Some big local names will be involved in this year’s Otago Rally, which takes place from its Dunedin base next Friday to Sunday. Catherine Pattison catches up with them ahead of the big weekend for Southern motorsport.
This rally season marks the year of the AP4 car, with three Otago drivers in the ultra- competitive machines, albeit all with different agendas.
Two of them have international 2022 plans. Cromwell-based Hayden Paddon (Hyundai i20 AP4) will be travelling to Europe in July with his Kiwi team to contest the first of two WRC2 events.
Emma Gilmour plans to head home to Dunedin in between Extreme E rounds, where she is the first female to ever drive for motorsport giant McLaren.
Bannockburn’s Duncan McCrostie will stick with home-country soil, where he has rediscovered his passion for rallying. Aged 55-years-old, he has committed to a second consecutive season driving a leased Mazda 2 AP4.
Bannockburn’s Duncan McCrostie in action. PHOTO: GEOFF RIDDER
Seeded number one, Paddon will lead out the Otago Rally next Saturday, with Gilmour sixth on the roads and McCrostie 18th.
There are a further 11 AP4 cars and five R5 models competing, making it the most technologically advanced NZRC entry list the Otago event has ever seen.
Like Gilmour, Paddon’s plan is to compete in all six New Zealand Rally Championship events.
His two-pronged approach to the year adds up to some serious logistics, as he sends his Hyundai AP4 around the country, and collects his Hyundai WRC2 car in Europe.
“[It] is being built by Hyundai Motorsport at present, so we will head over there and pick it up, compete in the European events, then bring it home to develop for next season,” Paddon said.
He will no doubt breathe a huge sigh of relief when he boards the plane for Europe after his plans to re-enter the WRC have been repeatedly thwarted.
“Covid dealt us many, many blows to getting back over, but we never gave up. And together with Hyundai NZ, they could see that we kept getting dealt blows and it was time to take control over our own destiny and make it happen. So, after pitching the idea with Hyundai NZ and how it could work, they were fully onboard and they are the key to making this whole campaign work,” Paddon said.
Gilmour can also attest to the importance of long-standing sponsors.
Her main backers Vantage Windows and Doors have been with her since not long after she drove the zero car in the 2002 Otago Rally.
“I definitely owe the rally organisers a debt of gratitude for giving me that first shot and letting me drive through the course ahead of the competitors because I didn’t have any gravel experience,” Gilmour said.
“I’m really proud that throughout my rallying career I’ve been able to look after this special relationship with Vantage and we can certainly say we’ve created a long-term partnership as we enter into our 18th year together.”
Driving her Suzuki Swift AP4, Gilmour has had nine years of support from the brand she sells through her Dunedin Suzuki dealership.
Emma Gilmour. PHOTO: GERARD O'BRIEN
Her international ride is an electric, off-road McLaren SUV and she will drive it in four more rounds, which are scattered throughout the globe.
Recent MIQ changes mean Gilmour will be able to return to New Zealand in between her Extreme E commitments.
“It makes such a difference to my year knowing that I can now return home without having to play the MIQ lottery, or spend weeks isolating,” she said.
Gilmour has competed in recent rallysprints in the North and South Island with co-driver Malcolm Peden. The pair finished runners-up in the Pukekohe Car Club’s Bothwell Loop Rallysprint.
Heading to the Mainland for the Eastern Southland Car Club’s Popotunoa Rallysprint, they clocked the fastest times overall in legs 1 and 2 to win over Gore’s Andrew Graves last Saturday.
Following a decade hiatus, McCrostie re-entered the rally scene at the 2021 Otago Rally, driving a Mazda 2 AP4 leased from former national champion Andrew Hawkeswood.
“We weren’t fast, but we kept our nose clean and just got to the end,” McCrostie (55) said of his solid 11th placing.
It earned him the runner-up Otago driver honours, after Paddon, but the two-day event was not without its “hard work’’.
“Norm’s [Oakley, Otago Rally chairman] two stages through the forestry got us sweating,” McCrostie said.
His 2022 preparation began with competing in the Ben Nevis Golden 1200 Hillclimb held on the roads above his home turf in Bannockburn.
It provided a good shakedown and a chance for him to continue building a relationship with the pocket rocket AP4 after predominantly spending his rally years in two-wheel-drive chargers.
“I’m still getting my head around what a four-wheel-drive can do,” he said.
- Catherine Pattison
