Heavy rain test for organisers

Yesterday's heavy rain and a serious accident on State Highway 1 caused a major headache for Rally of Whangarei organisers.
After a perfect day  on Saturday, where stage records fell and there were good spectator numbers, Sunday brought  high winds and at times torrential rain that saw only the most fanatical rally fan on the roadside.
The accident caused road closures, detours and delays for competitors, Rally New Zealand's Paul Mallard said.
"Unfortunately, there were some diversions but we coped with that and no one got lost," he said.
"Between 10am and 1am  it got a little hectic when we had to change the roads that the rally cars used and then we moved the finish, and it was a lot of work pulling all that together," he said.
Organisers decided to pull the pin and abandoned the normal ceremonial finish and prizegiving at the Town Basin and redesigned a storage shed off Port Rd into a finish venue.

 "Our team is pretty experienced and everyone jumped in to help."

 Mallard said the effort  was worth it to see Hayden Paddon step up to celebrate his win.
"He was just so dominant and I think everyone who got the chance saw  someone who's going on to greater things."
 Peter Thorley