Dominant Paddon wins again

The Rally of Whangarei turned it on again this weekend with Hayden Paddon's relentless skill on the area's roads again suggesting the man from Geraldine could be a player on the international stage.
It was his third Whangarei win in a row and his most complete victory.
The final winning margin over fellow Kiwi Emma Gilmour was 3 minutes and 55 seconds.
He won all but one of yesterday's eight stages in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 and in doing so collected maximum points in the Asia Pacific and New Zealand rally championships.
Paddon said this was his best win of the three at Whangarei.
"This one we did on our own from stage one. Some stages today I've pushed harder than I ever have before, and it all felt really comfortable and easy," he said.
Paddon, at just 23, showed he is the kind of driver that rally enthusiasts in New Zealand have been waiting for.
If he can handle competition in the World Rally Championship later this year in the Rally of Finland like he has this weekend, he may well make his mark on the rallying world.
With a healthy 1 minute, 10 second advantage over Gaurav Gill and Glenn Macneall after Saturday's stages, Paddon had no tangible threat on Sunday - particularly after Gill ran into problems with his gearbox after Special Stage 9 - but the young driver continued to set targets for himself and broke three stage records in the first four stages yesterday morning despite the deteriorating conditions.
Emma Gilmore capitalised on Gill's misfortune to move into second place, moving from sixth place overall into second over the course of the rally.
It was a very good effort for the Subaru Impreza WRX driver, who had a disastrous accident on the Waipu Caves stage in 2007. It was her first rally with Ben Atkinson as her co-driver but it didn't seem to slow her down.
"My approach was not to worry too much about what he [Paddon] was doing, and to keep a clear focus on securing [a New Zealand rally] championship placing that would give us the best possible haul of points.
"Hayden was a real class act out front; all that experience he is gaining on the WRC stage really shows," Gilmour said.
The battle for third place was a highlight for the competition with the result going down to the last few kilometres of the final stage. Australian Brendon Reeves, the first of the international drivers driving another Subaru, finished 27.8 seconds behind Gilmour - but only half a second in front of Proton driver Alister McRae and Bill Hayes.
The tight finish highlighted their day-long battle throughout Sunday's stages. Rotorua's Dean Sumner and Paul Fallon in another Mitsubishi finished another minute back, but it was enough to maintain their lead in the New Zealand Rally Championship by just two points over Gilmour.
Patrick Malley was sixth followed by Richard Mason in seventh, who was followed home by the first Northlander Kingsely Thompson and his co-driver Malcolm Peden - over seven minutes down on Paddon in eighth.
The overall winner now has two weeks to prepare for the next round of the APRC Rally of Japan before taking the hopes of many rally fans with him when he lines up for the Rally of Finland.