By BOB PEARCE
Pitstop
Chris Haldane won a number of national championships on two wheels and is determined to add to that total now that he competes on four.
The 30-year-old Aucklander first competed in a rally car at Mt Maunganui in November 1998.
Now he is making a determined assault on the national championship, which begins with the Ruapehu Rally on Saturday.
Haldane brings to the sport both a family background and a professionalism honed during a motorcycle racing career which brought him success in New Zealand and overseas.
His father, Bob, raced successfully on two wheels before becoming a rally co-driver for some of this country's most successful drivers. His sister, Samantha, is also a co-driver.
Chris followed his father on to the track and carved out his own successful career through the classes up to the Superbikes. He last raced on two wheels on the Britten in Japan 18 months ago.
"I haven't said I've retired from bikes," he said this week. "I'm just not riding at the moment.
"I've found that a lot of the same disciplines apply in rallying. It's just as difficult to learn to drive a rally car as it is to ride a Superbike properly.
"There needs to be a load of commitment to do it, if you're going to be really competitive."
It did not take long for Haldane to show that he was going to be competitive. Last season he won the tarmac Taranaki Rally, came second in the Rally of the Far North and third in Hawkes Bay.
This season began well with a second placing behind national champion Geof Argyle in the pace-noted Taihape event last month.
Haldane has set himself a tough schedule - "I need as much time in the car as I can get. I'm on a steep learning curve."
He will compete in six national rounds, including two in the South Island, and five regional events. Until the Rally of New Zealand in July he expects to be driving the Mitsubishi Evo 3 he used last season. But he has one of the latest Evo 6 Group A cars being prepared for the international by Ralliart.
Haldane and his co-driver, Trevor Jones, have learned their rallying together. Despite their relative inexperience they seem likely to be contenders in their first full championship season.
For the Ruapehu Rally, run by the Taupo and Taumarunui Car Clubs, Haldane has been seeded eighth.
Top seed is Argyle, chasing a hat-trick of national titles in his Evo 6. Second seed is former champion Joe McAndrew (Subaru), who sat out last season.
Then follow Bruce Herbert (Mitsubishi), Todd Bawden (Mitsubishi), Brian Green (Ford), Andrew Hawkeswood (Mitsubishi) and Lewis Scott (Mitsubishi).
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What started out as a clubman's meeting this weekend for the Auckland Car Club has turned into one of the busiest programmes of racing at Pukekohe.
Around 30 races are scheduled over the two days for a range of classes, including the national championship touring cars and V8 touring cars.
Pukekohe will be the penultimate round for both those classes, with Jason Richards a runaway leader for BMW in the touring cars and Mark Pedersen narrowly ahead in the V8s.
Richards will be mindful that the last time the touring cars raced at Pukekohe he was beaten by Geoff Short in a Ford Telstar.
Short will drive a Lexus this weekend with Barrie Thomlinson likely to be at the wheel of the Telstar.
Championship races will also be run for pre-65s and Superminis, and celebrity drivers will race in the Vodafone Ka series.
Saturday racing, with free entry, will begin about midday. On Sunday racing will begin at 9.30 am.
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Michael Schumacher shunned by the press? Surely that should be the other way round.
No. When the German driver flew back (first-class) to London after his triumph in the Australian Grand Prix, he was confronted by a scrum of press and television people at the airport.
As he resigned himself to yet another media session, the mob moved past him to welcome home the new British hero, Jenson Button, from the business-class section.
Motorsport: Haldane flat out to grab NZ rally title
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