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
