Motorsport: Taylor battles back

Roger Goss checks the tyre pressure on his Mazda RX3.

So much for last week's rain working in favour of the first car on the road in Saturday's Rally of Hawke's Bay.

"We had those showers but they didn't change the roads at all. They were pretty dry which meant I had to sweep thick gravel and push harder than I would normally," Hawke's Bay's Stewart Taylor said as he reflected on a fourth consecutive win with Auckland co-driver Warwick Searle in their class D Mitsubishi Evo 10.

"Crews a few cars back had swept roads. By lunchtime I wasn't too positive and was 20 seconds off the pace," Taylor recalled.

Leaving the road and colliding with a fence on stage three of the 38-car Tomoana Warehousing Transport-sponsored event did little to enhance Taylor and Searle's positivity. However, three consecutive wins on stages five, six and seven and a third on the final stage based at the Hawke's Bay Car Club's Bridge Pa track saw the pair record a 1m 20s win over a New Zealand Rally Championship crew of Lance Williams and Raymond Bennett in their Subaru Impreza.

"When you consider the calibre of the New Zealand Rally Championship crews in the event our win was a good result. I was a bit rusty on stage one when we finished fourth but then my thinking came back," Taylor, 43, said.

Taylor and Searle have been racing together since 2006 and Taylor said their pair will be back to attempt a fifth consecutive title next year.

"We work well together and there's no need for us to stop now."

Another of Hawke's Bay's class D (open 4WD) entries, Grant Blackberry, who had Ric Chalmers as his co-driver in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6, did well to finish third overall and second in class as they had only front brakes for the last four stages of the eight-stage event. The next best of the Hawke's Bay crews were the class C (1851cc and over 2WD) pair of Jason Timmins and Dean Astill who finished 18th overall and fourth in class in their Mitsubishi Lancer EX.

A Hawke's Bay father-and-daughter combo of Keith and Catherine Frankum finished 24th overall and fourth in class B (0-1850cc 2WD) in their Toyota AE86. Hawke's Bay's V8 Supercar legend Greg Murphy and co-driver Mark Leonard finished 25th overall and sixth in class C in Murphy's 40-year-old Ford Escort Mk 1. Two Hawke's Bay crews, Ron Davey and Rodney James in class C and Eric Kyle and Daniel Haines in class E (pre 1996 4WD) were among nine crews to withdraw.