Crack Masterton driver Richard Mason was breaking new ground when he took out the Rally of Whangarei over the weekend.
Despite having won the New Zealand Rally Championship title a record-equalling four times (2005, 2006, 2011 and 2012), Mason and his co-driver, wife Sara, had never before tasted success in the Northland event with what he labelled "silly little things" all too often having an adverse effect on their overall performance ... and there were a couple of occasions when fate almost conspired against them this year as well.
The Masons were pushed all the way by several new challenges over the two days of the Whangarei rally held in dry, dusty and fast conditions in the north. Second for the weekend was the Canterbury brother-and-sister team of Matt and Nicole Summerfield, after a fast and consistent drive, and rounding out the podium in his first NZRC event was 19-year-old Te Aroha driver Lance Williams, with Crunch Bennett alongside.
The first round of the 2014 national rally title also witnessed the emergence of several new challengers for the title. The Masons seized the initial advantage on Saturday morning's opening loop of stages to take an early lead, however close behind in second was young Tauranga driver David Holder with Malcolm Peden. Holder, who is being mentored by New Zealand world rally championship driver Hayden Paddon, was making his debut in an ex-Paddon Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8, having graduated from the front-wheel-drive Fiesta class.
On Mason's heels all day, Holder took the lead on special stage 6 when Mason was forced to slow with major tyre wear issues, but the fairytale result was not to be, when his Mitsubishi developed a fuel leak. Roadside repairs enabled Holder and Peden to get the car back to service in Whangarei, but without the opportunity to refuel before the two short spectator stages at Pohe Island, they cruelly ran out of fuel surrendering their lead.
