First rally crown for Holder and Farmer

Mount Maunganui driver David Holder is fast following in the tracks of his mentor, World Rally Championship driver Hayden Paddon, and underlined his potential with victory in the Rally Gisborne on Saturday. Holder not only took the round honours but his victory sealed him the New Zealand Rally Championship with one round to go. It was the first NZRC crown for both and they did it in the Mitsubishi Evo 8 that Hayden drove to rookie and junior national rally titles in 2006. Holder said he was “stoked” and thanked all those who had supported him. The 48-car field faced a chilly winter’s morning, with some parts of the six stages remaining frozen throughout the day. Holder and Farmer finished nearly 1½ minutes ahead of second-placed Dylan Turner and Rob Scott. Pictures by Liam Clayton

MOUNT Maunganui’s David Holder and Hamilton co-driver Jason Farmer won their first New Zealand Rally Championship crown in securing victory in the one-day Rally Gisborne on Saturday.

One round leftThe Gisborne event was the fourth of five rounds in the NZRC, so Holder’s drivers’ championship victory comes with one round to spare. The pair drove the same Mitsubishi Evo 8 Holder’s mentor Hayden Paddon used to win the rookie and junior national rally titles in 2006.

Holder and Farmer have had some ups and downs in this season’s four rallies. Third at the season-opener in Otago behind Paddon and defending NZRC champion Ben Hunt, Holder celebrated his first NZRC victory in Round 2, the Whangarei rally. Going into Round 3 in Canterbury, Holder had a fairly comfortable points lead over Dunedin’s Emma Gilmour and Hunt, but crashed out and Gilmour went on to win the round.

Heading to Gisborne, Holder’s championship lead over Gilmour was down to just six points. But Gilmour’s mechanical woes and an off-road incident for Hunt opened the door for Holder. He completed a comfortable victory over the six stages of the Rally Gisborne on a fine and chilly winter’s day. Holder totalled 1 hour 44 minutes 3.6 secs for the 150 kilometres of stages to finish 1min 25sec ahead of Dylan Turner and Rob Scott in a Mitsubishi Evo 9. Lance Williams and Raymond Bennett, in a Subaru WRX R4, were third, 2min 5sec behind the winners.

Delighted to have won both the rally and the championship, Holder said he didn’t realise he was in contention for the championship title until the final stage.

“Before the last stage, Jason told me we could win the title and the guys from Volt TV were putting extra cameras in the car, so we had some fun and made sure we got through cleanly to the finish. I’m so stoked to finally be able to pay back my main supporters, Tony Gosling from Stadium Finance and Hayden, with this championship title. Tony and Hayden have backed me from the start, which is amazing.”

Attracting the attention of Hayden PaddonHolder’s rise to the top of New Zealand rallying started seriously in 2011 in a two-wheel-drive (2WD) Toyota Levin, which attracted Paddon’s attention.

“Hayden saw some in-car footage of me on the internet and got in touch. Basically he wanted to help out somebody with whatever he could and from then on he’s been kind of the mentor and I’ve been the protégé.”

Tony Gosling, director of Stadium Finance, which has also backed Paddon, said: “I first saw Dave Holder going through a corner in his Toyota, which was a pretty basic car run on whatever second-hand tyres Dave could afford. Everyone else was changing down for the corner and there was Dave changing up a gear. He was right up there battling with faster cars. That’s when we got involved.”

Highs and lowsIn 2012, Holder won the rookie driver of the year title in a Ford Fiesta before Stadium Finance bought Paddon’s Evo 8 for Holder to rally. He piloted the Evo 8 to the junior rally championship in 2014 but had a major crash at the beginning of 2015, which nearly ended his rally career.

“I certainly thought hard about whether to continue last year, but I had so much support from a whole lot of people,” said Holder, who made special mention of his co-driver. “We’ve got a great team culture this season and this is the longest I’ve had the same co-driver — it can take a while to find the right person. I think he’s one of New Zealand’s most highly regarded co-drivers with 22 years in the sport and this is his first national co-drivers’ championship title, so I’m delighted for Jason, too.”

The only Gisborne driver in the Rally Gisborne, chopper pilot Neil Dodds, started the rally seeded 48 out of 48 cars. With brother Peter in the co-driver’s seat of a Toyota Corolla GT, Dodds finished 26th overall out of 32 finishers.