MOTORSPORT - Time penalty pings Ogden

Brendan Oakden fell just short of a podium finish this year at the Rally of the Far North after a 30-second penalty imposed on him for exceeding his car-servicing time limit.
Unfortunately for the Whangarei driver, what should have been a routine brake-bleeding went awry when a brake-cylinder activation rod became bent and needed replacing.
Repairs went three minutes over the time allotted to the crew and the team incurred the penalty which pushed Oakden down the order two places into a credible fifth place in the national event.
"I was pretty gutted because we were so close to getting third and it was really only because the service had been shortened from 45 minutes to 30 - the officials needing to make up some time lost with the delay of stage four," Oakden said.
"But as they say - that's motorsport and I guess everybody had their own stories to tell. I was still the highest placed Northlander and I think that's the highest placing we've had for a while," he said.
Oakden sat inside the top 10 all day and, other than the brake system damage, had a smooth day until when his limited supply of tyres began to reach the end of their usefulness.
"We only had budgeted enough for the tyres we had and towards the end of the day we were swapping them over and putting on some well used ones. Of course, that's when it started raining and in the last couple of stages I was just trying to hang on until the end," he said.
Even though he took the pre-96 class win, without the 30 second penalty Oakden would have leap-frogged over third and fourth placed David Wright and Glen Rosser and be left sitting just less than two minutes behind second placed Brent Taylor and two-and-a-half-minutes behind overall winner Kingsley Jones in a more modern Mitsubishi than Oakden's 1993 Subaru WRX.
Another extremely impressive drive by a Northlander came from Scott Ogle who sat behind Oakden all day within the top 10.
His sixth place at the end of the rally was made more astonishing by the fact that Ogle was competing in a two-wheel drive Nissan Pulsar against a mostly four-wheel drive field of rally cars.
Ogle was a very strong contender for the 2WD win at the rally but was beaten by a fractionally faster drive by David Wright, also in a Pulsar, who finished the day in third, a mere 41 seconds quicker than Ogle after eight special stages.
Last year's quickest Northlander John Tee struggled a little this time around but still managed a top result, as third Northlander home in 12th place overall.
Carl Adnitt, two places behind him, headed home Doug Adnitt and Rob Searle, who were 22nd and 23rd respectively, with Searle finishing off the rally with third gear only.
Clubman's Rally of Whangarei winner Andrew Phillips had a terrible crash in the morning with his Subaru rolling off the road and down a bank causing extensive damage to the car.
There was no serious injury to either driver or co-driver.
The weather held out until near the end of the day when the drivers were hampered with some heavy rainfalls on the last two special stages.
It was a successful day with a good turnout of spectators around the course.