Greg Todd Memorial Rally ReviewThe Auckland Car Club Greg Todd Memorial Rally was held in Maramarua Forest on Sunday 27th June. It was round two of the CPS (NZ) Top Half Rally Championship. The rally consisted of 4 passes through the 13km Aranui stage, 4 passes through the 16km Campbell stage with the final stage at the Manukau Super Special Stage, as used during the Rally of New Zealand. For the first time, I had Glenn Kuttel co-driving for me, and to make things more interesting, this was his first time in the co-drivers seat. In addition, there was fresh and heavy gravel laid in parts of the stages that needed extra care. Stage 1 was a fairly familiar stage to us, so we tried to push hard right from the start. After the first junction and heading up Waewae Road we pushed a little too hard on a long right hand corner with fresh gravel laid and ended up off the road, losing a few seconds and a bit of confidence. Unfortunately Stage two was cancelled due to Nick Marshall's car catching fire just before the start of the stage, so we were given what proved to be a fairly conservative accessed time for the stage and we toured back to service. Stage three, was a re-run of stage one so again we tried to attacked this one, and we setting a fairly good pace until the last junction before heading down a long straight. The site of spectator s encouraged us to through the car a little too sideways in the junction, the result being a full spin and plenty of lost time, although we only dropped 3 seconds from special stage 1. Stage 4 & 5 went without too many problems. About 3kms from the end of Stage 6, we punctured our left rear tyre but drove out of the stage in what ended up being out best time of the day. Stage 7 went without a hitch, but stage 8 was another full of drama, losing one wing mirror on a fence post and then sliding off the road on a tight right hand corner. With only the super special stage to go, and our car over 1 ½ minutes behind the next best car, we decided to take it easy around this stage. All in all, we had a great day. Our Silverstone tyres provided plenty of grip all day and Glenn did a great job of calling the notes for the first time. We ended up in 20th place overall, which is by far our best result ever. Many thanks must go to my sponsors and supporters:
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