Summerfields chasing historic title
Rangiora’s Matt and Nicole Summerfield are hoping to become Canterbury’s first New Zealand Rally Champions for 29 years. The Summerfield siblings head to the final round of the championship, the Rally of New Zealand in Tauranga on November 24-25, in a three-way fight.
Auckland’s Andrew Hawkeswood tops the standings on 109, with 10 points back to Auckland’s Ben Hunt and the Summerfield’s a further point back.
‘‘It’s still anyone’s game and being a two-day round it is double points on offer,’’ co-driver Nicole said.
‘‘We have been doing all the calculations and permutations of where we need to finish in comparison to the others to take the win.
‘‘We’ll be pushing it hard again if we get there.’’
The only thing standing in the way of the Summerfield’s shot at the title is actually being there after a miscalculation in round four proved costly in more ways than one.
‘‘We were leading the championship going into the Coromandel Rally so all we really had to do was finish.’’
Instead, they wound up in a ditch.
‘‘You are going so fast on tight twisty roads in a big car so we had to push hard.
‘‘We had driven the road once before and he felt he braked too earlier so left it one second later and the road had slushed out from the rain and off we went.’’
The crash had them fall out of the championship lead and the resulting damage set them back financially.
‘‘We didn’t realise how much damage had been done to the engine, the turbo...everything we had just done and paid for.’’
They repair work to get the car back on the road for round five in Waitomo blew the budget, and now they are racing the clock again to make the start line in Tauranga.
They have entered but are currently facing an $8,000 shortfall. If they weren’t in contention for the title, Nicole said they would have just parked up and started focusing on next year.
But they are in sight of being North Canterbury’s first national rally champion in 30 years. The last was Brain Stokes in 1988 in a Ford Sierra, having also won in 1985 in a Ford Escort RS. Stoke’s children, Robbie and Amy, are contesting this year’s NZRC in a Toyota Levin.