Mason on track

MASTERTON rally ace Richard Mason is upbeat after a fractio-of-a-second loss in round one of the national championship in Otago at the weekend.
Mason, the defending champion, lost by .2 of a second to Chris West, the man he took the title from last season. The two men won a heat each, so share the points lead in the championship.
"I'm still happy, because it's the oldest car in the championship and here we are against the newest car in the championship and to be 0.2s off ? is not a problem," he told the Motorsport New Zealand website.
Being defending champion, Mason starts as first car on the road ? effectively road sweeper for the following cars. It's a position some don't enjoy, but Mason said it didn't affect his progress.
"We've been there and done that before, and it's been OK ? you just get on with it."
Covering six stages to the south of Dunedin, the 29-car NZRC field started to another sunshine day following a brief overnight spell of rain. With blankets of fog in the Berwick and coast forests the stage times were significantly faster than previous records ? with local Emma Gilmour in her Subaru leading the way.
In the end it came down to another Mason vs West battle for top honours, Gilmour in turn duelling with Sam Murray (Subaru) for third.
Starting with a clean time sheet for the day the overall result was decided on a points and time split to tie West and Mason in the championship standings after they took alternate results from the two days of competition.
A tight tussle at the head of the field kept the leading group of four cars (all Subarus) separated by 9 seconds after three stages (58.1km) of gravel competition.
Opening up the field, the rejoined Dean Sumner in the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 8 set consistent top-4 stage times after having the engine in his car rebuilt overnight to rectify an overheating issue. He was followed by the EVO 9 of Brett Martin and Dylan Turner after Glenn Smith's debut in a Subaru ended in the second stage when he left the road.
While the leaders made a clean run of the 14.75km McLaren gully stage, the fourth stage for the day changed the make-up of the Kiwi 2 class, with both Kayne Barrie (Nissan Sunny) and Dave Strong (Honda Integra) stopping midway. Glenn Inkster in the Honda Integra dropped approximately 3 minutes when he lost a wheel during the test.
Heading in to the 2.0km Forbury Park Super Stage, West started with a 9.7s advantage over Mason to be 0.2s ahead for the overall rally result after 234.45km of gravel.
With the cars setting a dead even time in the shoot-out, the 0.2s difference gave West the narrowest of margins in a national championship event.
"It's good; I didn't think this morning we'd be in this position, so it just goes to show you don't give up and push as hard as you can with what you've got," said West.
Not the easiest of days, West said he was still plagued by a centre differential problem that affected the handling of the brand new 2006 Impreza.
"Basically we had the same issues as we had yesterday and it was obviously beyond our control for the weekend so we drove with what we had ? it was no better or worse really.
"It's a good start for the championship and to be three weeks out from Rotorua (the next round) gives us plenty of time to sort it out (the centre diff issue) ? as the potential of the car was always going to be unknown."
Echoing the tussle for the top spot, third place was also a tie on points ? the deadlock broken on aggregate time. Taking the position was the second brand new 2006 Subaru Impreza of Palmerston North's Sam Murray, from another Subaru debutant ? Dunedin local Emma Gilmour.
"Today was hard; I don't know what it was; if it was me not concentrating, or the car. We made a few changes trying to make the car better, so it was a mix of everything really and we lost a bit of time."
Although happy with his result, Murray added: "This time last year we were struggling to be in the top-6, so I can't complain about coming here with a brand new car and come out of the first round in the top-3.
With a three week break to the second round, the series moves to the Asia Pacific Rally Championship event at the Hella International Rally of Rotorua (26-28 May 2006). Mason and co-driver Sara Randall are due to contest round two of the Chinese national championship, the Hunan Rally, that weekend.