Where I came from...

As I approach my 20th birthday (April 25th - I'm going skydiving!) and as we look down the calendar of another year, I'm feeling a little nostalgic. So, here is the story of how I came to be a rally nut/writer.

My father, Neill Byles was into rallying in the 80's: he got some good results in his class in a couple of the internationals in NZ and managed a spectacular crash at Mystery creek in ’83. He rolled the car multiple times if I remember correctly! Dad still had his Toyota Starlet in 1989 when Mum was pregnant with me, he took her for a spin and she has refused to have a ride ever since. But it was just the start for me.

I was merely six weeks old when my parents took me to my first international rally, and it really just kept going from there. I can remember being out at Maramarua Forest for the international rallies so many times during my ‘youth’, rally drivers of the time being Sainz, McRae, Mäkinen, Possum Bourne, Burns and Solberg. My Aunty and Uncle also have a farm on the famous Whaanga Coast with some pretty good vantage points – it’s still Dad’s spot of choice for the Sunday WRC stages, handy to grab some breaky too.
When I’d got to about 12 or 13, Dad had bought a rally car again. This was a mighty old Datsun Sunny. The cage was too old for the regulations, so that was ripped out, as was the passenger’s seat – since it wouldn’t be able to be used without the cage. After Dad had done a couple of club-events in it, he got me behind the wheel. I took part in my first club-event, an autocross, in April of ’03 at 13 years of age. I didn’t even know how to change gears!

I continued competing in club events all the way through high school. In 2004 I got my learner’s licence for driving on the road, the day after my 15th birthday. Not long after that I sat and got my National Rally licence.

With that I was able to co-drive for Dad and each year we do the Rally of Waitomo. By that time Dad had purchased another rally car, a Suzuki Baleno in pristine condition with less than 20,000 km on the clock.

Once I’d outgrown then 1300cc Datsun we sold it off and I was slowly allowed behind the wheel of the Baleno to compete.

I spent probably 90% of my time in high school whining to my parents that I wasn't competing enough. This was until about 6th form, I was 17 and waking up to the fact that Mum and Dad weren't going to toss a whole lot of money at rallying for me to 'get somewhere' with it. But, all was not lost. I was a smart kid. A year ahead in English and maths - I hated English, but I loved geography, I loved writing about things I knew.

Somewhere along the line we found the Wintec journalism one-year course and something clicked. I was then talked into the three year degree by tutor Charles Riddle somehow… It has been good though, enabling me to plan everything out more, but some kind of two year deal would have suited me better I believe, because I’m just itching to get into it properly.

Competing still happened over the first year of my degree, but not really that much. It didn’t bother me like it used to though, I was busy and a first year student.

The dream of being a rally journalist started off as being a pipe-dream, something not too think too much about in the short term - but to hopefully achieve in the future. Rally New Zealand 2007 changed that for good and I threw myself full-tilt into the scene again. My dream of being paid to follow the WRC looked to be possible, if I put in a lot of work to get there. From that event a year an a half ago, I have been on rally after rally, doing whatever media job I could pick up. I made my way over to Malaysia to report on and follow the kiwis and other young drivers in the Pirelli Star Driver competition, and was also involved in another NZ round of the WRC [‘08]. This, along with national rounds, club-mans rallies and the International Rally of Whangarei up north with the APRC.

Now I'm steering down the last year of my degree hoping that among the hectic rally year (with multiple overseas expeditions planned, details soon!) I will still manage to pass with good grades and become qualified. Because though my degree will really just be a line on my CV and the rally experience will be the deal clincher - I still need that line!

[Photographs: Top; '04 Waitomo News article, my first rally as co-driver. Middle; '04 Competing in the Datsun at a Hillclimb. Second-to-bottom; '07 at Rally NZ 2007. Bottom; '08 Food time, somewhere in Malaysia on recce.]