Paddon leads southerners’ assault
Southern rally drivers continue to dominate the national rally championship at the halfway stage of the season following a successful Daybreaker Rally in Manawatu last weekend.
Even though he was absent from the event, competing in Europe, Geraldine’s Hayden Paddon continues to lead the overall points table after his nearest rival Richard Mason retired with gearbox issues on the last special stage and came away with no points.
Nelson’s Ben Hunt won the round from Christchurch’s Chris West, with Rangiora’s Matt Summerfield third.
Hunt moves into second on the points table behind Paddon with Mason dropping to third, West fourth and Summerfield fifth.
Despite retiring with a broken drive shaft, Christchurch’s Jeff Judd still leads the Historic Rally Challenge from fellow Cantabrian Deane Buist.
Rangiora’s Marcus van Klink moves into third on the table after a dominant win at the weekend.
Christchurch’s Josh Marston sits second in the two-wheel-drive championship, only seven points behind Tauranga’s Phil Campbell.
The next round is the Stadium Cars Canterbury Rally on August 11.
The event will be run in the Ashley and Okuku forests in North Canterbury, comprising approximately 159kms of special stages on some fantastic forestry gravel roads with the service park based in Rangiora.
Tough weekend for international Kiwis
It was a tough weekend for Kiwis competing overseas. Jake Lewis was tapped by a fellow rider at Imola, Italy, and crashed out of the latest round of the PATA European Junior Cup round while in the leading bunch of riders.
He has dropped from second to fourth on the points table.
Geraldine’s Hayden Paddon, not used to driving on asphalt or in a Ford Fiesta S2000, crashed out of the Ypres Rally in Belgium.
This has left Paddon pondering what caused the incident.
Approaching a fast right-hand corner he turned in as normal, but the rear immediately snapped sideways spinning the car into a tree, damaging a radiator and causing their retirement.
Mitch Evans was stymied by electrical problems in his GP2 Series round at Silverstone and had the opportunity of a victory slip from his grasp. He will head to Germany’s Nurburgring this weekend confident he has the speed to compete in the top five.
Twelve-year-old Caleb Cross from Rangiora was certainly thrown in the deep end as he competed in the annual Queensland State Titles meeting at Bundaberg. Running as high as sixth in the Junior National Light class final the youngster was spun off and out of the race but he is keen for more international experience.
The next big event for the Cross family is the Armstrong Motor Group-sponsored KartSport New Zealand Schools’ Championship in Christchurch over July 20-21. It is a weekend in which Caleb will team up with fellow young gun Marcus Armstrong to try and win the Primary/Intermediate title for Christchurch’s Medbury School.