX7 suffered problems which saw him miss Stages 5 and 6, to rejoin later but was out again come Stage 14. Brent Buist was in a tight battle with Brian Stokes for the lead, swapping fastest stage times up until SS7 where the engine in Brent's BDA gave up with a suspected dropped valve.  Chris Saunders dropped a cylinder in his Escort and tagged a bank with the rear of the car. With the problem being unrepairable at the break for the night, Chris was forced to retire. Aaron Scott had his Escort flying and posted some great stage times, especially in the Fort Hill stage where Aaron commented he was pushing so hard the car nearly rolled. Unfortunately the engine stopped in Stage 11 and his great run came to an end. The run of bad luck for Autosport members continued when Stephen Stokes's Escort left the road in SS15, the last gravel stage.

Brent Rawstron continued where Brent Buist left off and traded fastest stage times with Stokes, however Stokes got the most from his stage times and ended up winning the event by 2 minutes from Rawstron. Well done Brian! Andrew Reid took second place in the 0-1300cc classic class in the Corolla despite suffering gear selection problems which saw him stop several times throughout the rally stages to restore third gear.  Also bringing their cars to the finish were Garry Cliff and Robert McCallum.

The Autosport Club contenders in the main rally fared better than the classics, with most finishing. The exceptions were Dermot Martin who retired after SS9 with rear differential failure, and Wayne Julian had a terrible finish to the rally at the "Super Special" stage with an understeering slide into a curb breaking the front right wheel off the suspension. The new "Super Special" stage rules meant Julian was given the fastest time plus three minutes so didn't end the rally with a DNF (the "get out of jail free" or "showing off for the crowd provision" rule saved three crews from a DNF this time). Jeff Judd brought his Impreza home in 6th place overall and first in the Mainland Series points. Deane Buist managed to avoid livestock this year and had another good run with the new Corolla finishing in 11th overall and first 2WD. Leigh Marston in the Impreza finished 17th overall after suffering more than his fair share of bad luck with low fuel pressure robbing power all rally, 4 broken disk rotors, and to top it all off a puncture losing him 2 mins in SS12. Ryan Berry came in 21st. John Giltrap's Impreza suffered a 20s penalty which didn't affect his 26th place.

For full results see www.otagorally.co.nz

South Rakaia Hotel Autosport Club Rakaia Zig Zag Sprint Results  - 5 May 2002

A cloudy Sunday saw 50 cars line up for the Rakaia Zig Zag sprint. The event went well for most concerned, although Sean Sands' Escort suffered mechanical trouble and Kevin Hobson's Corolla encountered a large rock and broke a tie-rod end but both were back to contest the following runs. Hard luck award of the day goes to Jonathan Bradshaw whose clutch fork broke near the end of run 1 and with no spare available he was off home early. In the small car class Grant Goile threw down the gauntlet even though he's still running in his newly rebuilt engine. Blair Logan went some way for making up for the disappointment of Westland with a class win here. Crusty had a tight of contest with the thundering RX7 V8 driven by Les Summerfield, with the Escort eventually coming through.  Nigel Beck continues his run of good performances taking out the trophy for this year's Zig Zag Sprint.

The results were as follows:

Overall (+4WD):

Nigel Beck (Mits EVO2) 1m34.24s - 1,
Darren Galbraith (Mits Lancer) 1m35.28s - 2,
John Silcock (Mits EVO6.5) 1m35.34s - 3,

2WD 1601cc+:

Glenn Buist (Ford Escort) 1m42.04s - 1,
Les Summerfield (Mazda RX7 V8) 1m42.15s - 2,
Carl Balani (Mazda RX7) 1m44.13s - 3,

2wd 1301-1600cc:

Blair Logan (Toyota Corolla) 1m43.63s - 1,
Andrew Sim (Toyota Corolla) 1m45.66s - 2,
Gary Hawkes (Ford Escort BDA) 1m46.26s - 3,

2WD 0-1300cc:

Grant Goile (Toyota Corolla) 1m50.77s - 1,
Bruce France (Toyota Starlet) 1m53.80s - 2,
Don Mathias (Toyota Starlet) 1m54.07s - 3.

Club Members compete in the Westland Rally - 13 April 2002

This year's Westland rally in the hills around Greymouth and Hokitika proved, as usual, lucky for some and unlucky for others from the Autosport club contingent that made the trip across the Southern Alps.

An early start and great rallying weather (not too hot, not too cold) greeted all competitors and there were soon triumphs and tragedies (well, not quite tragedies but "general bad luck" doesn't have the same effect). Aaron Scott's newly re-engined Escort performed superbly throughout the day seeing him finish 4th in class, as did the Starlet of Bruce and Nicole France who scored a second in class. Leigh and Josh Marston suffered some niggly problems at the beginning of the day but were on song by the second half to fight back to 5th in class. Brent Rawstron took out the honours for the big classic class. Wayne Julian had a good run in the Peugeot taking 3rd in his class. Dermot Martin's Lancer (freshly painted and looking the part) developed problems which saw him running on three cylinders in the concluding stages but still going fast enough for 4th in class. Deane Buist's new red rocket Corolla was being piloted to full effect with co-driver Rocky Hudson commenting that he was hiding behind the road book on more than one occasion. Deane again had a great result with a first in class. Geoff Combe scored a win in class B, Chris and Peter Saunders had a good run with a 40km detour to take in the scenery not affecting their well earned third in class. In the rotten luck category Jeff Judd withdrew in SS7 after laying down some interesting tyre tracks both on and off the road and ending up parked against a tree. Fred Merkin's newly acquired RX7 had a puncture which saw Fred leave the road mid-SS1 and David Fletcher's Corolla  saw it's gears disappear and he was out come SS6. Brent Buist's troubled rally came to an end in SS5 with the engine blowing it's head gasket. Blair Logan's run came to an end at the start of SS4 with a bent rear tie rod. Waynre Summerfield's rally in the Impreza ended after stage 3.

The rally was marred by an incident on SS4 with a member of the public driving into the stage past all officials and then truning around and coming out of the stage again. This person seemed hell-bent on using the road and was prepared to run people over to do it!

The highlight of the prizegiving was undoubtably Mike Verdoner's recollection of his recent "forgot to tie rally car to trailer" incident.

Click here for Rocky Hudson's article on the Westland Rally.