Paddon’s new career move on track
The biggest speed bump of Hayden Paddon’s rally career has the former World Rally Championship (WRC) contender planning for life after professional sport.
Paddon was unexpectedly axed from the Hyundai Motorsport WRC team for 2019 in December.
He had been running a part-time campaign in 2018 after being demoted from a fulltime drive in 2017.
Paddon, who will contest six rounds of the new Global Rallycross Europe series in 2019, has not given up on his dream of a WRC recall.
But for now, a move to Highlands Motorsport Park in Central Otago will give him a permanent base as he looks to secure his long-term future by expanding the Paddon Rallysport business.
After 10 years of moving ‘‘couch to couch’’, ‘‘hotel to hotel’’ chasing his rally dreams, the 31-year-old Geraldineborn driving ace has put his bags down in Cromwell.
Paddon had always intended to expand the company and make the team ‘‘bigger and more professional’’ but after he was unexpectedly dumped from the Hyundai line up for Rally Spain in 2017, then dropped from the WRC in 2019, he decided it was time to action his plan.
‘‘That was the first time in my life for 20-odd years where I was like, oh shit, if this all turns pear shaped what am I going to do? Because everything had always been rally, rally, rally, drive, drive drive. So it was from that point 18 months ago we already had the base of Paddon Rallysport, so we thought let’s put the building blocks in place to make this grow and work on that.
‘‘We haven’t given up on the WRC dream yet. If we can’t get back in the car this year we are trying to get back in the car for 2020 . . . I actually feel like I’m in my prime right now which is why it is really frustrating we aren’t there at the moment because I know we could be achieving good things in the sport at the moment but politics got in the way.’’
Paddon has moved into an apartment at Highlands that has a large garage he is modifying into a workshop to future-proof his career and pursue racing dreams out of the driver’s seat.
‘‘I’m here indefinitely. I’ve actually unpacked my bags for about the first time in 10 years, put trophies on the shelf . . . I haven’t really had a home for many years. It’s just been living out of a suit case couch to couch, hotel to hotel. Now I’ve actually got my own bed so that’s quite nice.’’
The decision to move his Paddon Rallysport company from Auckland, where it has been running for 12 years, was made about a year ago. In December, the call was made to go ahead with the shift to set up a new venture that was currently ‘‘hush, hush’’.
‘‘It’s something a little bit different, a little bit left field. We are trying to exploit some different technology . . . the motorsport and automotive industry is changing very quickly and we want to develop some things that sets us apart from the rest of the world.’’
Despite the WRC setback, the reigning national rally championship titleholder will have a busy driving calendar in 2019 with up to eight events in New Zealand planned around his Rallycross commitments in Europe.
‘‘I can’t stay in New Zealand. If I stay in New Zealand I’ll disappear off the map . . . I’ve had lots of challenges over the years and you generally might be a bit down for a day or night, but once you have slept on it a night it ignites a new fire and then you are even more driven than you were before because you want to prove people wrong and prove to yourself what you know you can achieve.’’
His current set up at Highlands involved bringing in a team of six engineers and technicians from around the country, and testing prototypes on his back doorstep – the Highlands Motorsport Park track.
‘‘This is a massive asset. There is not many motorsport businesses in the world that have a race track on the back doorstep they can use every day of the week. Very, very few. This is incredible.’’
Long term, his goal is to still drive. Still win.
‘‘But going forward, I want to do it with our own Kiwi team. I want to take our established team from New Zealand with Kiwi ideas, Kiwi ingenuity and take it around the world.’’
‘‘We haven’t given up on the WRC dream yet.’’ Hayden Paddon