Twin test ignites season
AFTER 2020’s lack of motorsport events, the country’s competitors will be treated to an absolute feast this weekend, with Auckland hosting the City of Auckland Rally today and the Battle of Jacks Ridge Rallysprint tomorrow.
Two drivers aiming to compete in both events are Cromwell’s Hayden Paddon, who will convert his Hyundai i20 AP4 from restricted rally spec to hill climb monster overnight to contest the rallysprint’s Open 4WD class, and Dunedin’s Emma Gilmour, who will keep her Suzuki Swift AP4 unaltered after today’s rally and compete in the Rally 4WD class tomorrow.
Today’s eightstage, 120km event will be the first time this year that New Zealand’s toplevel rally drivers have squared off against each other after Covid19 caused the cancellation of the 2020 national championship.
They will compete on stages that were originally meant to be used for September’s cancelled World Rally Championship round and will head to the north and east of the city, into the Kaipara Hills, Puhoi and Riverhead Forest before the finishing at Jacks Ridge in Whitford.
Former national champion Andrew Hawkeswood, who owns the property where Jacks Ridge (named after his son) is situated, has combined his many years of international rally driving with access to his mining company’s earthmoving machinery to create the 2.2km purposebuilt gravel road. Featuring massive highspeed jumps and technical cambered corners, all within close proximity to spectators, it has been billed as a worldclass power stage.
The starstudded lineup will establish the rally as one of the biggest domestic events in New Zealand. Paddon tops the list and he will go headtohead with hill climb specialist Sloan Cox, of Rotorua, in his Mitsubishi Evo 8.
Paddon will not only have an engine overhaul for his team to perform tonight, they will also be readying his electric rally car to make its debut tomorrow.
‘‘We will do two to three demo runs of the EV car. It’s still very raw and won’t be operating at full performance, but it’s a chance for people to see it in the flesh for the first time and for us to see how it handles the gravel stage,’’ he said.
Paddon has missed the rush that driving to the limit against quality competition provides.
‘‘It’s going to be so good to be behind the wheel again with two very exciting events. First and foremost, my goal is to enjoy the events and obviously we target to battle at the front — but there is a lot of strong competition over both days, so we will have to ensure we are well prepared,’’ he said.
Having been involved in the Jacks Ridge promotional video — along with motorsport identities Greg Murphy, 2019 national rally champion Ben Hunt, Gilmour, current Bathurst champion Shane van Gisbergen, speedway ace Michael Pickens and the
Hawkeswoods — Paddon has an opinion on the rallysprint’s credibility.
‘‘It’s a new way of thinking for the sport and something I think we will see more often — just like a Twenty/20 cricket match: shorter format, spectator friendly and an exciting knockout result format that means nothing is a given. The concept takes on a combination of iconic events such as Ashley Forest and
Race to the Sky, which is exciting.’’
After qualifying runs in the morning, the 58 competitors will be whittled down eliminationstyle to a top32 shootout in the afternoon. The field will be halved each time, until the final two contenders face off to decide who will be crowned the inaugural king of Jacks Ridge.
THERE'S a new kid on the zeroemissions vehicle block — and it has three wheels. The Solo, from Canadian designer and manufacturer ElectraMeccanica, is a singlepassenger allelectric vehicle with a range of 160km and a top speed of 130kmh. It retails for $US18,500 ($26,882).
The car is 3m long and 1.46m wide at the front — considerably smaller than a typical passenger vehicle.
‘‘When you're driving it, you feel like you're sitting in the cockpit of a fighter jet or in a Formula One car,’’ ElectraMeccanica chief executive Paul Rivera said. ‘‘It's really cool and really different.’’
But a big part of the marketing strategy for the Solo is based on efficiency and practicality. The company quotes statistics showing that each day 119 million North Americans commute using private vehicles — 105 million of them commute alone.
The Solo looks to attract ‘‘early adopters’’ — consumers who are attracted to the latest technology — looking for an option in an urban environment.
‘‘There are just so many things that you do solo,’’ Rivera said. ‘‘You go get your coffee solo, you go to the gym solo, you go visit friends solo. This is a purposebuilt vehicle and it fits beautifully between passenger cars on one end of the spectrum and micromobility [scooters, electric bikes, etc] on the other end.’’
Powered by a 17.3kWh battery that turns a single rear wheel, the Solo features a heated seat, Bluetooth stereo, rearview camera, power steering, power brakes and air conditioning. For safety, it has front and rear crumple zones, sideimpact protection, torquelimiting stability control and a roll bar.
ElectraMeccanica is based in Vancouver, but the Solo is manufactured in China by the Zongshen Industrial Group.
Like Tesla, customers don't drive the vehicle away from a dealership but place a preorder to have it delivered at a later date. The Solo requires a $US250 deposit, which is refundable.
Rivera would not say how many deposits have been made for the Solo but said ‘‘the waiting list is pretty long’’ and estimated an order placed today would probably get delivered ‘‘well into the middle of next year’’.
Last year, MercedesBenz announced it would stop selling the allelectric Smart car, which has two seats, largely due to slow sales.
Rivera says he thinks the Smart car EV didn't cut it ‘‘because it didn't make enough of a statement’’ aesthetically.
Plus, he said the Solo offers enough space to carry luggage or groceries.
In fact, ElectraMeccanica will soon come out with a fleet version of the Solo. It's the same size as the existing vehicle, but the hatchback is removed to create more space for cargo to serve commercial customers for food delivery, security guards, mechanics going to job sites that don't require a lot of tools, etc. — TNS