Mason blitzes rally field

RICHARD MASON and co-driver Sara Randall headed to China yesterday with their tails held high after they blitzed the field in the Hawke's Bay Rally and took the lead in the championship with one round to go.
Scoring 64 points toward his championship chase, Mason now leads overall by 7 points from defending champion Chris West, with Dunedin's Emma Gilmour returning to 3rd position as a result of Mark Tapper crashing.
"It's been good," said Mason. "We're really happy." He and Randall left yesterday to drive a 2003 Subaru Impreza WRX ST1 in a round of the Chinese national rally championship.
They will drive for a tyre company team which has previously campaigned by Australians Cody Crocker and Ed Ordinsky and Subaru works driver Chris Atkinson.
Starting atop the championship on Saturday, Subaru's Chris West led the field in to the seven gravel stages, playing road sweeper through the fast and furious roads in the northern Hawke's Bay. However it was the continuing hot form of Mason who showed nothing but dust to take today's overall victory.
An 8am start from Wairoa, the weather played a big part in levelling the playing field for New Zealand's rally stars. Scattered high cloud burned away to reveal perfect road conditions, with the spring like weather adding to the atmosphere enjoyed by competitors and spectators.
While Mason started to stride ahead in the early stages of the event, the catch-up battle provided a tit-for-tat between Chris West (Subaru) and Mark Tapper (Mitsubishi).
Never more than 1.6s apart from each other, the tide turned in the penultimate stage when Tapper rolled his EVO 7 out of the event and championship contention.
While not letting West off the hook, his cooking pace through the stage carved a large slice out of Mason's lead, capped off with a last-ditch attack in the final 9.8km stage to finish the day 11.8s adrift of Mason for second overall.
Making it an all blue podium, Palmerston North's Sam Murray has recorded his best result for the season, his 2005 Impreza making the finish podium at Napier's McLean Park a Subaru 1-2-3.
"Westy did exactly as I expected he would do at the end and that's fine," Mason said
For West finishing second was just beginning of an even bigger battle at the championship finale at Nelson in September.
"The best thing out of the weekend is we are still in contention for the championship and we're really happy with the car ? it's fantastic. The miles make a difference; it just gets better and better," said West.
Turning around his season, Murray's third placing was a chance to show the true ability of the newest car in the championship lineup: "It's a different car now. We've got a new setup for the shocks," he explained. "I'm pretty confident there is still a good chunk of time in it. The car is heaps quicker; I just need to get the same sort of results every stage now and we'll be away."
Mixing up the all Subaru front, Mark Tapper's podium signals an end to his championship chase, explaining the incident that put his EVO 7 in to a roll with the finish in reach.
"It was a combination of sun strike when I came to a fork in the road, there were marks out wide from Westy and Mason and I followed a bit deeper, except I hit a hole and tipped it over," said Tapper.
Tapper commented there was more damage to his ego than the car.
That elevated Hawera's Glen to take the honours for Mitsubishi in another strong performance and get as close to the podium as the Subaru brigade would allow ? 4th. That was followed fellow Mitsubishi EVO 8 pilots Brett Martin and Dean Sumner.
The final round is to be held over the weekend of September 10-11 in Nelson, Randall's home turf.