Service Park, Town Basin -------Driver's waka challenge -------Driver's waka challenge 2
By stroke of luck I discovered that my friend Kim Batley (who organises the media centre for Rally NZ) was involved with the media side of things for the Rally of Whangarei. In fact, many of the people who are involved with Rally NZ are also the brains and brawn behind the second international rally event. This development changed my event from being something I would just do to get more experience and write some things for Meiersport to an awesome addition to my portfolio and a great place to gain more contacts.
This event in particular was special for many reasons.
-Asia Pacific Rally Championship Round-New Zealand Rally Championship Round
-Pirelli Star Driver competitionThe latter of the three has actually proved pivotal for me in terms of where I'm going with my rally journalism.
So enough of that, I'll explain what happened.
Thursday 5th June
I was up early to be picked up by Kim, we made our way up the country without too much trouble-luckily avoiding the worst of the Auckland traffic. We were lucky enough also to by very much fate-of-chance, find the drivers and co-drivers on their reconnaissance run in pretty much the middle of nowhere. All sorts of cars can be used for recce cars, utes even. Andre Meier and his co-driver Jason Farmer had the trusty Rangey. We said hi to Andre and then continued on our way to Whangarei and Rally HQ.
Kim and I spent the day helping set up the media centre. Lunch was spent with Chris Carr, Lance Hastie and Kim. Lance had just returned to New Zealand after covering the Nurburgring 24 hour endurance race in Germany as well as stopping over in Greece for WRC round Rally Acropolis. Some very interesting comments were brought up about the comparison between Rally Acropolis and Rally NZ. I found out that New Zealand basically has to fight every year to keep the WRC coming because the FIA will do anything to drop the event, but, because we are so well run, they cannot do that. They have even gone so far as to change rules prior to Rally NZ to see if NZ will slip up. Rally New Zealand is consistently one of the top run WRC events in the world. Rally Acropolis in comparison was, according to Lance, very poorly run.
We finished out the day with dinner at an interesting place called the Killer Prawn, serving of course, mainly seafood meals. This was with Lance, Kim, Kate Gordon (Press Officer for the event) and Jeff Smith. Due to my running around doing media things and the different agenda run by the teams, my original plan of staying with the Meiersport team was put back for one night and I bunked in with Kim at the Kings gate.
Friday 6th June
Officially shakedown, pre-event press conferences and ceremonial start.
For breakfast Kim and I by chance found Kirsty Nelson and we had coffee with her. The morning was then spent perfecting the set-up for the pre-event press conferences. During the morning, the drivers were out on shakedown finalising their driving set-ups in their cars and readying themselves for the weekend of rallying.
Everyone then sort of converged together in the early afternoon for a bit of a waka race. The Kiwi junior drivers vs the Kiwi senior drivers vs the International drivers. Very entertaining, also including some egg throwing... Kiwi Seniors won two out of three races and the Kiwi Juniors were given stick for it for the rest of the event.
Kim and I had to round up the young drivers to remind them about the Pirelli Star Driver press conference and also find the APRC top three. After some small debate over what was required for driver wear it all worked out well. When we found Cody Crocker and explained the attire situation he replied... "We'll surprise you. How does that sound?"
The pre-event press conferences ran without a hitch. The turnout was great and the drivers responded well. It was awesome to see all the young'ns up in front of everyone for the press conference, they are of course where rallying is headed. It was probably quite an experience for some of them too, as they wouldn't have done anything like that before. I know it was this way for Andre, he was a bit nervous, but he did well. Afterwards, I said to him "So this is what I do at a rally..." in response to when I went with the team the first time to a rally - Taranaki Rally.
Then Kim and I made our way down to the Ceremonial Start, we wandered around and talked to a few of the drivers. Afterwards, I jumped into Hamish's van and finally made it to my accommodation..
The access to information in the media centre always seems to amaze me. With everyone in the same place and the technology available these days to keep in touch with those out in the field, we know basically straight away when something has happened to one of the crews, and then literally the time it takes to run a tape or memory card in from out in the stage is how long it takes to get video or images of the 'incident'. The example of this for the Rally of Whangarei was Richard Mason's roll on Stage Two of the event; We found out pretty much straight away and then by early afternoon the Volt TV (APRC TV) guys had the tapes and were re-playing the in-car footage to anyone in the media room that wanted a look.
The tape itself was pretty good really...
RM - "You alright? - Hold on -"
SM - "I am!"
RM - "I'm going all the way..."
*Car back on wheels after rolling twice...*
RM - "Right?"
SM - "Yeah"
*Gone...*
They rolled near the end of the stage and still managed a seventh fastest time. But later inspection found a cracked roll cage and that was the end of their rally.
For the last service of the day Lance and I interviewed the APRC drivers and then I stayed for a little bit to see some of the NZ drivers come in.
During day one the clubmans had a few dramas. Anton took out a concrete power pole with Dave's side of the car. The literally took it clean off. Lindsay had some trouble with power in his car and my parents were looking to get it back up and running for the second day.
I also met Eric Thompson from the NZ Herald on the first day of competition. He recognised me from Rally NZ last year and was interested in what I do and what I am looking to achieve and things. So it was good for me to gain another contact that could come in handy in the future. It just shows that even volunteering and just being at events can help you get noticed, every little bit counts.
Sunday 8th June
Again I was forced to get up ridiculously early to catch a 20 minute ride into Rally HQ with the team. Day Two went about in a similar way to Day One for the most part, up until the early afternoon. As the drivers came in to the final service after the last stage that is when it all started to happen for me..
I interviewed all the Asia Pacific Rally Championship drivers by myself for the final service, and it really amazed me the way that the drivers still recognised me even though I wasn't with Lance and they still realised that they needed to talk to me. It's a real confidence boost to be able to do that sort of thing on my own and just an awesome experience. My parents were standing with the public outside of the fenced off media interviewing area, and I think that it was good for them as well, to be able to see what I do.
It was then a bit of a mighty rush. I was back upstairs to transcribe the driver's quotes and managed to do it in only about 20 minutes, even with the rather large quotes that the Australians always seem to give :) . Next thing on the agenda was going down to the finish ramp/podium and grabbing the top drivers (and co-drivers) as they came finished and escorting them up to the media centre for the end of event press conferences.
I had the pleasure of being able to chase Australians Cody Crocker and his co-driver Ben Atkinson, Dean Herridge and Chris Murphy, and finally Japanese driver Katsu Taguchi and his NZ co-driver Mark Stacey. I had a chat to all of them, Cody asked how my weekend had gone and Stace just wanted to know whether I was going to the after-party...
We had press conferences for the international, local and pirelli drivers (and co-drivers). Then the rest afternoon/evening was spent cleaning up and talking to a few different people. We were told that we had raised the bar with the running of the media room and the quality of the driver's quotes supplied, and in turn, raised the standards for the event and events like it. To be a part of that sort of achievement is absolutely wicked.
Kim and I then made our way back to the mighty Waikato. For the ride home I was absolutely buzzing about the weekend and I'm pretty sure I didn't stop talking for the whole 3-4 hours!
Kim and I spent the day helping set up the media centre. Lunch was spent with Chris Carr, Lance Hastie and Kim. Lance had just returned to New Zealand after covering the Nurburgring 24 hour endurance race in Germany as well as stopping over in Greece for WRC round Rally Acropolis. Some very interesting comments were brought up about the comparison between Rally Acropolis and Rally NZ. I found out that New Zealand basically has to fight every year to keep the WRC coming because the FIA will do anything to drop the event, but, because we are so well run, they cannot do that. They have even gone so far as to change rules prior to Rally NZ to see if NZ will slip up. Rally New Zealand is consistently one of the top run WRC events in the world. Rally Acropolis in comparison was, according to Lance, very poorly run.
We finished out the day with dinner at an interesting place called the Killer Prawn, serving of course, mainly seafood meals. This was with Lance, Kim, Kate Gordon (Press Officer for the event) and Jeff Smith. Due to my running around doing media things and the different agenda run by the teams, my original plan of staying with the Meiersport team was put back for one night and I bunked in with Kim at the Kings gate.
Friday 6th June
Officially shakedown, pre-event press conferences and ceremonial start.
For breakfast Kim and I by chance found Kirsty Nelson and we had coffee with her. The morning was then spent perfecting the set-up for the pre-event press conferences. During the morning, the drivers were out on shakedown finalising their driving set-ups in their cars and readying themselves for the weekend of rallying.
Everyone then sort of converged together in the early afternoon for a bit of a waka race. The Kiwi junior drivers vs the Kiwi senior drivers vs the International drivers. Very entertaining, also including some egg throwing... Kiwi Seniors won two out of three races and the Kiwi Juniors were given stick for it for the rest of the event.
Kim and I had to round up the young drivers to remind them about the Pirelli Star Driver press conference and also find the APRC top three. After some small debate over what was required for driver wear it all worked out well. When we found Cody Crocker and explained the attire situation he replied... "We'll surprise you. How does that sound?"
The pre-event press conferences ran without a hitch. The turnout was great and the drivers responded well. It was awesome to see all the young'ns up in front of everyone for the press conference, they are of course where rallying is headed. It was probably quite an experience for some of them too, as they wouldn't have done anything like that before. I know it was this way for Andre, he was a bit nervous, but he did well. Afterwards, I said to him "So this is what I do at a rally..." in response to when I went with the team the first time to a rally - Taranaki Rally.
Then Kim and I made our way down to the Ceremonial Start, we wandered around and talked to a few of the drivers. Afterwards, I jumped into Hamish's van and finally made it to my accommodation..
It doesn't sound like I did that much on this day, but hell, I was so tired.
Saturday 7th June
Was up super early to go in with the service crew. Turned up at the media centre at quarter past seven much to Lance's surprise. So with time to spare I made my way down to the clubmans servicing area and caught up with my parents! Had a good chat about different things I had found out over the first couple of days I'd been in Whangarei. Dad came up with an idea for publicity as I explained that it is very hard for RNZ to get the WRC drivers to really do anything when they're here because the teams decide to give the drivers time off in NZ before the rally. Dad thought they could maybe run them up the
Lunchtime saw the first service and this is where my real work began. Lance and I made our way down to the interviewing area and interviewed the APRC drivers together, I then went back up to the media centre to transcribe that part while Lance stayed to interview his NZRC drivers.
The access to information in the media centre always seems to amaze me. With everyone in the same place and the technology available these days to keep in touch with those out in the field, we know basically straight away when something has happened to one of the crews, and then literally the time it takes to run a tape or memory card in from out in the stage is how long it takes to get video or images of the 'incident'. The example of this for the Rally of Whangarei was Richard Mason's roll on Stage Two of the event; We found out pretty much straight away and then by early afternoon the Volt TV (APRC TV) guys had the tapes and were re-playing the in-car footage to anyone in the media room that wanted a look.
The tape itself was pretty good really...
RM - "You alright? - Hold on -"
SM - "I am!"
RM - "I'm going all the way..."
*Car back on wheels after rolling twice...*
RM - "Right?"
SM - "Yeah"
*Gone...*
They rolled near the end of the stage and still managed a seventh fastest time. But later inspection found a cracked roll cage and that was the end of their rally.
For the last service of the day Lance and I interviewed the APRC drivers and then I stayed for a little bit to see some of the NZ drivers come in.
During day one the clubmans had a few dramas. Anton took out a concrete power pole with Dave's side of the car. The literally took it clean off. Lindsay had some trouble with power in his car and my parents were looking to get it back up and running for the second day.
I also met Eric Thompson from the NZ Herald on the first day of competition. He recognised me from Rally NZ last year and was interested in what I do and what I am looking to achieve and things. So it was good for me to gain another contact that could come in handy in the future. It just shows that even volunteering and just being at events can help you get noticed, every little bit counts.
Sunday 8th June
Again I was forced to get up ridiculously early to catch a 20 minute ride into Rally HQ with the team. Day Two went about in a similar way to Day One for the most part, up until the early afternoon. As the drivers came in to the final service after the last stage that is when it all started to happen for me..
I interviewed all the Asia Pacific Rally Championship drivers by myself for the final service, and it really amazed me the way that the drivers still recognised me even though I wasn't with Lance and they still realised that they needed to talk to me. It's a real confidence boost to be able to do that sort of thing on my own and just an awesome experience. My parents were standing with the public outside of the fenced off media interviewing area, and I think that it was good for them as well, to be able to see what I do.
It was then a bit of a mighty rush. I was back upstairs to transcribe the driver's quotes and managed to do it in only about 20 minutes, even with the rather large quotes that the Australians always seem to give :) . Next thing on the agenda was going down to the finish ramp/podium and grabbing the top drivers (and co-drivers) as they came finished and escorting them up to the media centre for the end of event press conferences.
I had the pleasure of being able to chase Australians Cody Crocker and his co-driver Ben Atkinson, Dean Herridge and Chris Murphy, and finally Japanese driver Katsu Taguchi and his NZ co-driver Mark Stacey. I had a chat to all of them, Cody asked how my weekend had gone and Stace just wanted to know whether I was going to the after-party...
We had press conferences for the international, local and pirelli drivers (and co-drivers). Then the rest afternoon/evening was spent cleaning up and talking to a few different people. We were told that we had raised the bar with the running of the media room and the quality of the driver's quotes supplied, and in turn, raised the standards for the event and events like it. To be a part of that sort of achievement is absolutely wicked.
Kim and I then made our way back to the mighty Waikato. For the ride home I was absolutely buzzing about the weekend and I'm pretty sure I didn't stop talking for the whole 3-4 hours!
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