Round 4 of the New Zealand Rally Championship was held in wet, slippery conditions on July 18 and 19 on tight council roads around Pongaroa and Eketahuna in the Wairarapa Region.
Local South Taranaki Car Club members, Mike and Helen Cameron of Stratford, driving their 1977 Mitsubishi Lancer, made life hard for themselves throughout the weekend.
Day 1 saw them slide off the road during special stage 3 into a water table after coming over a brow too fast and landing on tarseal scattered with stones, before a sharp left onto a bridge.
Not wanting to hit the bridge or dive into the river, option three - sliding off the road was taken. Thankfully a local farmer was encouraged to pull them back on the road just before Tail End Charlie arrived. They managed to make it through the rest of the stage with a bent guard and a broken rear window and into the first Service Park with 20 seconds spare before their 30 minutes lateness would have excluded them from the rally.
They finished the day second in class behind Euan Fuge and Donna Elder driving a Mazda RX3. Euan had returned after healing from a back injury, which had forced him to sit out the Dunedin and Whangerei rounds.
After extremely heavy rain during the night, Day 2 greeted competitors with brilliant sunshine as they toured out to the eight stages around Eketahuna.
All was going well until the seventh stage of the day when again they were forced to choose between hitting a bank, hitting a fence or trying to straddle a huge rock flicked onto the road by an earlier driver. Mike took the third option and while almost succeeding, the Lil Evo suffered a punctured floor pan and squashed exhaust. Apart from the noise, lack of power and the hole behind Mike's front seat, he had to contend with the floor under his left foot now being10cm higher than his right foot. Using the clutch became a mission, but they managed to nurse their Lancer through the remaining stage and onto the finish ramp to claim second place in class also on Day 2.
To win the New Zealand Rally Championship Classic Challenge Trophy for 2009, the Camerons must finish at least one day at the final round in Nelson on September 19 and 20.
Euan Fuge will pip them by one point if they don't finish either day, as he will gain 74 points if he wins both days. He also needs to hold off the charge from Rob Wylie and Paul Turner who have rebuilt their Nissan 240RS after demolishing a bridge on Day 1 of Rally Whangerei.
The point's table stands at Cameron's leading with 221 pts, Euan Fuge 148pts and Rob Wylie 101pts.
Mike and Helen's motto of "To finish first, first you must finish" will be in the back of their mind while they tackle tight, twisty, rough forest stages in and around the Nelson region.
Stratford team retains lead in NZ Rally championships
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