Former World Rally Championship racer Hayden Paddon launches his next big adventure this weekend at the inaugural Ben Nevis Station Golden 1200 Hillclimb.
Bemoaning the loss of the iconic Race to the Sky up through the Cardrona Valley in 2015, Paddon, in conjunction with the Ben Nevis high country station,decided last year to bring back a heart-in-the-mouth blast up a gravel road.
The event takes place today and will be held over a 6km chunk of Nevis Rd, a remote high-country route between Bannockburn and Kingston, with the Ben Nevis Station the service park and race start. The 1200 part of the event title is the change in altitude over the stretch of dirt road.
Last year, Paddon said: "When you look around the world, there's a real shortage of long gravel hill climbs and we think it is very viable to do. There's a lot of interest in seeing an event like this come back."
Prophetic words indeed. The response when entries were opened late last year was huge and resulted in Paddon increasing competitor numbers. Paddon will be competing himself but this is his first foray into event management.
"It's turned out to be a little bit bigger than I expected for the first year. It's been a hectic four months pulling everything together. People are positive and excited about it, which is great, but as it's our first time being an event organiser, we wanted to ease into it a bit more gradually.
"It won't be as polished as we'd like but it's a good start and hopefully people will be a bit patient."
Hayden Paddon has made his first foray into event management. Photo / Photosport
Paddon has enlisted the help of volunteers from the Eastern Southland Car Club, Queenstown Car Club and Central Otago Car Club to look after the official side of the event, including rules and regulations. Roger Laid will be Clerk of the Course, as he was involved with several editions of the Race to the Sky.
"We [Paddon Rallysport Group] looked after the promotion and management side of things, getting sponsors on board like Ben Nevis, Hyundai NZ, GoPro, Blue Wing Honda, Gravity and Repco," he said.
Paddon has attracted some of the top hillclimb and rally cars from around the country and also opened up the event for anyone to compete on anything. The concept is for the event to be an experience for drivers and spectators.
"We took some inspiration from the Race to the Sky and opened our event up to a wide range of vehicles. We've got motorbikes, super quads, off roaders, X-karts, specialised hill climb cars and rally cars."
Paddon lines up as the No 1 seed, meaning he'll run last in the reverse seeded running order.
"Our Hyundai i20 AP4 has a new spec engine which we tested successfully recently. With six specialist hillclimb cars at the front of the field, I'm expecting some close competition.
"I've got a really good team and handed the baton over to them. I told them they're on their own and I'll turn up and drive the car for 10 minutes and give it back. They're a good bunch of people and have done a good job with the car."
