Paddon wins Otago Rally in 40-year-old classic car

Hayden Paddon has pulled off one of the most incredible drives ever seen on New Zealand’s gravel roads, coming from behind to win the Otago Rally by 2.5 seconds in a 40-year-old Ford BDA Escort.

The 28-year-old Geraldine driver, who is home on a break between events in the World Rally Championship, was seven seconds behind Phil Campbell going into the final 16km stage through Kuri Bush, Dunedin, on Sunday.

Paddon’s car was a full 28 years older than Campbell’s Mitsubishi Evo 9 and he and co-driver John Kennard were two seconds slower than Campbell in the first 5km of the final stage.

Remarkably, Paddon then clawed back 12 seconds during the final 10km of the stage to take out both the Otago Rally and Otago Classic Rally titles.

‘‘We came here for fun – we never came here chasing a win like that, but as it got close going into those last couple of stages we definitely gave it everything,’’ Paddon said.

Campbell and co-driver Venita Fabbro were 16.4 seconds ahead of Paddon after a tough first day that saw many drivers run into trouble.

Campbell had extended that lead to as much as 30 seconds heading into the Sunday afternoon stage but it was not enough.

It was a remarkable return to form for Paddon, who was coming off a nightmare Rally Argentina where he crashed into spectators 600m into stage nine of the WRC event.

‘‘It’s a bonus for us. We haven’t won anything in the last 18 months since we’ve been in the WRC so hopefully this will give us that boost we need to start turning things around,’’ he said.

Paddon’s Escort becomes the first two-wheel-drive car to win a round of New Zealand Rally Championship since the Mazda RX7 of Neil Allport and Rodger Freeth won the Auckland round in 1987.