MOTOR RALLYING: Tyre woes near end can't deny Jagger shoot-out

Ben Jagger has won the points needed to secure entry into the Rising Stars Scholarship shoot-out  in November.
Jagger led his class into the final stage of the one-day Metalman Possum Bourne Memorial Rally in the Waikato on Saturday, but  his Seedforce Fiesta Group N 2WD rally car suffered a punctured tyre just  6km before the  end.
"We tried to keep going through to the end but, after awhile, we couldn't even get the car around the corners, and it was quite a windy stage," Jagger said.
Forced to pull over, Jagger and co-driver Ben Hawkins quickly replaced the damaged tyre but relinquished their lead to 21-year-old Ben Hunt.
Jagger said: "We managed to get the tyre changed in around one minute 50, but lost time to Ben (Hunt), who went on to beat us."
In their two-wheel-drive Fiesta,  Jagger and Hawkins dropped from 13th place overall, to finish a creditable 17th in the final stage of a rally contested by a  field of 76 rally cars from around the country.
Christchurch driver Chris West won the event with his first rally victory since his International Rally of Whangarei triumph in 2008.
Whangarei's Brendon Oakden also competed at the rally and finished an impressive 12th overall  and first in the pre-1996 class in his Subaru Impreza.
Oakden said: "It was a rally of two halves for us, the morning was very average, it was wet and slippery and we went out and nudged a bank and lost 30 seconds getting back on the road ... but later in the day the roads were smooth and fast and we put on some good times."
The result also sees him sitting in second-equal place in the Top Half Series,  before the final round which is the Rally of the North on October 10 - but he is faced with real opposition for the title from Taranaki's Neil Marshall, who finished fourth overall in the Waikato Rally.
"He's got a better car than me and we haven't beaten him yet in the series to date but we'll see what we can do," Oakden said.
Jagger won five of the eight stages in the Waikato rally, giving him the most points towards the Rising Stars scholarship and securing his entry into the final shoot-out, fulfilling his goal of the weekend.
"We now go to the shoot-out in November, where they take the two drivers with the most points and one wild card and we compete over the weekend against them for the award," Jagger said.
If successful, he and the team will receive $50,000 in funding towards next season's New Zealand Rally Championship,  in which they plan to campaign in the Group N 4WD class, the top echelon of rallying in New Zealand.
By securing the entry into November's shoot-out, Jagger has also succeeded in greatly easing the pressure on himself for the final round of the season at Rally Nelson in September.
With that weight lifted off him,  Jagger will now be able to focus on successfully completing at least one of the two legs of the two-day rally in order to claim the title.
At the moment, he holds a  strong lead, sitting on 259 points, with closest rival Hunt on 199. Defending  champion Patrick Malley   is next, on 189 points.
With a maximum of 74 points available at Rally Nelson, Jagger will need  to accrue a total of only 15 points over the two days to win the championship, should Hunt win both days.
With five cars in the race for the championship, Jagger could sew up the title by virtue of recording just one fifth-place finish, which would be worth 18 points to him.