MONDAY PROFILE - STEWART TAYLOR: Forty days to get to start line

HAMISH BIDWELL
It sounded a grand old idea at the time.
Enter an international round of the World Rally Championship and gain a bit of experience. After all, Hawke's Bay driver Stewart Taylor had finished 19th overall, and the third Kiwi home, in his first WRC event - the 2006 Rally of New Zealand.
That was more than enough to convince him and father Trevor that their Taylor Motorsport Mitsubishi Evo 9 could be competitive at that level.
So where did they choose? Monte Carlo, maybe? What about one of the famous Scandinavian races, or the events in Great Britain or Ireland?
Far from it, in fact. It seems the Taylors threw a dart at the globe and came up with the rally of Argentina, to be held up in Gaucho country at Villa Carlos Paz.
"As it's turned out, Argentina is the most difficult one to get a container to. Far more difficult than Britain, for example," said Stewart.
Forty days it's going to take to get the car, plus parts, to Buenos Aires, before it's then trucked to Cordoba and then Villa Carlos Paz.
"It's a fantastic guts for garters rally and a fantastic opportunity for Stewart," Trevor said.
"One of the challenges we have is taking enough spare parts. If there is any damage done to our car we have to hope we have the right gear to repair it."
"And that's not purely because of a crash, either. More wear and tear from the bumpy road," Stewart said.
"It's a dirt-gravel mix but, apparently, they're not particularly well-kept roads. They get a lot of potholes and ruts and we're also racing at high altitude. Argentina appealed to me, but the other thing is that I'm friendly with Andrew Hawkeswood.
"He's been competing for a number of years and he had a desire to go over there. We were actually sitting in the rain together at Rally New Zealand last year and said to each other 'wouldn't it be nice to be somewhere a bit more warm and exotic'.
"At the moment, the temperature is hanging around the 26-30deg mark with 100 percent humidity."
With Hawkeswood and another New Zealander, Neil Allport, also heading for Argentina, Taylor has been able to share the transportation costs with them and they will pool parts and service crews at the event itself.
Which is just as well, given the rally isn't strictly confined to Villa Carlos Paz.
"The first night there we'll be doing a super special stage in Buenos Aires, which is 700km from Cordoba," Trevor said.
"All the cars will have to be transported there and then they'll do a 2km stage in the River Plate football stadium, which holds 85,000 people.
"That night, everything returns to Cordoba for a 10am start to stage 2, with all the drivers being flown back in chartered planes.
"After that there are two more super specials in the stadium in Cordoba, which holds 55,000."
"The whole thing's quite daunting, really," said Stewart.
"The main thing for me is to finish. I don't get any kudos for running second in Group N and then crashing. I'm more likely to pick up a respectable placing by simply finishing."
Taylor, and co-driver Warwick Searle, are seeded 45th of the 71 cars entered in the rally, which runs from May 3 to 6.