Possum 'a victim of his skills'

The driver whose vehicle was in a crash with Possum Bourne says he is not to blame for the fatal accident.

Queenstown rally driver Mike Barltrop says Bourne was "a victim of his own skills" in the Good Friday accident on an access road in the Cardrona Valley.

Barltrop and co-driver Chris Ruane were in a convoy taking a "familiarisation run" of the Race to the Sky hill-climb course in his Jeep Grand Cherokee when he "went over a completely blind brow".

"We saw a car skidding under heavy braking coming toward us," he told the Queenstown newspaper Mountain Scene.

"We swerved - there was a very big drop to the left so we turned right into the bank to try and miss [Bourne].

"We both took evasive action, but unfortunately into the same bank.

"If it had been Grandma driving, she'd have slid right past us - it's as if Possum was a victim of his own skills."

Bourne died on April 30 after his life support system was withdrawn. Police are still investigating the crash. Bourne, Barltrop and Ruane were the only witnesses.

Bourne was also taking a run through the course, driving down the mountain but on an incline when the crash happened.

Barltrop can remember a "big impact".

"I could have been easily killed - the airbags definitely saved our lives, and it's just luck I had a very solid vehicle."

As his vehicle tipped over, Barltrop was thrown from his driver's seat and broke his leg.

He is "a bit fuzzy" on details before and after the crash but remembers the road was "reasonably wide". He was driving carefully, he said, and "we'd be lucky to have been doing 60km/h".

- NZPA