David Holder's global rally adventure is set to provide some fresh challenges in Turkey next weekend.
The return of Rally Turkey to the World Rally Championship for the first time since 2010 also provides the venue for the final round of the Junior World Rally Championship.
Mount Maunganui's Holder and his Hamilton-based co-driver Jason Farmer will line up against 12 other junior crews driving identical Ford Fiesta R2 cars to chase double points in the final round of the championship.
Pre-rally information sees Holder, the 2016 New Zealand Rally Champion, preparing for long stages, high temperatures and some rough gravel stages on mountain roads as the main characteristics in a rally that will be new to the field of 52 crews.
''We're expecting it to be rough from looking at the in-car [video]. The main thing will be working out where you want to go hard and where you don't,'' Holder said.
''The first stage on Friday morning is 38km long so it will be important to make a good start and there's also a 36km stage on the second day," he said.
''The temperatures will be a challenge. It's going to be 30degC or above so I've been in the sauna and also biking in a heated room trying to prepare for that. We haven't really had conditions like that anywhere this year and it makes it tough heading over there from our winter.''
Holder and Farmer are in 11th place in the Junior Championship standings after four of the five rallies with the highlight of their season being a podium finish in Portugal.
''My objective for Turkey is to try and set fast stage times.
''Even with double points the overall result won't make a big difference to us in the championship unless something unbelievably dramatic happens.''
After four rallies in Sweden, Corsica, Portugal and Finland, Holder says the junior series has been a steep learning curve.
''I've learnt a lot this year and it has challenged me in a lot of ways.
''We've had to work really hard since Coromandel [the most recent NZ Championship event in mid-August] to get the funds together for Turkey.''
Holder is trying a new approach on the rally by writing a set of pace notes for the special stages using the in-car video footage made available by the rally organisers.
''That's something Hayden [Paddon] has offered some advice about. It's a new way to write pace notes and also a good way to learn and remember the stages.''
Turkey's return to the World Championship takes the rally into a part of the country that wasn't included in a previous Rally Turkey route with many of the stages in the mountainous Mugla province.
The September 13-16 rally is based in the city of Marmaris - a Mediterranean port and holiday resort about 200km south of Istanbul in the southwest of the country.