MOTORSPORT - Winner still has job to do

Chris West raised the New Zealand flag at the Town Basin yesterday after he won the NAC Insurance Hella Rally of Whangarei in style.
West, driving his Ralliart Mitsubishi Evo 9, took a handy lead on the gravel roads south of Whangarei on Saturday and yesterday held his nerve to finish 17.5 seconds ahead of 2007 champion Hayden Paddon.
While thrilled with his first win in the New Zealand Rally Championship this year, the Christchurch driver saw the victory as a turning point for him and his Andrew Sims Mitsubishi team.
" ...we'll enjoy the spoils of the weekend but most importantly we've still got a job to do with the [New Zealand Rally] championship and there's still a long way to go with that," West said, adding that the difference between last year and this year was immense.
"We didn't do a lot here last year but there's been a lot of hard work and perseverance by everyone in the team and now it's paying off.
"The whole idea with our strategy was just to be consistent and set down some good times and find our rhythm with a nice, comfortable pace and that was the main focus and really we didn't put a foot wrong."
Paddon ended up winning the second day of the rally and West said he struggled with the road conditions in the middle of yesterday's three stages.
"It's a fantastic race and we always love coming here, we last won here in 2006 prior to it being a round of the APRC and there are always great roads to drive on," West said.
The Whangarei rally is a round of both the New Zealand series and the FIA Asia-Pacific Championship.
Australian Cody Crocker won the Asia-Pacific Rally to take the lead in the series he has won for the last two years and finished in third place in the overall rally behind West and Paddon.
Geraldine's Hayden Paddon may have finished the rally in second place, but he took over the lead in the New Zealand Rally Championship at its halfway point.
Paddon won the Rally of Whangarei last year - his first overall win at a national rally - and the 21-year-old always felt it was going to be a hard act to follow.
"There was always the feeling that because we won it last year, there was only one way to go and that was down and that's what happened, but all in all it was a pretty good weekend for us," he said.
Paddon said the wrong tyre selection had cost them time in the first sections of the rally.
"You live and learn and I've certainly got a lot to learn from the sport and I learned a lot from yesterday.
"Overall the conditions were a lot different to last year, but we were still reasonably quick and we won today, which is obviously good for our New Zealand Championship standing."
Paddon started the rally 29 points in arrears to Richard Mason, but the Wairarapa driver's luck evaporated a kilometre from the end of the second stage, when his BNT Subaru rolled heavily to put him out of contention.
Paddon now has a 23 point lead over West, with Mason a further nine points back in third.