MOTORSPORT - Pair net crucial points in Otago

Whangarei pairing Ben Jagger and co-driver Ben Hawkins stamped their mark in the Rally of New Zealand Championships when they secured the lead in their division at the weekend's Rally of Otago.
"It's been an awesome weekend - good to get points on the board," 19-year-old Jagger said after winning the two-wheel drive section in their Ford Fiesta.
"This is the class to watch this year. We've got the lead now, so it's just going to be a battle to the end to keep on top of it."
Second was defending classic category champion Rob Wylie and Paul Turner in their Nissan 240RS, with Nelson's Daniel Harris and Darryn Green were third in a Fiesta.
The Rally of Otago was the second of five rounds in the national championships, set among the deep south's forest tracks and gravel roads.
Conditions were ideal on Saturday, but overnight rain provided muddy tracks on the second day.
Northland's other competitors, Kingsley Thompson of Kerikeri and his co-driver Richard Ellis in an Mitsubishi Evolution X, did not complete the second day due to car damage.
Overall in the main championship division there was no stopping Geraldine's Hayden Paddon and his co-driver John Kennard, who won the Otago title with a 19.7 second lead after 255km and two days of duelling with early season leaders Richard Mason and co-driver Sara Mason.
The win left Paddon second behind Mason in the championship stakes, with Emma Gilmour in third.
Jagger's result saw him shoot to eighth place overall ahead of the June 6-7 NAC Insurance International Rally of Whangarei.
The two-day rally combines international, national and clubman's fields, with around 70 teams expected to tackle 280km of gravel special stages.
It is an official round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship, the NZ Rally Championship (NZRC) and the Top Half Rally Series for clubman's entrants.
Two of NZ's best rally drivers, Paddon and Gilmour, will add a new dimension to the Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) field of next month's rally.
Gilmour and Paddon have contested the Whangarei event for the last three years, but it's the first time the pair will be entered as APRC competitors.
Three-time APRC champion Australian Cody Cocker will be back to defend his title with the Singapore-based Motor Image Racing Team.
Gilmour is Crocker's new team-mate, both driving the latest model Subaru Impreza WRX rally cars which they tested recently in Malaysia.
Gilmour, 29, is the first female driver to contest the Asia Pacific series, which along with the Whangarei event has another six rallies in 2009 - New Caledonia, Queensland, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China.
The Dunedin driver is now based in Hamilton, and has 19-year-old Tarryn Cox, from Rotorua, as her co-driver. They will be the first all-female crew to compete in the event.
Current NZ rally champion Paddon won the International Rally of Whangarei in 2007 and finished a very strong second in 2008.