Carl Davies is hoping for a change in luck at his home event at Rally Coromandel this weekend.
The Waihi driver hit the ground running in 2017 with a brand new Toyota AP4 car and was expecting big things but a string of terrible luck - away from the eventsthemselves - has plagued his season to date.
"It is a new car so we knew we were going to have one of those years but we have had some bad luck," a philosophical Davies told The Herald.
"It started when we went to the first event in Otago and we stopped at the bridge in Blenheim and a truck smacked up the back of us and did a fair bit of damage to the brand new rally car.
"We got it fixed down there and had a few engine troubles.
"Whangarei didn't go to plan - just teething issues.
"Christchurch was a disaster - the van shit itself on the Desert Road. We could have got up and kept going because Tracey and I were already down there - we had come down the day before. But Dave's mum died that night, the guy who looks after the car and built it for us."
Davies worked out a few of those teething issues since Rally Canterbury and entered a small event a fortnight ago to get some much-needed kilometres under his and the car's belt.
"We took it to a little rally sprint up in Warkworth a couple of weeks ago and a bloody fuel rail broke so we had a fire.
"We fixed that up and did 100km at Tect Park [this week] so hopefully we are ready to go this weekend."
Davies spent some time with World Rally Championship star Hayden Paddon this week, even letting the Hyundai factory driver have a little blast behind the wheel.
The self-confessed rally fan is just hoping to have some fun at Rally Coromandel this weekend.
