Motorsport: Homeboy Mason the main man at Masterton

This coming weekend's Rally of Wairarapa, the third round of the NZ Rally Championship, should have been held in August.

Only a fortnight ago we were at the Rally of Otago, which Garry Cowan and I managed to win, putting us one point behind series leader Mark Tapper and back into contention for the championship.

So, for the long weekend, it's off to Masterton for what has been described to me as 240km of hard and fast public county roads.

Ten days later we're off to Rotorua for round three of the Asia Pacific Championship and round four of the NZRC.

With three of the six rounds of the championship (Otago, Wairarapa and Rotorua) over a five-week period from mid-May to mid-June, it puts a lot of pressure on the preparation of the cars.

Between the travelling around the country, there's servicing on the car and a lot of organisation. You can't let mechanical preparation slide. There's very little time to do anything major.

And it puts a lot of pressure on everybody's budget to do the events. Subaru Rally Team New Zealand is fortunate this year to have a fulltime mechanic preparing the car. So do a few of the other teams but most of the guys do the work at night after their day jobs or on the weekends.

After Rotorua, there is a six-week break to the Hawke's Bay Rally at the end of July, then another break until the final round at Nelson in September. There is no event in August, which would've been the ideal time for the Wairarapa event to spread the rallies more evenly through the season.

That would have given teams more time to prepare for each event and spread the costs out more evenly.

Richard Mason, with whom we had a close tussle at Otago, will start Wairarapa as favourite. It's Richard's home event, which he's won a few times, and nothing can beat local knowledge. I suspect Richard probably learned to rally drive on some of the roads we'll be competing over on Queen's Birthday weekend and I'm picking the fight between ourselves at Otago is only going to continue on the roads in Wairarapa.

We've never done the event before so our experience of the conditions is zero. Garry and I will start the rally with the same approach as usual - 100 per cent commitment. Our goal is to come away from two days of competition with the championship points lead.

Another good points haul is paramount to keeping our championship defence secure and the pressure on our rivals.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY