Masons eye double

Richard Mason can expect some good-natured ribbing from wife Sara leading into the Rally of Gisborne on August 25-26.

Their win in the New Zealand Rally Championship section of the world rally championship round held in Auckland over last weekend guaranteed Sara Mason the national co-driver's title for 2012 for the third time but her husband still has a little work to do to clinch the national driver's crown for what would be the fourth occasion.

"I guess she (Sara) will be reminding me she's already completed her part of the bargain," Richard quipped yesterday. "I'm almost there but not quite, she's definitely got the bragging rights for a few weeks yet."

It would, however, take a huge effort from second-placed Emma Gilmour to replace Richard at the head of the points table.

Gisborne is her last chance to do so and she would have to take maximum points and Mason would need to be a non-finisher.

"The odds are pretty much in my favour but, hey, rallying is full of surprises so we are not counting our chickens," Richard said.

"We won't be holding anything back in Gisborne, we want to win there too."

Not surprisingly the Masons were rapt with their success in Auckland, more so because they battled a broken clutch over the first two days, a situation which forced them to be more conservative than they would like at the start of each stage, and also wary of sudden stops along the way.

"It definitely meant that we couldn't be quite as aggressive as we would normally be, we knew we only had to become stuck in a ditch and it could be all over bar the shouting," Richard said. "There was always that thought at the back of the mind."

Frustrating for the Masons was that the time lost through the clutch problem, estimated to be 10-15 seconds a stage, was all that stopped them from being the highest-placed Kiwis overall; one of their stated goals leading into the Auckland event. That honour went to Hayden Paddon but, all things being equal, the Masons would have headed him by 30 seconds or more.

The excellence of the Mason effort was not, however, lost on those watching the action with discussions already under way with two potential new sponsors for next season and a third in the pipeline.