Day 2 sorted Rally Wairarapa winners and losers

After two days, 12 competitive stages and 240km of gravel, the Racetech Rally Wairarapa has proven to be a real test of human and machine. After only a handful of retirements on Day 1, it was the challenge of two 40km stages that sorted the winners from the losers on Day 2.
The ultimate result is that once again Richard Mason is the toast of Masterton. Driving his Subaru Impreza hard all day he managed to stay well ahead of Chris West and Sam Murray, who made up the Subaru trifecta on the podium.
Leading up to the event Mason had been keen to retain his title on his home event, and he is delighted to have achieved his goal. The second day saw West tapping the banks as he tried to stay in touch with Mason. Murray finally had his car sorted after previous handling problems, and this led to his first National Championship podium of the season.
Of the regional competitors it was Lewis Scott in his Evo 6 who pulled well ahead of the rest. Finishing 7th overall, he showed he is still a top competitor. The next best was Grant Blackberry in his Evo 5, almost 5 minutes down on Scott. This was still a very pleasing result for him as he was 2 minutes 45 in front of Struan Robertson driving his Evo 3 to 3rd in the regional series.
Class E for pre '92 4wd cars was a battle for survival as Day 1 front runners Hugh Spence and Peter Clendon both struck problems. This left some new names to come through to the class podium. Nigel Potter, driving his Nissan Pulsar GTiR, was back in 25th overall but still took the class win. He was followed by Logan Taylor in his Mitsi GSR some 7 minutes back, while Simon Bell in his Legacy took 3rd in class.
Again the attrition rate in Class C had a big impact on the results, although Finlay Wallis continued his winning form from Day 1 to win the class in his RX7. However both Chris Steele and Roger Brader dropped out and allowed Paul Tulloch in his Toyota MR2 to claim the second spot one and a half minutes back. Third went to a surprised Allan Cant in his Lancer being well back on all of the others.
Class B is always a tight battle of the 1600cc machines. Aaron Cook had been 5th after Day 1, but with others striking problems and his consistently fast driving he leap-frogged the lot. Day 1 leader Paul Black lost 2 minutes in the 44km long Stage 10 and that bumped him back to second, only 1:38 off Cook. Thomas Good also had problems in Stages 7 & 8 with a broken axle, plus with his 3 minutes in penalties he went back to 3rd.
Cy Guest continued his winning way as he comfortably beat Mike Beauchamp for the Class A trophy.