Down but not finished

By Gary Caffell

The bad luck which has dogged Masterton couple Richard and Sara Mason throughout the 2013 New Zealand Rally Championship continued during the fourth round Rally of Canterbury over the weekend.

The Masons looked to have first placing in the bag when they went into the final stage but with just a few kilometres to cover a puncture followed by a broken wheel caused them to lose so much time they dropped back to 10th overall.

Richard Mason has "absolutely no idea" of how the puncture occurred.

"I didn't run off the road or feel a bump or anything unusual, it was right out of the blue," Mason told the Times-Age yesterday. "We certainly weren't doing anything silly, there was no need to."

Mason said his Subaru STI had been going like clockwork before disaster struck.

"We were really happy with the way things were going, the pace was just where we wanted it and the car felt really good. It was a thoroughly enjoyable drive until those last few ks."

The "huge frustration" felt by the Masons at their latest misfortune is easy to understand.

In the opening round of the NZRC, the Rally of Otago, they lost a vital two minutes through experiencing two punctures on the first day. A powerful second day assault saw them sitting in second place at the rally's end behind only Geraldine's Hayden Paddon.

Then came the Rally of Whangarei. There, too, there were first day hassles with the steering wheel virtually coming off when travelling at a speed of around 100kph.

Then the left front wheel bearing collapsed.

Here, too, however, the Masterton duo demonstrated their resilience, fighting back on the second day to again place second behind the flying Paddon.

The Daybreaker Rally of Manawatu looked to be all over bar the shouting when the Masons were 2mins ahead of their nearest rival with just 4km to go on the final special stage.

But then the lever of their gearbox jammed when they were travelling between 130kph and 140kph and they were forced to grind to a halt.

This time the dreaded DNF (did not finish) was listed against their names.

There are now just two rounds of the NZRC to go, the Possum Bourne Memorial Rally at Pukekohe starting on September 7 and our very own Rally of Wairarapa starting on October 5, and while the chances of the Masons making it three national titles on end have clearly been dented by their extraordinary run of bad luck, Richard Mason certainly isn't about to give up.

With 66 points they are in fourth place behind Ben Hunt (Nelson) 89, Paddon 88 and Rally of Canterbury winner Chris West (Timaru) 77 but with the rules dictating that the drivers can drop their poorest result from the first five rounds and must include their result from the Wairarapa rally, there is still a glimmer of hope that a late charge could see them challenging for the title again.

"We'd like to go into the Wairarapa rally with even a sniff of another title ... I reckon that would make things very interesting," Richard Mason said.