‘‘Everything that makes a good rally road, is what makes it into the Catlins Rally,’’ four-time winner Andrew Graves said, summing up the popular club event’s enduring appeal.
He should know — the Gore driver has competed in it ‘‘in one seat or the other’’every year of the 20 years it has been running. On Saturday he’ll be sitting on the driver’s side of his Mitsubishi Evo 3 and Hayden, his 17-year-old son, will continue in his co-driver’s role.
The younger Graves navigated on his first Catlins Coast Rally last year and looked set to claim a dominant victory with his hard-charging dad.
They had built a lead of more than 3 minutes by the penultimate stage when what they thought was a puncture morphed into the ‘‘wheel deciding to part company with the car’’, Graves said.
The duo has some unfinished business to attend to, although they’ll have their work cut out for them with the Catlins positioned as the first full rally to run since Covid-19 decimated the season.
With the cancellation of the 2020 New Zealand Rally Championship, many of the country's top cars have been gathering dust in garages and the chance to do some skids on the stages famed for their quality is particularly attractive to drivers itching to get behind the wheel.
The 80-plus entries consequently include some of New Zealand’s best.
Former World Rally Championship driver Hayden Paddon tops the most recognisable-names list, but he isn’t there for the all-out win and has opted to use the six stages to test his Hyundai i20 AP4 car for up-coming events.
Paddon has not driven a rally car competitively since September 2019 and last drove a blind rally — without pace notes — 15 years ago. He has dispensation from the Eastern Southland Car Club’s (ESCC) organising committee to do a one-pass recce before the event, to write some basic notes with up-and-coming co-driver Samantha Gray.
They will run between the zero car and the first competitor and will not be eligible for overall results.
Paddon and Gray see the Catlins event as an opportunity to get back in the groove before September’s Ashley Forest Rallysprint and the Stadium Finance Spring Rally in South Canterbury.
‘‘It’s not about pushing or going hard. It’s achance to support the event and put on a bit of a show for everyone,’’ Paddon said.
For Graves, who cut his teeth rallying without detailed instructions, the blind nature of the Catlins Rally is part of what draws him back every year.
‘‘I like the idea of the drive what-you-see approach,’’ he said of the event where only major navigational instructions and cautions are included in the route book.
Then, as is always the case, it’s back to the glorious roads.
‘‘There’s a bit of everything. A bit of tight and twisty, a bit of forestry, a bit of variety that keeps everyone on their toes,’’ Graves said.
Chairman and secretary of the rally committee Roger Laird agreed with the description, noting that ‘‘some bits that are very much like Rally Otago and there’s others that are second and third gear, like the old-time rallying I grew up with’’.
The rally’s other huge drawcard is its compact nature. The 153km event starts and finishes in Owaka and both service sessions are also held in the township. It cuts down logistics for teams and ‘‘definitely helps out stress levels’’, Laird said.
‘‘Teams can even self-service.’’
The hospitality the region is renowned for has also played a role in the rally’s longevity. Both Graves and Paddon referenced the special feel the club event has, with strong camaraderie among the competitors, mixed with a supportive community, giving it that rally X-factor.
Despite its glowing reputation, it was with some nerves that the ESCC last month decided to go ahead with the Catlins event.
‘‘We weren’t too sure what the Covid thing would do to entries,’’ Laird said.
They needn’t have worried, as entries rolled in thick and fast.
Ben Hunt, of Auckland, will leave his 2019 New Zealand Rally Championship-winning (NZRC) Subaru WRX STI at home and has opted to run a leased Jeff Judd Subaru Impreza H6 car instead. A six-cylinder, non-turbocharged car, it is ‘‘between a 2WD car and a 4WD’’, and has its own Subaru H6 class that has five other entries it it.
Hunt competed in a similar car at the 2016 Catlins Rally and has been looking for an opportunity to head South since.
‘‘The roads and the views are amazing. You are running right along the Catlins coast. The Eastern Southland Car Club is a really active club and Roger Laird runs some fantastic events,’’ Hunt said.
Other North Islanders making the pilgrimage to the Mainland include Kingsley Jones, of Papakura, who was fourth in last year’s NZRC. His Catlins debut will be in a Mk2 Ford Escort.
Former top Kiwi driver Marty Roestenburg, of Auckland, also joins Jones and has switched out the fire-breathing 4WDs of his earlier illustrious hill climbing and international driving career for a more sedate 1300cc Toyota Starlet. He does, however, have one claim to outright speed, as his entry was the first to be received by the organisers.
‘‘We won’t be fastest on the road in the Starlet, so we had to be the fastest somewhere,’’ Roestenburg said, with a laugh.
‘‘It is in such awonderful part of the country and I have really missed rallying, so what better excuse do you need?’’
The Starlet, owned by codriver Pat Norris, is the same car that they drove to a New Zealand Rally title in 1988 and sixth overall in the Rally New Zealand that year.
‘‘After driving more powerful cars, such as Evos, people ask what it is like going back to the Starlet, but I don’t see it as going back. It is more about going full circle. The car has neat handling, although the straights are longer and the hills steeper than in an Evo,’’ he said.
‘‘The aim is to finish the event and not bang us or the car up. We are not coming to win trophies or break records. It is all about having fun,’’ Roestenburg said, summing up one of the main reasons drivers love rallying.
The Catlins Rally begins at 10am on Saturday outside Owaka Motors and will conclude back in Owaka at 3.40pm. Spectator maps will be available on the ESCC’s website.
- Catherine Pattison
Photo: Euan Cameron Photography
