Whangarei driver Ben Jagger suffered a cruel twist of fate when on the last special stage of the final round of the New Zealand Rally Championship the engine in his Subaru gave in denying him his first podium finish of the season.
"We knew we were in trouble when the cockpit was filling with smoke earlier on and we were having to keep topping the oil up between stages. We were nursing it but the engine just gave up in the end," Jagger said.
Jagger and co-driver Ben Hawkins started in eighth place on Sunday morning after a fairly solid first day of the rally. They were climbing up through the field of national contenders stage by stage but were surprised to find they had reached third position when told by a TV crew.
"We knew we were doing some good times but it was a TV crew who told us we had moved up to third place when they came to interview us at the end of one of the stages," Jagger said.
A third place would have been the pair's first podium finish since moving up into the four-wheel drive category last year after winning the two-wheel drive national title in 2009.