Motorsport: MP hopes election date success will strike again

United Future MP Paul Adams is after re-election.

September 17 will be a big day in the life of Paul Adams as he learns whether he is re-elected as a United Future MP.

He can only hope that there is a repeat of events exactly 25 years earlier when he finished first Kiwi driver in the last world championship rally round staged in the South Island.

It was an outstanding result. Four of those who finished ahead of him, Timo Salonen, Walter Rohrl, Hannu Mikkola and Bjorn Waldegard, won world driver's championships and the 1980 Motogard Rally of New Zealand was one of the toughest events of its kind.

It started in Nelson, wound its way down the West Coast to Hokitika and finished in Christchurch after an excursion to Hanmer Springs. The rally traversed 2181km with 1014km in 41 special stages. The winner, Salonen in a Datsun 160J, completed the special stages in 12 hours six minutes 57 seconds.

Compare that with this year's Rally New Zealand, which traversed 1128km with 356km in 20 special stages. Citroen driver Sebastien Loeb won the event in 3h 34m 51.6s.

Adams, who still competes in rallies when he can find the time, remembers the 1980 event vividly, because the Vauxhall Chevette he drove couldn't handle the numerous flooded fords the cars encountered.

"It was a very wet and slippery rally," he said. "One of the cars almost got washed away in a river and we had problems every time the water got too high on the car.

"I was driving the Chevette Pentti Airikkala had brought the previous year and it was a fabulous car, very quick and better than the Escorts going downhill.

"But it wouldn't go through water. Every time we went through a deep ford we stopped and had to dry out the plugs."

Adams was far from alone in his difficulties. Mercedes had entered three factory Mercedes-Benz 500s, which were totally unsuited to the twisting and slippery stages. It was a tribute to the driving skills of Mikkola and Waldegard that they steered the big V8s to third and fifth placings.

Airikkala, this time driving a Ford Escort, crashed out spectacularly in the closing stages and spent time in hospital with back injuries.

Salonen's Nissan finished almost three minutes ahead of Rohrl's Fiat Abarth 131, but Rohrl went on to win the world championship. Both won again in New Zealand, Rohrl in a Lancia in 1983 and Salonen in a Peugeot in 1985.

Of the 85 starters in the 1980 rally, 43 finished. Among them were Morrie Chandler, now chairman of Rally New Zealand, and Malcolm Stewart, still competing at this level.

The final round of this year's national championship will be staged at Nelson on September 9-10, using some of the world championship stages. Organisers have arranged a celebration of the 1980 rally, with some of the original drivers and cars involved.

Adams may be busy on election affairs at that time, though he says a rally might be a welcome diversion.