MOTOR RALLY: Family at odds when the flag comes down

MANDY SMITH Some people enter a rally wanting to win, others try to beat their personal best time, but Linzi Malley's goal is a little less ambitious.
"I'm going to try not to throw up," the Pakowhai co-driver - and mother and wife to rally drivers Dermott and Patrick Malley - said with a laugh.
Surprisingly, not all co-drivers have a cast iron stomach. Coping with the speed and turbulence of the sport while reading and calling out race notes is a constant battle, she says.
"Obviously, you can't stop driving so if I've got to throw up, I just unplug the helmet so I'm not throwing up in Dermott's ears," she said.
"Unfortunately I feel terrible because then I can't call, and he's driving blind."
But just recently, Linzi thinks she's mastered it.
"I take some fairly good car sickness pills, and change position in the car.
"I've got it cracked now, so we can go a lot faster. This weekend we're going to be fantastic."
The way she talks, you'd think Linzi, 57, had been in the passenger seat of a race car for years. She's followed the sport for almost three decades, even meeting her husband on a blind date at a rallying conference in 1978.
"She didn't mind going on a blind date, because she knew everyone else there if I turned out to be a jerk," Dermott, 55, chuckled.
But Linzi only joined her men in their beloved Mitsubishis last year, when son Patrick's co-driver pulled out of the New Zealand Championships at the last minute.
"I'd had some afternoon tea, and was just taking the dog out to watch the guys, when Patrick asked if I'd like to jump in the car. I'd never read notes before, but I thought 'Why not?"'
Linzi has since accompanied both husband and son in rallies, and will be co-driving for Dermott in this weekend's Turners Auctions Hawke's Bay round of the 2006 Parker Enzed New Zealand Rally Championship.
The trust between family members is a definite advantage when co-driving, Dermott says.
"If you're not prepared to commit where you can't see, you won't go fast enough so you have to believe what the co-driver's saying is absolutely right."
Patrick, 22, says competing together has strengthened his relationship with Dermott, but Linzi concedes the pressure of a rally can test a marriage.
"Some people half-expect us to have got a divorce by now," she laughed.
"But when you're competing you learn to switch off - it's a professional relationship."
That stoic approach extends to racing each other. Patrick says the best moment in his two-year racing career was beating Mum and Dad at a rally in Otago last year.
"It was a very, very close race," he said. "In the last stage there was 1.1 seconds between us, and I only just managed to beat them."
It'll be the same aim when he and co-driver Hayden Middleton, 19, go bumper to bumper with Dermott and Linzi this weekend.
"Obviously, I want to beat Mum and Dad again," he grins.
"But Dad often reminds me that it's not about competing against other people. You're competing against the road and, afterwards, comparing times."
* Rally wrap - page 13.