The opening round of the New Zealand Rally Championship (also the opening gambit of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship) takes to the roads up north for the International Rally of Whangarei on April 17-19.
Defending rally champion and five-time New Zealand national champion Richard Mason (and co-driver Sara Mason) have confirmed they will be pounding out the stages. However, there’s a chance they will struggle to contest any further rounds and have yet to confirm a full season.
It’s a sign of the times that the most successful domestic rally team in recent memory are struggling to get a naming sponsor on board for their 2015 rally campaign.
“We’ve been working on a naming sponsor for while but just couldn’t get it across the line,” said Richard Mason. “BNT have been a fantastic part of our team and success over the past nine years, but they told us last year they were scaling back and stepping aside.
They’re still involved but not at the same level as in the past.
“It’s a difficult time that’s for sure but there’s no point getting down in the mouth about it. We just have to do what we can to try and get it all back on track. We haven’t been able to get another major sponsor and it’s a bit frustrating really.
“We still have support from our minor sponsors, which is great. It’s not easy, and never has been easy out there to get sponsorship.”
Mason is looking at any and all options in the hope of putting a season-long package deal together for this year, especially as the driver line-up is looking one of the strongest in recent years. All the usual suspects have announced their respective intentions to go for a national title, with the added excitement of American Ken Block being back in town.
The Hoonigan Racing Division driver is returning to the NZRC in a Ford Fiesta HFHV and is no stranger to Kiwi rally roads, having completed a full season of the NZRC in 2007, followed by a number of appearances at WRC Rally NZ.
The Masons dominated the 2014 season with five wins from six starts to claim a record fifth national title and will campaign in the same Prodrive-built Subaru Impreza.
“We’re totally committed to racing in Whangarei and we have a few weeks to try and sort out some more sponsorship. The car is much the same as last year, but we have had to detune it a bit because of the new Rally New Zealand rules. Handling-wise it’ll be the same,” he said.
“We’ll be down around 50-odd horsepower, so I’ll have to push the engine a bit more than normal.
“It was great to put the Whangarei voodoo to bed last year but it wasn’t easy going. Although we won there last year I won’t be taking it easy. We had trouble with the centre diff on day one, and then we had brake issues on day two so we had to work hard at it.
“We’ll be going into the event with our eyes wide open to get a good start to the championship.”
Seven different manufacturers will be represented with four-wheel drive turbocharged rally cars from Subaru, Mitsubishi, Ford, Mazda, Suzuki, Peugeot, and the NZ-built Alex Kelsey creation.
One of the fastest female rally drivers in the world, Emma Gilmour (co-driver Tony Rawstorn), has her eyes on a championship victory in her four-wheel drive turbocharged Suzuki Swift.
Leading the charge of the new generation drivers are last year’s runners-up Ben Hunt (co-driver Tony Rawstorn) and reigning Junior Rally Champion David Holder.
