Northern trio take off-road honours
A trio of drivers dominated the points in the latest round of the New Zealand off road racing championship in Feilding on Saturday.
After four hotly contested heats, Pukekohe UTV racer Carl Ruiterman joined Albany drivers Raana Horan and Mike Fraser balancing on the top step of the podium, each with three wins from four and 70 points in their respective classes.
Denying the weather gods, the final northern round of the championship was bathed in sunshine, but drivers faced a greasy track following torrential rain on Friday night.
But the strong winds dried off surface water throughout the races, meaning the 1.4 km track presented a different challenge to drivers at every start.
Palmerston North Offroad Racing Club spokesperson Andy Briggs said despite the best efforts of local competitors including Grant Rosenberg and William van der Wal the northerners dominated.
‘‘Raana Horan stands out for special mention, he is so spectacular and so fast in all conditions,’’ he said.
‘‘The first heat was very slippery and he was flicking that Nissan Titan around like a rally car.
‘‘In the greasy conditions of the first heat, the massive V8 trucks were sliding from one side of the track to the other under full power. Horan spun in the closing laps of that race but had built up enough lead that he was able to recover and win’’.
Horan’s three wins and one second place also sealed his northern region outright title and puts him into the national final in Twizel over Labour Weekend with maximum points.
The expected challenge from multiple national champion Tony Mccall in the unlimited class failed to fire.
In the first wet heat for the big cars, a mid-grid start position saw him blasted with mud and rocks by the cars in front, clogging his driving goggles and forcing him to stop at the first corner.
Then as the track dried out clumps of mud blocked his radiators and the car’s LS7 Chev engine overheated. Mccall had the consolation of posting fastest time of the day, a 1:03.793 in race two.
The unlimited class win went to Fraser. He took the chequered flag in the first, third and fourth races. Aucklander John Morgan won the second heat.
In the growing UTV classes, the emerging force of the Yamaha YXZ was evident.
Ruiterman, together with Joel Giddy, have been at the forefront of developing performance modifications for the new highrevving Yamaha including an advanced turbocharger array for the three cylinder engine.
With defending champion and former rally driver Ben Thomasen unable to use his Polaris turbo and stepping into a naturally aspirated Polaris RZR 1000 instead, the