Motor-sport from the inside - Sarah Byles Motor-sport

Rallying in Wine Country

2009-04-07T09:08:00.006+12:00

The first round of the NZRC kicked off with a bang, and I need a bit off kicking to get me to update this more regularly.

For this one I just mooched down to the sunny Hawkes Bay on my own accord (well, with the boyfriend) - asin no real particular assignment to stories or photos.

It's good to just get in the practice with the photography and be seen around at the rallies.

The Tomoana Warehousing Rally of Hawkes Bay included many of the usual suspects as well as a fair amount of newbies - which is brilliant to see with the world the way it is at the moment.

To cut a two-day rally short, former NZ champion Richard Mason with his wife riding shotgun again crossed the ramp first. Last year's champion Hayden Paddon took the silver and Emma Gilmour wasn't far behind for third.
Both Emma and Hayden look forward to busy seasons contesting the New Zealand Rally Championship and the Asia Pacific Rally Championship.
Two Evolution Xs lined up at the start of the rally as well as one as a 0 car - this was more than I thought there would be!

These cars had some interesting trouble when they came to the ford on SS8 that I was positioned at. Both Kingsley Thompson and Sloan Cox stopped after the water hazzard - Sloan had bent the sump guard right under the car as a result of water getting between the car and guard. Could it be something to do with ride hights in what I affectionately call the whale version evo? This one was surely beached.

Interestingly, there were no new-shaped Imprezas having an outing in the weekend.

Fiesta Sporting Trophy NZ is having a cracker turn-out this year. Five cars lined up for the first round, including last year's champion Patrick Malley who is also competing in the UK FST this year. Also returning was Ben Jagger, his Fiesta turning heads in a vibrant green. Ben Hunt joins the crew as winner of tier one of Rally NZ's Rising Stars program - the prize gives him a paid season in the NZRC in a Fiesta.

Malley was on fire over the weekend, in a speed way rather than the actual fire he had last weekend in at the Bulldog Rally in the UK - He pulled an impressive 7th overall, this with a cold and jetlag!

Overall Classification

Entry List

Photos (FB)

I believe this about sums up some of the big stories of the weekend and how the season is developing. I'm really looking forward to getting to know some of the new guys and watching how they get on.

Archival

2009-03-01T16:42:00.004+13:00

I'm in the process of playing around with the Blogger format to see if I can get the most out of it. You, the reader, want short page loads and the freshest juiciest news and posts - so I'm cutting the amount of posts accessible from the main page down to a minimum.

I shall also push myself to do all the things you're supposed to do with blogging, such as linking to old posts and tagging. Please, oh please, pull me up on it if I don't do it.

What I've learnt - Reflections from my first overseas international rally

(Post-Rally Malaysia)

First post

(Looking back - one year from the beginning)

Topical Comment - February Edition

2009-02-24T19:02:00.005+13:00

Must admit I've been rather slack over this sunny period - mainly because of the lack of formal motor-sport. So slack, even, that I had to re-sign into Blogger (:-o shock horror) because SOMEONE deleted my browsing history. Though luckily I have been heftily upping my web appearances elsewhere - Twitter and Facebook, as well as blog wanderings.

Things to comment on:

Pet Love: Nothing to do with pets, more to do with music and motoring. The BMW Series 1 advertising has hit NZ - in association with The Presets. The latter of which I adore quite much. Subsequently I have web wandered the topic and come across a free download of the remix used for the advert, topical blog comment on the partnership and associated 'hip' advertising pumped out by Beamer:
"So BMW wants to shill more cars to a market other than the baby boomers and The Presets just want to make something beautiful. How does this kind of marketing benefit either brand really? Call me cynical, but the Newshound can't help but feel that this 'partnership' is approximately one part sell-out and one part cash-in."
Quote: Marketingmag.com.au
Found here on 2 Speed, is another ingenious campaign also for Series 1 -

To go along with page numbering of course!

Compensating: Boy racers are again ravaging the city of Christchurch. I quite like what they do in the UK to solve this problem - CRUSH 'EM. The cars that is. Not the 'boys' - though I'm sure that would also adequately solve the problem too - there would no longer be any 'chavs' nor any crimes of poor-car-modifying-taste.
WRC: Is back and pumping, two rounds down - Seb continuing to dominate. It will be interesting to see whether the Ford boys can take a stand against it. Nine of the remaining 10 rounds are on the loose stuff - that traditionally favours the blue oval. Good to see Latvala doing what a 'number two' ought to at Rally Norway - bringing in third and securing the team points.
NZRC: Just over a month till the festivities kick off with Rally Hawke's Bay, some interesting contenders signing up in some different wheels! Keep your ears out and your eyes peeled.
I would love to talk about Juno Racing, but apparently I'm not allowed to - So I'll just put this inconspicuous link here and hint that more about the NZ outfit will be up here real soon.
Recess-ion: Though I wish it was just recess (yay, play lunch!), the global slump has been hitting oh-so-close-to-home over the last month. My heart goes out to all those motor-sport and motorites who have found themselves redundant - both in NZ and abroad.
Finally, WRC Australia is a go for me, but APRC conquests have been downsized considerably. The aim is to continue chugging along in NZ for this rally season.
Also, if you're not following me on Twitter, do it! It's the latest fad apparently. For me, it's a way to share things during tech time that hasn't been blocked by the network yet.

Photo: Being an idiot at the first Juno NZ race car appearance (Tasman Revival Series, Taupo Circut). Photo Credit: My leetle cellphone.

5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. 2009!

2009-01-21T11:46:00.005+13:00

So it's all looking a bit like this:

EVENTS [Edited: 12:34PM 27/01/09]

~~A number of APRC events (4-6), working on general media and team PR~~ - Currently in speed-bump area
WRC Australia - Haven't solidified a position yet, but will definately be going.
NZRC - To possibly take priority
Rally Waitomo Publicity Officer -Same as last year
England mission - November, once I've finished my degree - Pending

BLOG

We need a bit of a change around here and someone very helpful and on-to-it reiterated the whole 'image' thing for me. I admit that I often forget that I am a female in a man's world.
So! I will be looking at a re-design - bear with me.
New domain name - Prob motorsportfromtheinside.co.nz or maybe something simple
And I will be setting up a photoshoot for some proffessional piccys

[Edit:] I've hit a huge speedbump at this point, but I will be exploring a few options over the next little while to see what is going to happen internationally. As for this blog though - it will be full steam ahead - 150 Crest - Cap'n.

And also, if you're an awesome contact of mine, I want to put you on my Link Roll. Give me a holler - sarah.byles(@)hotmail.com

Where I came from...

2009-01-06T23:40:00.006+13:00

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.]

Looking to the future of rallying - Ramblings

2008-12-22T12:51:00.004+13:00

There's no denying that rallying at the top level is an expensive sport and a huge commitment for manufacturers. And the current economic situation has crunched down hard, forcing car companies to look at where they can tighten their spending. F1 was hit hard earlier this month when Honda pulled out and last week the WRC saw other Japanese manufacturers Suzuki and Subaru end their campaigns. It's been quite a miserable month for motor-sport workers and fans, but now is it going to get worse before it gets better? Will the FIA be able to organise themselves to save the top level of motor-sport?

For manufacturers, the bottom line of their involvement in any top-mid level motor-sport is to sell cars and their brand. Suzuki's withdrawal from the WRC comes as little to no shock to many, it was actually announced back during Rally New Zealand that they did not intend to continue into 2009 - and the problems they've had during the year with management changes and little promising results from the SX4 WRC don't help. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of point trying to get a new car up to speed on the eve of regulation changes (S2000).

Subaru on the other hand have had a long and celebrated involvement in the top level of rallying, dating back to 1989 - and I can't remember not seeing Subaru's out on the stages here in NZ. After the last few years Subaru was looking a little stale, but number two driver Chris Atkinson showed promise in the first few events of the year in the old 2007 Impreza with a string of podium places. Then a decision to bring out the new shaped Impreza ahead of time on the car-breaker Acropolis rally saw the bearing of fruits with a second place for Petter. It looked like a new leaf was showing for the Subaru World Rally Team - but disappointing late season results can't have helped in the decision of whether to keep the programme running.

FIA have been developing the new formula for WRC over the last couple of years and it seems that S2000 could be the solution. There is still much concern, though manufacturers such as Skoda, Proton, Fiat and Peugeot have jumped on the opportunity with both hands - will it be the same? Will the cars still bring out the same numbers of spectators and create the same amount of interest as the WRC? I think we'll be able to see the shape the WRC will take over the next year by looking at these cars coming up through their testing stages in championships such as the IRC and smaller regional competitions.

The main aim of the Super 2000 Specification is to reduce costs and make rallying at world level more accessible - beefing up competitor fields and making everything more interesting. The formula, though new, feels reminiscent of older rallying times when privateer drivers had just as good chance of winning a rally or championship as the contracted works drivers. More specifically the cars must be normally aspirated, share common gearboxes and drive-trains produced by an outside company, be based on an in production model of car (of which 2,500 units must have been produced in the last year), have front and rear McPherson suspension and have a maximum sale price of 168,000 Euros.

Formula One are making similar types of cost cutting changes in relation to their cars to try and open up the field and make racing more accessible. And also like the WRC, not all the kinks have been ironed out yet.

With all these future initiatives still in the works, S2000 not coming into effect until 2010, the 2009 season looks very quiet. The WRC looks to be a two horse race even more than ever. But there will be some interest to keep everything ticking over. The Adapta WRT are still looking to run a two car team, though possibly not a manufacturers team, after the withdrawal of Subaru and bring with it Norwegian driver Mads Ostberg. Citroen bring in 2008 shining junior Sebastien Ogier into their ranks after a stunning season and amazing debut on Wales Rally GB this year. Ford will no doubt be shuffling seats around in their second teams and the Stobart outfit looks to grow following it's 50th appearance in the WRC in Wales. Rumours are rife with talented drivers coming up through the ranks of the PWRC - and it seems the drama won't cease to continue.

I will admit that I did freak out quite a bit when the news of Subaru's withdrawal came through. I haven't been closely involved in rallying long enough to have seen the other times when the manufacturer involvement has dropped to only two teams and yet the series has still survived, though I have been reassured that it has happened and it will survive again. The reality is that, at the moment, there just isn't as much money available to throw around as there has been in the past. But, like Ford said when they re-confirmed their commitment to the WRC following the shock news from Subaru last week, they still find the WRC to be good value for money and essential for the marketing of their brand and specifically important to the sales of the Ford Focus.

At the end of the day the WRC is still cheaper to compete in than F1!

Step up kids!

2008-12-19T15:44:00.004+13:00

Rally Driver Development Programmes Launched in NZ

Cultivated by Rally NZ Org

Inspired by Pirelli backed Star Driver initiative and our NZ track racing superstars, Scott Dixon and Brendon Hartley, the Rally New Zealand organisation launched today a new scheme to cultivate our rally kids (>26yr) from 2WD to the world stage.

It will be certainly interesting to see how this develops over the next couple of years, and then also interesting to see if they can push drivers through this system and into WRC, APRC (or similar).

It's got me interested ;)

Subaru Withdraw from WRC

2008-12-18T08:29:00.005+13:00

If there was a time to be blogging about the WRC, then that time would most certainly be now. But I'm feeling a lot more at ease actually, after the utter panic that spread across the internet-rally-sphere since Subaru announced their withdrawal from the WRC at 10.30(ish)PM NZ time Tuesday.
Some key links:

Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson remain without 2009 drives at this stage, and the WRC division of Prodrive is to be 're-distributed' into the other sectors of the Prodrive opperation. I wish my friends at Subaru the best of luck and hope that we will meet again some time in the future.

Round Two, T1 Summer Series - Pukekohe

2008-11-12T18:06:00.005+13:00

I can't do it. So I'm cutting her loose. I attended the second round of the NZV8's and supporting classes in the weekend, just for the Sunday. And though I did learn how to track cars during the races, I still can't really find the 'thrill' in track racing.

Maybe it's the lack of the chase.

This was an idea I've thought up in the last day or so, whether while falling asleep or consciously so - I'm not sure. But I do know that it makes a little sense. There's no chase for information, the race is right there in front of you, and for the most part, you can see when someone goes off and who wins. It's all right in front of you. In rally, finding the information and stories is an adventure in itself. You've got to talk to people, search out lost cars, speculate - it rarely happens right in front of you. Gotta admit that I love the chase.

What's with the different atmosphere?

There has always been something about track racing that I haven't been able to put my finger on. That different atmosphere. The tense, testosterone filled bubble - that rallying seems to lack to a certain extent, despite similar levels of male participants. Geoff [Ridder] puts it down to the simple fact that they're all on the track at the same time [with track racing]. And it makes a lot of sense. On the track, there is that extra factor of having other cars around you, drivers often are in accidents that aren't their fault. Car damage, lost points, ruined weekends - that are nothing to do with driver, mechanical or weather faults, but simply because another car lost it and crashed into other cars. I've also gotta admit I'd be fairly hostile in that kind of atmosphere too.

Silly Season

2008-11-05T12:28:00.003+13:00

Ah the silly season. Is it bad that I'm absolutely relishing it this year?

Define: In motorsport, the silly season is when late in the current season the rumours start to fly about who is driving for who next season, who is being promoted/demoted, new teams come in and old ones fade out, announcements start to happen and gossip is absolutely rife.

Last year I was still somewhat new to the inside of the sport that has been a part of my life since day one, and so my silly season gossip was somewhat limited to what I could find on the net. But now, my contact list has increased exponentially - as has the amount of series I have a foot in.

Now, having your fingers in many different pies can be very stressful - as I have found out, but it seems to be bearing some kind of fruit. I'm swimming in gossip, piecing it together, and coming out with some interesting findings. I also think I need a new notebook.

But what to do with my wealth of knowledge? I'm unsure.

There isn't that much that you can do with it, except wait, make predictions, and see what happens. Any opinions?

I know I'm over my own metaphors! [Photo has no relevance to post :)]

Motivation

2008-10-23T20:33:00.004+13:00

There are a few specific things that I use for motivation. The sorts of things that when I think I can't handle the stress or think 'why the hell am I doing this? It's too hard' - I look at the thing or do something and can somehow pull myself back together or remember exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Anyway, this is both motivation and record keeping. I want to more than double the amount of swingers I have in the next year. Swingers are the identification things that you get for bigger and international events. - So I'll take another picture in a year!

This pinboard also has postcards from around the world and of course, the world map itself.

As my grandad says 'the world is your oyster' and I plan on taking full advantage of it.

What I've learnt - reflections from my first overseas international rally

2008-10-18T09:11:00.006+13:00

So what exactly did I learn from my first overseas rally? The following:

Always sort adapters before leaving. Also take a power board for multiple charging.

I need to go over to wherever a day or so early to get comfortable before launching into it.

Eye drops, sleeping pills, ear plugs and compression stockings are all needed for the plane.
Apparently I sound Australian? - Bill Hayes: "You sound like one of us" - Followed by other comments from both Australians AND New Zealanders that have slight Australian accents?
Took me a bit to get used to Mark Tapper's personality, but now I find it refreshing. - The WRC won't know what hit it next year!
I'm slightly infamous. Two words - Golf carts.
I almost died. Rifat Sungkar came ripping around the second to last corner on SS11, drove over a large concrete block on a culvert and missed me (I was standing just past the inside of the corner) by a metre, if that. No one else got remotely close on that corner. The aprc.tv guys have the footage - I'm getting a copy. > The photo I got - before dodging.

Malaysian road driving has limited rules. And is incredibly fun. Alan: "You're enjoying this aren't you? I can see the smirk on your face!"

Don't promise presents for people. Shopping is a pain in the ass. I was there to work for god's sake!
Wicked shirt one of the kiwi guys had: "Fuck the force" [FIA APRC logo] "Get some better work stories." - The joke is that NZ has an ad campaign trying to recruit new cops by saying 'get some better work stories' - For those that don't get it.
I think that infants and any screaming children should be illegal on planes. And also that male flight attendants are horrible - loud, thundering down the aisles and clumsy.
I will most definately be paying more for direct flights next time I go anywhere, and will possibly go on Emirates. Middle Eastern rich oil country fleet. Gotta be better than Brunei.

Photos: Top, Cusco car on SS 12. Beautiful lighting on the first stage on Day 2, Crocker and Atkinson with some Australian Army peeps, Saki San on the job! Me on the job interviewing Rifat.

Rally Malaysia Review

2008-10-16T16:21:00.003+13:00

Phew, home now and the work is piled about a mile high. Tech and motor-sport work is competing for my attention, and I know exactly which one I want to give my all! But unfortunately I still need to finish my degree work. One of my current projects is the event review for NZ Speedsport, so look out for that one in next month's issue - it'll be a keeper.

Here is my event review from the second day:

Tapper elevated to world rally scene

A few more dramas followed the carnage of Day One on the Ancom Malaysian Rally, but New Zealander Mark Tapper came through the second day unscathed to take the title of Pirelli Star Driver for the Asia Pacific region.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” commented Tapper, “the phone’s been ringing off the hook with calls from around the world.”

Not only did Tapper top the young drivers, but he also made the podium on the event overall – beating out more experienced APRC drivers to third place.

“It’s a added bonus to be on the podium again at an APRC event and to beat the regulars by such a large margin.”

After some tough times in the last few years, the twenty-seven year old has come out on top and will now move up onto the world stage.

“The biggest part for me is being able to re-pay the people who have backed me and had faith in me even when things have not gone so well.”

Day Two started off looking like it was going to be a fantastic fight between Tapper, Eli Evans and possibly even re-joining Hayden Paddon. But it was not to be.

Evans got off to a flying start, winning not only the stage for the Pirelli Star Driver points, but the stage overall as well. The second stage of the day is where everything went wrong for the young Australian.

“We had a good run in the morning and we were confident with our tyre choice but on Stage Ten it was a bit greasy under the trees and we slid wide into tree,” Evans said after the event, “credit to Mark [Tapper] and Jeff [Judd], their pace made us push harder and that’s where the mistake happened.”

Tapper had a relatively trouble free day and knew by the mid-point service that he just needed to finish the day to win the massive Pirelli Star Driver prize.

Fellow New Zealander Hayden Paddon came back to finish strongly after his crash on Day One. Paddon took two stage wins in the afternoon and traded off the others with Tapper.

“It’s been good when it’s dry and I’ve got a bit of confidence back. Pretty disappointing weekend all in all though.”

Rizal Sungkar had a better day but was still finding the humid conditions challenging.

“[It was] very tough, but we made it,” he said at the end of Stage 14.

A better day was had by Arjun Rao Aroor, but a bad tyre choice in the morning meant that he lost time on the first loop of stages. A change of tyre at service suited the mid-morning repeat.

Kirsty Nelson, Patrick Malley and James Russell rejoined to take a crack at the second day’s stages, whereas Gaurav Gill’s engine damage from the first day put him out completely.

A pace note mistake finished Malley’s rally for the second time when he went to fast over a crest near the end of Stage Nine.

“We jumped as we came over the crest, there was just no braking distance and we went into the bank. We did the intercooler and radiator – and broke the steering wheel, again!”

Nelson and Russell came through to finish the rally, gaining valuable experience in the challenging Malaysian conditions.

“It was much easier today,” Nelson said, “it didn’t rain and we didn’t have to shut the vent – which is what made me sick yesterday.”

A lost intercom on the last two stages proved tricky for Russell on the second run through the stages, but he found that he was still quicker.

“We’ve did the last two stages without any real notes, but I remembered the last [stage] well, so it wasn’t a problem. We’ve improved our times by over a minute compared to the last run [on these stages].”

But overall, a fantastic result for Mark Tapper from a very difficult weekend. This is the kind of stepping stone that the late Possum Bourne grabbed with both hands – as Mark now looks to follow in his footsteps to represent New Zealand in world rallying.

ENDS… Sarah Byles

And a Tapper special: (Same title, I know, was feeling lazy and tired)

Tapper elevated to world rally scene

New Zealander Mark Tapper steps up triumphant as the Asia Pacific Pirelli Star Driver winner after a challenging weekend at the Ancom Malaysian Rally.

Hayden Paddon’s early retirement meant a boxing match between Australian Eli Evans and Tapper on Day One and the start of Day Two – with each trading stage wins. But Evans’ retirement on the second stage of Day Two meant Tapper only had finish out the day with reasonable times to secure the title.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” commented Tapper after the finish, “the phone’s been ringing off the hook with calls from around the world.”

Not only did Tapper top the young drivers, but he also made the podium on the event overall – beating out more experienced APRC drivers to third place.

“It’s a added bonus to be on the podium again at an APRC event and to beat the regulars by such a large margin. Our Reece Jones Rallysport prepared Evolution Nine ran faultlessly all weekend – a great testament to Reece himself and his team.”

After some tough times in the last few years, the twenty-seven year old has come out on top and will now move up onto the world stage.

“The biggest part for me is being able to re-pay the people who have backed me and had faith in me even when things have not gone so well.”

This prize will catapult Tapper onto the world stage in the way that no-other single event can. He will now go onto compete in six WRC rounds in 2009 against the four winners from the other regional Star-Driver competitions. Full details about the Pirelli backed initiative are yet to be decided.

An assault on the world rallying scene like this is anything but cheap and the fully funded package put together by Pirelli is rumoured to be in excess of 500,000 Euros. This will take a lot of pressure off Tapper next year enabling him to focus on his driving.

A calculated approach and a relatively problem free weekend enabled Tapper to keep a level head and drive to match the tough Malaysian conditions.

“We chose to use the slippery wet conditions to our advantage and had the right car and tyres for the job, and feel that’s where we won the award.”

This is the kind of stepping stone that the late Possum Bourne grabbed with both hands – as Mark now looks to follow in his footsteps to represent New Zealand in world rallying.

ENDS… Sarah Byles

Now I very much believe that these releases were the main ingredients for some of the articles published back home. But I'd like to find out for sure. However, RallyBuzz have very kindly published my article on their blog here. And also, the work that I knew I would be doing before I went over for APRC TV is here and here.

Much partying happened Sunday night, stories of which you will have to see me personally, cause I'm not writing them here! All I can say is that I can't wait to see the photos from my disposable camera when they come back tomorrow.

On the way home I spent some time in Singapore (Monday) before flying out to Brunei for an overnight stop-over that night and then back to NZ on Tuesday night. Found that Kirsty Nelson and her crew were on my flight, so had people to talk to before the last flight home.

All I can say at the moment is that I'm so busy and this event has thrown my plans up in the air again! So many choices! APRC, WRC, NZRC, Summer Series, Rally Australia, what to choose! What to choose! [More photos up soon - when I get a bit more time]

Saturday - Rally Malaysia Day One

2008-10-12T03:47:00.003+13:00

Now, I told myself I would be an avid blogger during this trip - but have just not been able to find the time! Pics are Rifat on SS1, Eli taking out the tape on SS4 and Sumiyama with a flat on SS6 - My favourites out of some 300 odd photos that I took today (small amount compared to Alan).

Here is my official release from the day's action:

NZ RALLY CHAMPION’S HOPES DASHED; TAPPER IN FIGHT WITH AUSSIE ELI EVANS
Hayden Paddon’s Pirelli Star Driver title hopes may be over after a collision with a palm tree on Stage Three of the Ancom Malaysian Rally this morning. He looks to rejoin tomorrow with the Team Green crew working frantically on the car to make it possible.

Interestingly though, this has meant a two horse race between Australian Eli Evans and New Zealander Mark Tapper. Evans was strong out of the gate putting in top times on the first two stages, MRF driver Gaurav Gill took the third stage win and Tapper came out on top over the last stages of the day as Evans and Gill struck problems.

Gill retired at the end of Stage Four with a damaged engine, while Evans’ problems were minor in comparison. His Subaru limped back into service on just the rim of it’s left rear wheel – but had no major problems.

“We got a flat tyre… Pulled up to change it, and we had nothing to change it with! Bit embarrassing, we’ve got a rattle gun with no socket.”

Mark Tapper’s measured approach meant that he failed to take points on the first two stages but made up for it in the afternoon with mud tyres, as the others struggled.

“We had the perfect tyre for the conditions, they were something I’ve had stored away for the last four years waiting for the right time to use them and it came for me today.”

And, as predicted, the rains have come. Day one of the rally saw torrential tropical rain, making for interesting conditions for all of the Pirelli Star Driver entrants.

Conditions all over saw contestants fall short over the rally, the first being kiwi Brad Ayling with a crash not far into Stage One.

Stage Three was the longest and trickiest stage of the day, claiming Hayden Paddon and local Malaysian James Russell.

Russell hit a big rock pulled from the inside of the corner by the other cars, puncturing both tyres.

“We came flat-out over a brow and couldn’t avoid it. Tomorrow, we’ll try again. There’s nothing to lose now – so it’s flat out from the word go!”

Kirsty Nelson and Rizal Sungkar felt the full brunt of the conditions physically; Nelson being ill in the car during Stage Six and Sungkar passing out in the service park during Service D.

Indian Arjun Rao Aroor had some technical problems in the last few stages with the car running at high RPM – But made it back to the final service in one piece.

Rounding out the ten drivers is Patrick Malley who went into the day with the aim to keep the car on the road and stand back from the carnage - but became a part of it when he hit a bump on Stage Four and had the steering wheel break off in his hand.

As many say though, it is a game of two halves and potentially, anything could happen tomorrow on the remaining six stages of the rally.

ENDS… Sarah Byles

Rally Malaysia - Wed/Thur

2008-10-10T00:15:00.003+13:00

After a full 24 hours without sleep, two stop-overs, a long airport wait and some dodgy taxis - I have made it. Got into the hotel room at some 2am local time, about 6am NZ time.

Today has been recce for us around the countryside.

It is hard to describe... Mainly the whole area is full of these roads through the palm plantation. I don't think I'm grasping the full-ness of being here yet, but that could be the jet-lag. It's really surreal, but at the same time, we're not that far from home. What I mean is, the driving is the same, the road rules are the same, most local people (that I've talked to) speak enough English to get them by and wherever you travel with a rally - you see the same people!

So it's much like home for me, apart from the language, place and culture. Well, anyone that knows me, knows that home is where the motorsport is.

Photos: Cody Crocker - a master at work, AWAS (Caution!), Sudden downpour at the end of the day, Lights flying into Singapore, Hayden Paddon on Shakedown, MRF team car through the plantation, Me at the Auckland Airport before leaving, Brisbane - awesome weather, Children watching shakedown.

Taupo T1 Meet - Saturday

2008-10-04T21:29:00.010+13:00

Windy, windy Taupo.

Today I found myself down at the Taupo Motorsport Park for the first Tier One meet of the season (Tier One being NZV8's, Production, Formula Ford, Swift Sport Cup etc). For the season I'm looking at working with Sport Pro Media, Euan and Graeme, on media packages for teams and organisations.

More information on what I'm doing as it happens. Today though, I took a lot of photo's and got to play around with some different lenses that belong to Graeme.

Photographs: Top - "I got all my ducks in a row!" - Formula Ford. Commentator's Box, NZV8 Grid.
Below: NZV8 Race One.

[This is just a selection, if anyone is interested in any photographs from any meet or rally, send me an email.]
Also, more photos up on my Facebook from this meet.

Excerpt from Formula One Fanatic by Kroen Vergeer

2008-09-23T21:04:00.002+12:00

Nurburgring 1975. Niki Lauda has just broken the record by going round the Ring in under seven minutes. This is the old Ring: 22.8 kilometres, 89 left-handers, 85 right-handers. Lauda took 6 minutes and 58.6 seconds; average speed 196.383 km/h.When Lauda climbs out of his Ferrari, he is introduced to the writer Peter Handke.

'Have you been to a race before?' asks Lauda.

'Not at all, I don't even have my driver's licence,' answers Handke.

The driver shows the writer around the pits, explaining the special atmosphere of the circuit and telling him about his experiences and all the things that go with one of these races. Finally he asks:

'And what, do you think, is the source of this tremendous fascination for car racing?'

The writer clicks his pen. 'These people are all in search of a lost religion.'

Reading Around

2008-09-23T18:22:00.007+12:00

Expanding on my current Formula One focus, due to my degree work.

The book I've been reading today, Formula One Fanatic by Koen Vergeer, has amazed me. I wasn't expecting to be woken up again like I was last week when I started reading Murray Walker's Autobiography. So I guess it would be a good idea to discuss both!

First, Formula One Fanatic: (Review F1fanatic.co.uk -Ironically.)
While flicking through trying to come across discussions relevant to my assignment, I stumbled across some paragraphs that had incredible insight and thought behind them - even if the language is a little bit too descriptive. I was a little shocked to find the topic of women and sex in F1 covered, but delighted none-the-less.
Here is a different spin on the sport! Vergeer has thrown out there some topics that aren't always reported on, no matter how obvious they seem to be.

Commentator Murray Walker's Autobiography: Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken, I've found incredibly relevant to me in a parallel way. Walker spent many years at the top of his game, commentating on Formula One and becoming a well known and loved personality.
I just can't get over how relevant this book is to me and why the hell Dad didn't tell me to read the damn thing! Let's quickly look at a couple of things...

"Regardless of what else he did with his life, motor sport was Murray's passion from a young age and once he'd realised he wasn't good enough to compete at the top level, he threw himself into commentating with enthusiasm." - Review
Check. I realised I would never get to compete in rallying at a high level in about fifth or sixth form. Then when I stumbled across journalism while deciding what to do with my life - I knew it fit: Rally Journalist. Now there was something I could get to the top (WRC) with. It has been my utter passion ever since, this blog, my Facebook page, the contents of my house, everything backs this up!
Murray got into racing through his father's passion. (Not that this is uncommon, most motor-sport enthusiasts and professionals are born through family connections)
Check. Dad's a mechanic who rallied in the 80's, and, when I was 13 years old, he got back into it with the purchase of an old Datsun Sunny - which was passed to me and I began competing in club events not long before my 14th birthday.

Not only are there these two very obvious things, but the book is just so damn interesting! I find myself comparing and contrasting the insider information of Murray Walker's to my knowledge of the current WRC. Things like the availability of drivers, F1 being very cut-off now-a-days, drivers only available with prior appointment and hardly ever seen in public. Whereas here in NZ, it's not uncommon to see the WRC drivers out before and after Rally NZ and they are very accessible and easy to talk to.

More discoveries when I discover them!

Loving my new slogan:

Taking motor-sport, and flicking the thing sideways.

Things that make me giggle

2008-09-18T14:32:00.005+12:00

Youparklikeanasshole.com

Printable notices to leave on people's windscreens.

Passive-aggressive Notes

All manner of passive agressiveness

Today's useless web wanderings. Something along the lines of "I stay up late and don't do anything productive" - except that it is the middle of the day. Ah teaching recess, I ♥ you.

Mid-week Ramblings

2008-09-17T15:05:00.004+12:00

Nothing too spectacular has been happening in the last week or so, but there are a few things worth mentioning.

The aftermath from the piece on me in the Waikato Times has been quite amazing. Mum can't really believe it, it's been more than two weeks since it ran now and she's still getting people saying "I saw your daughter in the paper! Great article!"

This has been the best kind of publicity I've had to date. It's great in terms of getting people knowing who I am, what I'm into and what I'm trying to achieve.

It's also something that produces random comments, e.g. the team at my chiropractic clinic were all very excited because I had been in the paper.

Competed in the Teng Tools Dual Sprint at Taupo raceway in the weekend. I was upset about a few things from the event, but now that it's Wednesday I've decided not to dwell on it. We'll see where competing goes for the rest of the year and next now.

I'm using Formula One for study again! Last semester I used the popular and interesting brand of motor-sport for a study on the greening of the sport and the trickle down effect it creates. The current assignment is more of a research paper and I'm looking at the history of corporate sponsorship in F1.

I've sent off my 'expression of interest' form for Rally Australia. Bring on 2009.

Quite unrelated to motor-sport, but still thought-worthy, is the fact that I've been spending time at the snow this week and last. It's nice to have a sport or recreational activity that is completely unrelated to anything else I do, motor-sport included. It is also great in the fact that snowboarding is a 'single' sport, I don't need a whole team of people to do it-I can just go up the mountain and go at my own fast or slow pace depending on how the mood strikes me.

It also helps that we've had some of the nicest days of the season and the huge amount of snow that was dumped a month or so ago is still chill'n.

In the world of motor-sport:

We've reached the first aniversary of Colin McRae's death. RIP rally legend.
Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen has been scouting for WRC cars for next season and has recently spent time testing with Citroen in France.
Travis Pastrana has secured his third consecutive Rally America Championship. (-I'd love to meet this guy, really enthusiastic and charismatic in WRC Podcast interviews)
In F1 Sebastian Vettel and his team Toro Rosso scored an amazing first victory at the Italian Grand Prix. At 21 years old, Vettel is Formula 1's youngest Grand Prix winner.

Rally Australia 2009

2008-09-10T19:04:00.002+12:00

Rally Australia was confimed today (yesterday) - Finally - and will be based in NSW and run 3-6 September 2009.

Press Release CAMS

Official Rally Website

In the process of putting together some kind of CV to go over and do the media thing hopefully :)

Return ticket to Coolangatta ex Hamilton please!

Photo: 2006 Rally Australia winner, Mikko Hirvonen, when the rally was based in Perth.

Rally Malaysia

2008-09-08T08:45:00.003+12:00

Flights are booked and paid for, and I leave in exactly a month!
How insane is that?

I haven't been out of the country in something like eight years and a month before my trip everything is finalised. I feel a little weird, like it's not enough time to get truly excited.

It is certainly a busy month anyway.
This weekend coming I will be competing in the Teng Tools Dual Sprint at the Taupo track in Dad's Baleno. From that weekend onwards I have two weeks off tech, the last weekend of this will be the Rally of the Far North - if they get enough entries to run. Not sure what my involvement in that is though, I may not go. After that I'm back to tech after having hopefully done a lot of work to make up for the week that I'm going to miss while in Malaysia. The 3rd to 5th of October is the first Tier One Summer Series meet, to which I will be seeing if I will be getting my first proper paid team pr gig. And then two days after that, on the 8th of October, I leave for Singapore!

Oh and I have to catch up with the teams going over and get in touch with different publications to publish my content!

Footage of the fateful SS17 - RNZ

2008-09-04T10:26:00.002+12:00

Footage of the events that saw an almost certain Ford 1-2 fly out the window.

They don't call the Whaanga Coast the most scenic/the car breaker for nothing!

The Plug: RallyBuzz

Sunday, the last day :'(

2008-09-02T07:06:00.009+12:00

Well the last day (and a half - including the party) of the rally was an absolute doozy. I haven't been on such a roller coaster of highs and lows in a long time. From barely being able to contain tears as I watched Ford's 1-2 hopes disappear from the 'Repco eye in the sky' live helicopter feed as Jari-Matti threw his car into the bank and bounced off, to partying it up with Ford and Subaru teams and famous faces later on. It has been an incredible week, no-one can deny such. -Even my mate Duri that I took along to the after party, enjoyed herself, she found herself standing along with famous faces of rallying and not knowing who they were at all!

Interesting topic, that 'eye in the sky', even though we had it last year, because I haven't been to any other WRC events internationally, I didn't know that we were the only one to have such a thing. Speaking of other firsts, we were also the first to have live in-car footage streaming from kiwi Hayden Paddon's car on the famous Whaanga Coast stage on Sunday. And this seems to just cement the fact that we are one of the best events on the calendar! Woot!

So the agenda for Sunday in regards to what I did was pretty relaxed. I watched a lot of footage and the instantaneous awesomeness of the WRC computers with the splits and timing, which is much better than the wrc.com site timing. If you can picture that!

I actually even managed to take a couple of hundred picutres! Which was awesome because I'd missed out on Saturday/Friday with being too busy interviewing and transcribing. Hence why this blog post looks a little more colourful than the last one.

Now, I met some more people, including Paul Marinelli, who does the PR work for Repco and has an amazing portfolio of clients in both motorsport and other things. He's based in Australia. Paul helped Kim and I out with the main job for the day, escorting drivers/co-drivers from the Ceremonial Finish to the Press Room for the Post-event Press Conference. There was a little bit of drama with this job, as winner Sebastien Loeb, his co-driver Daniel Elena and his press officer refused to get into the van that would take them to the media centre, but Kim was on it - she followed them through the Citroen service area and made sure that they got upstairs. Kim said Sebastien was motioning to all the team with his kiwi trophy going 'peck, peck!', which is cute, but doesn't take away from the fact that the French refused to follow the plan already set in place.

After the press conference that was sort-of it for me! I didn't really know what to do with myself, talked to a few different people about up-coming things in the NZ motorsport scene and overseas. Then made my way home to get ready to go out! As Jette from Norway said earlier in the day, 'the rally party is the best part!' I met and re-met many people, Chris Atkinson: 'I met you last year!!' - Me, 'wow, I must have been really drunk, cause I don't remember that!'

It was really awesome, more people came out than last year - and though, someone said that it was only really Ford again, it was different people for me and there were a few Subaru people as well. Nice to see a lot of drivers and co-drivers out having a good time, even if their results were not the desired ones they'd hoped for over the weekend.

Also, for the reading pleasure, the article that Waikato Times reporter Kate Monahan wrote on volunteers in the rally. The article was full page in the Magazine section of the big Saturday paper for our area. The front of the section also had a full page photo also by Mark Taylor who took the photo of Tom and I, showing a really awesome bird's eye view of Petter Solberg's car in the service park. I'll see if I can find some kind of link...(Slideshow of his work from the rally) Anyway, here are the parts that I've scanned on. (Click to bring up big-for the article) + Link of online version that I just found..

Plus some other coverage of the rally of interest: (Not to do with me personally :) )

Stuff.co.nz/Waikato Times Loeb's impossible win - Drivers want changes (Matt Richens)

nzherald.co.nz/The New Zealand Herald Loeb wins Rally NZ - Loeb slams rules despite victory Resurgent Mason dominates local field Calm Frenchman pushes to limit to snatch WRC (Eric Thompson, Robert Lowe and NZPA)

This week's GPWeek has some great articles on the rally and the whole regulations and tactics issue as well as a piece on the accessibility of the WRC drivers: It's well worth getting the email updates and actually reading it, though I tend to only read the rally section, it also covers MotoGP and Formula 1.

That's it for me for the moment I think. If you're really keen, there is some really good coverage from our local news programmes on the rally, even if they get the place of Latvala's first win wrong... (SWEDEN DAMN IT) One, TV3 (1) (2). But there is heaps more out there! This is just what I could be bothered finding! Those in my class, you totally should have gotten involved, it's a lot bigger than you think.

Saturday, Day Two

2008-08-30T21:57:00.003+12:00

Now, my aim for today was to try and keep and even head and not get stressed about anything. This worked to a certain extent. Ah! Do you have any idea how hard it is to write about your day when there has been so much going on!

The volunteers article came out in our local paper today, I thought it was quite good, until I realised that I might get a bit of stick for one of my comments. But I think it will be mostly alright! I will scan this in at a later date I think.

Caught up with quite a few people in the morning, inc. the parentals.

Not too many problems with the morning service quotes. I did much of the field, from the PWRC all the way through to the first half a dozen or so of the Possum Bourne Memorial Rally field. It was quite funny because I found out that the time control that I was standing at for the first field, was not the one that the Possums would be going through at the appropriate time, found myself with four minutes to get to the Possum service park and time control and came up to Glen Smith and Brad Ayling panting from sprinting.

Before this, as part of my plan to stay un-stressed, I stood inside the time control shed where Daniel Vincent's (from Hamilton Car Club) timing crew were stationed, and just watched the madness of the WRC media unfold. It was nice.

So with all my fourty-something quotes to transcribe, it took something like two and a half hours from the first car into media interviewing area time control to when it was all done and ready to pass on to be uploaded etc.

In the afternoon I met Jette, who is from Norway and looks after the Auxiliary Media side of things for Rally Norway, a similar job to what Kim Raggett does with being in charge of our media room here. I mentioned to her that I'd been told I should go to Rally Norway next year and now I have another reason to go! She's given me some contacts and told me to tell them that I spoke to her while she was in NZ. I told Ole about her later on and then we found her and they had a chat in Norwegian while I stood there oblivious.... They told me that they were talking about things that the organisers could do for Rally Norway next year, like making it more of a show like New Zealand - With our historical car display and all the other interesting things inside the pavilion.

Hmm, I caught up with a whole lot of people I know, sort-of in passing during the day. The evening saw me down for some of the PWRC again before service for quotes. I gave up because it got dark and they all had surplus touring time coming into that time control and so they were all there at once, mixing around and it became hard for me to reckognise who went with which car. I got the main kiwi drivers that are competing in the PWRC, but missed Richard Mason (currently first kiwi) now that I think about it.

I then transcribed my driver's quotes and straight after was handed the end of day press conference to transcribe as well. I forgot how draining it is to do so much transcription. Even writing this is a mission because my brain is so fried.

In the actual competition things, the top of the field were playing silly buggers again with team tactics. Loeb spent the day catching Mikko with steadily huge chunks taken out of his advantage. he'd got in front of him before deciding during the last stage to slow right down and get a good road position for tomorrow. Mikko found it difficult clearing the road, but was trying to limit the amount of time Loeb could take out of him. Latvala and Sordo were not far behind during the day and the last stage saw Latvala being told to go for it. The start order for tomorrow is now Latvala, Hirvonen, Loeb and then Sordo, with something like 15 seconds separating the top four. So it will be an all out fight for victory tomorrow, with repeated stages meaning no road sweeping duties on the second pass. We may very well see the kind of finish that we saw here last year with Marcus and Seb.

That's it for me. Sleeep... zzzzzz

EDIT: I don't know if I mentioned yesterday, but I did about 4,000 words transcription on Friday... And today I believe it would have been closer to 6,000. How's that for word count?! Makes 1000 word essays look like a walk in the park.

Day One of the action, Friday

2008-08-29T22:04:00.003+12:00

Today started off by being pounded into shape again by my chiropractor. Annoying really, wish life could just stop while the rally is on. Another example of this being the bills that turned up...

So it was Day One of the action, and no less a word than 'action' could really describe it. Stage One at Pirongia started off with a bang, Henning Solberg losing power steering and dropping down to near the bottom of the field in the overall classification. Many other stories to be told, Loeb had a moment, Andre Meier had a huge moment, bumpers - back and front - were lost and finally by the end of Stage 2.2 (Organisers had to split the monster 40 odd km Waitomo stage because of the slips near the middle) many had found some sort of rhythm. Mikko had a slight lead coming into the morning's service, followed by Loeb and Latvala. EDIT: Oh and Atko binned our NZ/OZ patriotic hopes by rolling his Subie. Rats. Expect Subaru WRT to keep being quiet about everything, they've been trying to limit their exposure and promotions while they get the new car up to speed (thanks Tom for the insider!).

This is about when my job started. And I really can't help freaking out about time and where I'm supposed to be and when. Stress and I don't go well and I'm thinking that maybe I should try and get into team PR because I don't know if I can hack this stuff. I don't know, I will probably feel differently in the morning.

Anyway, so what freaked me out was also scaring many other media, while Lance found the whole thing hilarious. We headed down to the media interview area, finding that the first four cars timed their entry to time control somewhat perfectly, so that they didn't have to talk to any media. It's not just about team tactics for road position, but also hugely about media tactics. What Lance found so funny was that the media had no idea what to do with themselves. Their precious top drivers wouldn't talk to them!

Luckily for me though, the PWRC drivers are very co-operative. I was able to get through them and then talk to some of the locals before shooting up to transcribe what I'd got.

In all seriousness, today has really done my head in.

Uhh, this afternoon the lead got within 0.7 of a second of being changed over to Sebastien before the big drama happening when Seb stopped just before the penultimate stage and was unable to restart the car for 3 minutes, incuring a 30 second penalty for being late into the stage. Day two start order has ended up being Hirv/Loeb/Latv/Sord, after Loeb's mishap/stunt and the subsequent team orders for Latvala to slow and secure a better road position for tomorrow.

So for my early evening job, I ended up being able to get about 10 PWRC quotes, down to Paddon, West and Taylor (the kiwis competing in the PWRC for this event) before literarly sprinted up out of the media interview area all the way through the pavilion service park and upstairs to the media room to pass off my digital dictaphone to Lance for transcription. Then sprinting back downstairs to witness the End Day One Press Conference, so that I would have a fair idea of what was talked about when it came to me transcribing it. Took me about an hour to then transcribe the 10 minute - 1,500 odd word press conference and put it into FIA Release format.

Shaping up to be an interesting event from the rallying point of view and a stressful event from my point of view! No, pictures for today, sorry. Too busy to even think about cameras.

Tuesday/Wednesday and Thursday Shakedown

2008-08-28T12:59:00.012+12:00

Now, I could probably write something close to a novel by now. But I'll settle for the bare minimum, you'll just have to approach me personally if you want the full dish..... Scratch that, this has turned pretty extensive, mainly so that I can keep tabs of what I have done and should be doing in the future!

Tuesday afternoon finished off unceremoniously, I don't think there was too much. It seems so long ago! Caught up with Sculley in the service park. Hung out with Ole later on.

Wednesday was a little bit annoying, I went to class in the morning only to find that the lecturer from America wasn't really talking about anything relevant to class or anything that interests me personally.

In the afternoon I headed out to the Creek. Had my photo taken for the Waikato Times, which in the process enabled me to meet Tom, the Subaru publicity guy. It was cool to talk Subaru's for a while and the finer details such as pink/red STi stickers and small dents in Atko's back bumper.

Got to interview Morrie Chandler later on, was interesting and very diplomatic... I'm still not really sure what to think about it all. But it will be good for future analysis, as I recorded theinterview. So I will come back to it.

Wednesday afternoon after the interview with Morrie was kind of interesting. Went with Geoff Ridder to the Ford Team drinks mixer thing. It's basically a chance for the team to show off their drivers to the media, serve wine and nibbles and get everyone hobb-knobbing. Felt very chicken kiwi like, us kiwis seemingly grouping together for comfort. Alan McDonald, with whom I am traveling to Malaysia in a month and a bit, launched on me the idea of a lead up article on what the kiwi teams are doing in preparation to going over to Singapore and so I was introduced to the Malleys. Headed home and decided to make it an early night, was shocked to have Mikko text me, pretty much telling me off for not chatting to him!

Thursday started with Shakedown, I got out to the Creek at about 8am and then made my way over to the end of the Shakedown stage to take some photos and see what was all going on. We literally had one of the best days for weather that the Waikato has seen in at least a couple of months. This was great for photos. I caught up with Jason (other kiwi from rallystuff.net site) and walked around the service park.

Also caught up with Mikko finally, strange thing really, to know him and yet... It was weird to have him come over and talk to me and have people take photos. But, we escaped into the Ford tent and had a bit of a catch-up, me feeling like a bit of a possum caught in the lights and being distracted by everything going on around at the same time. One of the things that we talked about was football, funnily enough, along with other generic catch-up talk. Jason snapped a couple of shots of Mikko and I chatting.

Afternoon started off with a mixer thing at Suzuki WRT, much like the Ford one, just less swankier (sorry Suzuki!), it was based in the service park, so swankiness is automatically limited really. Then the pre-event press conference, which was a bit of a non-event for me this year because the rally decided to buy, yes buy, the services of a transcriber. Whereas last year I was involved in the transcription, but, as it turns out it was okay because Kim and I had to make our way into town for the driver's signing session and the ceremonial start.

Driver's signing was an awesome different experience. I found myself somewhat in charge of the biggest part of it. The teams were split into three places on both sides of Hood Street, I had the big one outside Cullens and there were two more smaller signing tables over the other side of the street. The NZ drivers were a little bit difficult to organise, but once we'd got the the PWRC, who had someone in charge of them, everything flowed nicely. The WRC team PR have everything sorted, having done it in many countries before.

That about covers the semi-short version of the last couple of days! I stayed and watched the ceremonial start inc. speeches and Maori welcome with Chris Atkinson, but my position meant that photos weren't that easy to get.

... Tomorrow = When the real work and excitement starts! Enjoy the photos.

Key: First 8 pictures from end time control on Shakedown stage. (2) PG Andersson (3) Damage on Atko's car (5) Henning (6) Shakedown time board (7) Rautenbach (8) Sordo (9) Pre-event Press Conference (10) Driver's signing WRC (11) Henning - Start (12) Privateer Conrad Rautenbach in the service park.

EDIT: Also caught up with our young kiwi hope, 21 year old Hayden Paddon, in the service park during the day. Good to just check in and see where he was at and mention things about Rally Malaysia.

Rally New Zealand from the outside

2008-08-26T17:06:00.004+12:00

As much as I try to understand it, I still find it hard to believe that Rally New Zealand is such a coveted event. Loved by crews, drivers, journalists and photographers.

Martin Holmes does a beautiful job of conveying the sense of nostalgia and history of the event and also explaining why it is so loved. (EDIT: Goddamn link, the magazine changes each week, don't know how to get back-issues)

Crews love it. As I now remember from last night. Another of my misconceptions was that every international rally had awesome after rally parties and weeks of pretty much no sleep during to going out on the town, found out that this is wrong - not every rally has the same atmosphere. And ours is one of the best.

As much as this helps me to try and understand the international perspective, I still want to get out there and experience all the other WRC events for myself.

No matter how good the things are that are right in front of you, you will always want to see if there is anything better out there. What is in front of you is too easy - the chase is half the fun!

Monday - Part Two, written on Tuesday :)

2008-08-26T12:25:00.006+12:00

More photographs from the rally for your viewing pleasure: Just click to bring up a larger version

The new team on the block this year, Suzuki and their SX4, the first pic is the engine and various other drive components of the car.

The first of these is the view of the service park from this really cool vantage point that Kim and I discovered while taking a bit of a break. I really love the cars in their packaging, as I've said before. In the second one you can see the front bumper of one of the BP Ford cars. The second hints at tyres.

This is the Red Bull PWRC team outside in the PWRC area, there weren't a lot of teams around yesterday but the cars that were there looked awesome. These are some of the cars that I will be interviewing by myself over Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The WRC cars I will go along with John Coker, who I haven't met yet, but have heard that he is very knowledgeable and has spent many years in the industry. The WRC drivers are, of course, harder to interview because of their prominence etc. So hopefully having both of us there will mean we can block other people out and get to the drivers and the stories they have for us!

Ah Subaru Impreza, where have you been all my life? It took me a while, but I love the new machine. So preeetty. The first picture is cool I thought, the cages for the Subaru alloys. This would be because of the control tyre - teams don't do anything with the tyres anymore. It's all done by Pirelli.

And in this final photo is Eugeniy Vertinov's car. ~~The Russian driver is just 18 years old. Seriously.~~ (Edit: Need to be more careful, considering the PWRC drivers are my responsibility for reporting,Evgeny NOVIKOV is the 18 year old) But I though the photo was pretty as well with the late afternoon sun making an appearance.

Monday afternoon/Night
The rest of the day was spent by me just walking around and running odd jobs really.

BUT, I was interviewed by the Waikato Times for a 'people' article about the rally. Volunteers and people involved, about five or six profiles, to run as a feature in the Saturday paper. So have a look, cause I will be in it!

We had a little staff meeting in the early evening, just making sure everyone knew what was going to happen and the layout of the days etc.

Then I popped home for a while, surprised because I was able to watch Private Practice, before going out to one of my bosses' bars, Rodeo Rodeo to catch up with one of the Ford mechanics I met last year, Ole.

Found out quite a few interesting thing, some of which will probably come back to me later on. I only had a couple of beers! But combined with my lack of sleep, my memory is lacking in detail.
- Last year the regulations meant that the teams could only have 8 mechanics working on the car at one time servicing during the event, this year it has been cut down to 6 and next year it will be merely 4 mechanics. Unbelievable, but true. Makes me wonder how much they will still be able to get done in their 20-30 minute allocated servicing times, considering they used to be able to change all the drive components in the car (this is in the BP Ford team) in something like 27 minutes. This is all to cut costs for teams and make it a cheaper series to run.
- Something I didn't know, was that the teams send out a 'recce team' to go with the drivers and help with pace notes while the driver's/co-driver's do their thing as well. Ole is doing that today.
- Staggered team arrival. For some stupid reason, after last year I had this image in my head with all the different team's mechanics, drivers/co-drivers and personnel all on the same flight, hanging out on the plane. Although I still think some of this could be true, it wouldn't be exactly as it is in my head. The Ford team (all of them) have been staggered out coming over. Some arrived late last week (including Mikko), some on Sunday night, and the rest late last night. I really wish I was in with another team so I had some way to contrast my views and learn more about how other teams do things. All in good time hopefully.

I'm sure there were more things that were interesting, maybe I'll remember more later.

Not too much has happened today yet, but it's still early :)

Monday - Part One

2008-08-25T11:42:00.004+12:00

I came, I saw and I conquered!

Well, almost. But really I'm just a coffee and food deprived rally addict who is soaking up the rally atmosphere. How about all those male pheromones huh? No? Okay, on task.

Really, everone is all happy as larry here and I'm just chillin in the Press Room on my comp having a little 'me' and 'thinking' time.

New jobs I have found out about so far today include:

BEING AT THE CEREMONIAL START AND HELPING OUT WITH THE DRIVER SIGNING!

Yes, I happen to be pretty excited about this one. The Ceremonial Start is so hyped and awesome that you can't help that huge grin on your face when you see all the people. Some of it also may be the being-in-places-the-public-can't part, mwahaha. But really, I am a nice person. I swear, sincerely.

Oh and some sights and sounds of the place... Service park! Yay! The cars look so cute when they come out of the container, all shrink wrapped, packed, packaged after like little consumer products. So take a gander:

Sunday

2008-08-24T11:24:00.005+12:00

The last couple of days have seen me working and trying to get prepared for the rally this week. I've got an appointment with my chiropractor tomorrow morning nice and early before I make my way out to Mystery Creek for the first day of work at the rally.

Should be pretty cruizy though, from memory Monday was just setting up and making sure everything was in place ready to do Media Accreditation and various other things for Tuesday.

As far as the drivers and things go, their work starts on Tuesday with recconaisance - lucky bastards, Mikko's still going to be in Auckland til Monday night even though he arrived in the country yesterday. I'm not too sure about the other drivers, though I read that the Subaru lot arrived here on like Thursday, dunno if they're in Hamilton or not.

Mechanics will be setting up and checking over the recce cars on Monday, so I should get a chance to catch up with the ones I know, which will be awesome cause I haven't seen them in a year.

And I'll get my jacket! Woo! The official Rally NZ jackets are usually like $150, but the organisation gives them to certain people. They were being especially tight with them this year as well, but after the work I've done for them so far, Kim - the media centre manager, was able to get me one! It's not too big a deal, but it's like one of those(EDIT: Just forget about that...) small things that make me realise that I'm actually getting somewhere. Sort of like the fact that I've been getting emails from different people asking if I'd like to be involved with things, or write stories. I've found in the last week that I don't have to chase opportunities anymore, they come to me. And that feels like such a huge turning point.

I've also just spent the last half an hour bouncing ideas for questions off of my father regarding interviewing Morrie Chandler and other people. And I think that we've come up with some pretty good questions regarding the current and future WRC to add to the questions that I've come up with in the last week. I think I'll go and bounce them off of Lance as well and see what he thinks too.

So now I am feeling very hyped up about the whole rally business for this week. Though I still can't believe how fast this year has gone and how much I've been able to achieve over it!

And the countdown continues...

2008-08-19T15:25:00.004+12:00

Tuesday afternoon and I am wading my way through my pile of work to be done before and for Repco Rally New Zealand, much of it making sure that my Wintec work is up to date enough that I won't get back in a week and a half's time and find that I have a million things due that I haven't even started.

Developments this week so far:

Kate Gordon (PR for Rally NZ Org) has asked me if I would like to interview WRC Chariman Morrie Chandler and talk about the future of rallying in our Asia Pacific region with things such as the new rotational calendar, Rally Australia and the Pirelli Star Drivers.

I'm very VERY excited. - To say the least really.

Internationals get here on Sunday, I will start living at Mystery Creek/in town on Monday, interviewing Morrie Chandler on Wednesday and the rallying action kicks off next Thursday with Shakedown. So that means 5 days, 6 days, 8 days and 9 days to go. Or really just 5 days until it all gets underway!

Ever wondered how long it takes to convert a road car to rally?

2008-08-14T19:35:00.006+12:00

Well Subaru Rally Team USA have helped you out then. The video shows a time lapse of the 800 labour hours taken to convert one of the new Subaru Imprezas from a road going off-the-liner, to a rally beast.

For some reason, mine is only loading to half way, but I assure you - I WILL SEE IT ALL. I believe that not only is my Vodem a piece of crap, but my laptop is becoming rather decrepit as well. I can just feel my savings dropping into nothingness...

8 more days.

Repco Rally New Zealand Schools Tour

2008-08-14T18:12:00.004+12:00

For the mighty rally, the awesome Kim Raggett organised a trip around Hamilton to six different primary schools to promote it. So instead of class today, I helped out Kim and Andre Meier.

Kids & rally cars = much excitement, as you could imagine.

We recieved a warm welcome at each school and entertained grinning students by showing them one of Dale Perry's Rally Drive NZ cars (Andre's was in pieces), fielding their questions and handing out flyers and stickers as well as doing some autographs.

Really, the photo's say it all.

Schools visited:
Puketaha Primary, Frankton School, Rhode Street School, Hamilton East School, Marian Catholic School and Hilcrest Normal School.

Repco Rally NZ Countdown

2008-08-06T13:24:00.003+12:00

17 Days till everyone gets here.

Bring. It. On.

Petter Solberg Autocross

2008-07-29T09:46:00.003+12:00

A bit of something different I discovered this morning. It's amazing really. For those who have wondered what Petter would be like in an autocross type situation:

Petter Solberg Autocross

Yes, I really should be concentrating on my tech studies. But motorsport is just so much more interesting at the moment! Especially with high-speed wintec internet.

Tomoana Warehousing Rally of Hawkes Bay (NZRC round 4)

2008-07-27T16:56:00.005+12:00

This weekend, as the country braced for supposedly the worst storm to hit the North Island in a decade, I found myself down at the 4th round of the New Zealand Rally Championship based in Napier.

The event itself:

My objectives for the event were to get some camera time in rally conditions and to catch up with different people. The competitors of course, were looking to finish and gain points. But, starting proved to be a problem for some.

Championship leader Hayden Paddon and co-driver John Kennard were missing a vital part of their rally team at the ceremonial start on Friday night (25th).....

...Their car!

This minor missing detail was because of that storm hitting the country that I mentioned earlier, the ferries crossing Cook Straight were halted and the Team Green car was stranded in Picton. The Paddon story was not the only one of this nature, many people were stranded around the country from grounded planes etc and ended up late or found other routes to the rally.

The Paddon car arrived in the wee hours of the morning and they had their scrutineering organised for before the first stage on Saturday, which, as it turned out, the effort was worth it. Hayden Paddon took away top points and the win of the rally for the weekend, followed by Chris West, Brett Martin, Dean Sumner and rounding out the top five, local Stewart Taylor. The top five also pulled a Subaru-block-out, all five cars being Mitsubishi Evolution 9s.

The weekend for me started out on Thursday afternoon, making my way down the country with the Meiersport team and staying with them that night just out of Napier. Friday was a bit strange for me as I'm used to getting to a rally destination and working non-stop henceforth, but we basically just mucked around for the day until the car show and ceremonial start later on. I had a bit of drama myself though, passing out in the supermarket, which I can tell you was not especially fun-needless to say I took it easy for as long as I could on Friday.

Friday night I made my way out to Wairoa ready to make a full assault on the first day's stages with Lance Hastie and Geoff Ridder. Mud, mud and mud, oh and rain and stones. But, it was very awesome to be back out spectating on a rally, definitely thrilling. I really thought that I was over the whole 'spectating' thing after being so involved with big rallies and after spectating at so many when I was younger. I really enjoyed it, until I got cold and wet. But it is good to know that just being out on a stage in the middle of nowhere is still thrilling for me.

So, for Saturday we were out on stages one and five, with a stopover at the service park in Wairoa in between.

It was definitely a long day, and I found myself falling asleep as we made our way back into Napier at about dinner time.

The big and interesting thing about this rally was the sequence of events on the Sunday. I was woken up at about 6am by Andre and Jason as they got ready for their second day of assault on the area's roads. Literally about five minutes after they had left I got a phone call from Geoff to say that the day was possibly cancelled and he would call me back when there was some more information. It turns out that the main road to Wairoa had various slips along it, though the stages were still pretty much fine apart from one or two with flooding, the main access route was stuffed for the day. So, Sunday's rallying was cancelled. I was able to make all my phone calls before I got out of bed! Contacts are great.

For something different, there was an 'official finish' at 10am Sunday morning, with the podiums and finish ramp for those that wanted to drive over it. Then we pretty much just made our way home. Getting back into Hamilton at about 2pm, a lot earlier than a normal home time after a rally!

In the Meiersport Camp:

Andre and Jason brought in another consistent effort, the same cannot be said for Subaru comrades Richard and Sara Mason, who failed to finish because of mechanical problems.

Andre brought the car home in 9th place overall, third in junior just behind Sloan Cox and first in the rookie section. He remains just ahead of Cox in the junior standings in second and is still leading the rookie section outright. Andre only needs to complete one more leg to take away the rookie section this year.

The car has once again had a bit of a spruce up on the outside, with some slight changes in sponsors and layout. The team is now preparing for the mighty Rally NZ.

- Picture above is of preparation of the car on the Friday morning of the Rally of Hawkes Bay, when the weather was still being merciful.

Teng Tools Autocross and Suzuki Swift Sport Cup Scholarship

2008-07-22T08:17:00.005+12:00

Sunday the 13th of july saw 54 competitors out at the Wintec Avalon campus for the second round of this year's Teng Tools Tarmac Series, the series that was previously sponsored by Toyo Tyres and was/is run by Fiat Car Club Waikato. Both myself and my father were competitiors in our Suzuki Baleno, along with a small few others from the Hamilton Car Club.

Because of the quick nature of the course set up for us, we were able to get in four timed runs. The average time taken for cars to get around the track was about a minute. Which much to my delight, I was able to crack on the first run, getting a time of 57.33 seconds, while Dad sat on 53.95 seconds. This is how our times usually sit, I find myself unable to bridge the 3-4 second gap between Dad and my times. But not this day.

The second run saw me shave off three seconds from my time and enable me to be about a second off of Dad's pace! I was stoked! My time: 54.57 Dad's: 53.45

Dad then decided to change his approach by thinking "what is she doing that I'm not?"
Turns out it was my non-left foot braking that was the clincher. With left foot braking, us mere mortals who only use it in competition and don't race every weekend, can find that we lose a couple of seconds because the sensitivity of our left foot braking is not as good as the right foot and can therefore tend to slightly over-brake. WRC drivers of course, don't have such problems, because they're like dancers over the pedals and have great left-foot braking sensitivity.

So the fight was still on, Dad took his third run and filled in a fastest time of 52.15, securing his 11th overall position for the day. Whereas I got out there and narrowed the gap even more by setting a time of 53.09 and ending up in 16th overall and first female. Our last times were a bit off, Dad's only by a few tenths of a second and mine by about 10 seconds due to running after a rear-wheel drive tank of a Cortina and spinning in the ensuing grit brought up on my racing line. Though I must admit, it is fun to have a run where you can just go with the flow and throw it around a bit.

The funny bit about the day, and something I was totally not expecting, was Dad's private reactions to me coming so close to him, using the same car, and in the same conditions. But I suppose, you must admit that having as much experience as he has, running third in class at international rallies back in the 80's and such, it must be pretty heart-breaking to have your 19 year old daughter set the same sort of pace as you. But hey, guess that's what you get for introducing me to the driving seat at the tender age of 13.

This brings me to the Suzuki Swift Sport Cup portion of this blog entry. About a week after the autocross, I stumbled across the information for the Swift scholarship and became intensely interested.

I mean hell, I drive a similar car and can drive it to it's limit, the other people that I've heard are going for it spend most of their time in four-wheel drive, turbo charged beasts. So I believe I definitely have the upper hand. But the problem is, then entry fee is $900, which is rather steep considering that a rally entry fee costs about $500 at the clubmans level.

I would go through and explain it more fully, but I think that my parental proposal explains it just as clearly. The following is hopefully going to convince my parents that it is worth it to go for this scholarship:

-----SUZUKI SWIFT SPORT CUP SCHOLARSHIP PROPOSAL-----

---FULL JUSTIFICATION---

ADVANTAGE

I feel that I have a key advantage in entering for this scholarship, this being that I constantly race a very similar type car. Two wheel, front drive cars such as our Suzuki Baleno and a Suzuki Swift don’t get a lot closer without actually being the same car.

The proof is really in the pudding, how many times have I heard and repeated the story of the Baleno’s humble beginnings as a ‘Baleno Cup’ car.

Not only in the similarity of the car, but also in the stage of my skills as a driver. Not so long ago I competed in an autocross where I came dangerously close to beating Dad. This, coupled with the fact that Dad has had probably five times the experience I have had behind the wheel, shows that I could possibly have some potential with the right kind of stepping stone or ‘shot’.

‘SARAH BYLES’ AS A PACKAGE

As seen on TV One’s Powerbuilt Motorsport program and greatly assumed by myself, the panel of judges will not only be looking for someone with the goods on the track, but the whole package.
Being female for a start, gets noticed. Putting the driving and professionalism behind that, seals the deal. I think I can pull this off.
Not only have I been on both the media and competitor side, but I know the roles somewhat inside out. I know what the media and sponsors are looking for, and I know the means to provide it.
This leaves another detail as part of the package: Nutrition and fitness. I am willing to put in the hard yards over the next month if I can attain parental backing and a place in the first 15 competitors for the showdown.

COSTS

I am proposing a 50/50 split of the costs associated with entering and getting to Mansfield for the competition. Please also note that this is a Friday and work schedules may need to be re-arranged.

FINALLY: WHY

There are a couple of reasons as to why I want to take a shot at this scholarship. This first is that there is, has and probably always will be, a little birdy thought in the back of my head wondering that if I have/had the right encouragement or step up, would I be good enough.
I realise, as working in the motorsport industry that it is a combination of an ‘endless wallet’ and a small pinch of ‘who you know’ that helps you get to the top, or make a bloody good go of getting there. So this is not a plea of asking you to fork out a million dollars for a WRC drive or committing to backing me for a season of the New Zealand championship. This is simply something I have stumbled across and given a second, third and fourth glance as something that I think I could have a very decent shot at.

Signed,
Sarah Byles

Reference:
For more information on the scholarship and the Swift Sport Cup itself, please visit
http://www.suzukiswiftsportcup.co.nz/launch/home.php

-And also I had my first go of Motor-sport photography, hence the new banner and photo at the top of this post. Both are of Dad driving the Baleno machine.

Inframax Rally of Waitomo + Repco Rally NZ promo day

2008-07-04T19:21:00.002+12:00

The weekend saw both the Inframax Rally of Waitomo and the promotion day for Repco Rally New Zealand. I co-drove for my father in his Suzuki Baleno and also finished off my duties as publicity officer for the rally.

Unfortunately we didn't finish the rally, Dad found a problem with the diff after stage four and then we called it quits after stage five when we lost the speedometer and the limited-slip in the diff during the stage. Because we didn't have the trailer at the midday service in Ohura, Dad attempted to drive the rally car home while Mum and I followed in the ute. We got to about 20km out of Te Kuiti when the gearbox went in the car and we had to tow it back to Rally HQ in Te Kuiti.

This all turned out rather well for me because we got back to Rally HQ with 20 minutes to spare before the first car arrived to go over the finish ramp, so I was able to interview the top drivers for the final press release.

Waitomo Rally - Post event press release

Sunday saw the Rally NZ promotional day, a bit of a fun media day for sponsors, local media and area VIPs. About 20 cars, drivers and teams turned up to give guests a taste of the rallying business as a co-driver. An inside thrill ride.

For me it was a chance to catch up with heaps of different people and was just a good chance to make myself seen and recognised.

Kate Gordon (RNZ organiser)'s article of her thrill ride

Update!

2008-06-26T15:51:00.002+12:00

I believe I failed to explain why the Rally of Whangarei was pivotal for me. I also believe that the whole pivotal thing sort of happened after the rally itself anyway.

The Pirelli Star Driver competition at Whangarei was a qualifying for financial assistance to get to the final for the Asia Pacific area in Malaysia in October. (The winner of that then gets a six round PWRC drive next season... somewhere in the vicinity of a PRICELESS step up for 5 young drivers from different parts of the world.)

The two drivers that won the assistance at Whangarei were Hayden Paddon and Brad Ayling. But, many NZ (and Australia)'s young drivers will go to Malaysia to compete anyway. Andre Meier dropped that bombshell on me, asking if they were to go and contest in Malaysia, would I like to go with them.

To cut a long story short, plans are now underway for the Meiersport team to go to Malaysia in October and my plans are coming along too.

With the drama of catching up with the team up in Whangarei, I have decided that it is both more convenient and worthwhile for me to strictly go as NZ media. Plus, you get free accommodation in the Rally HQ hotel at the event... And free is the cheapest you can get.

With this whole development, it has been said to me that going the APRC route (like the drivers trying to work their way up the ladder) would be better for me than just going to Europe for a one-off WRC event. The APRC provides more of a chance to get in on things like driver's quotes and most of the same media people cover all the events so it is easy to get to know everyone.

I have also started the expensive exercise of getting myself kitted out. Yesterday I brought a Nikon D80 DSLR and today I have got myself a digital Dictaphone. A good lens may end up costing more than the body... So I believe my savings will look even more unhealthy than it currently does now after the first two things. But hopefully once I've become accustomed to using the camera, it will help me out by returning the income.

That's it for now, but this weekend sees me in the co-driver's seat for the first time in a while at the Inframax Rally of Waitomo and Sunday sees the Repco Rally New Zealand promo day.

BRING ON THE RALLYING.

NAC Insurance Hella International Rally of Whangarei

2008-06-24T15:45:00.005+12:00

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 competition

The 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..

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 Waikato River in jet-boats, pick them up at Mystery Creek and run them into Hamilton before the Ceremonial Start on the Thursday of the event or something. I passed this on to Sheree who organises all the publicity things for the event.

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 morning/lunch time was also spent trying to keep everyone in the loop with times and places. This was by texting the Meiersport team in the main service park with Andre's times and then texting Mum and Dad in the clubman's service park with Lindsay Meredith, Anton Meier and Brendan Oakden's times. It was tough work! Well, not really. Just a little annoying when I kept getting grilled for more information.

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!

The Mighty Naki

2008-05-20T11:09:00.011+12:00

In the weekend we made the mighty 3-4 hour trip down to New Plymouth for the Quality Hotel Plymouth Taranaki Tarmac Rally. I was helping out servicing for Meiersport, Anton Meier and his co-driver Dave Devonport were entered in to get points for their FRAM North Island Series aspirations. 19-year-old Andre Meier was having the weekend off because the rally isn't a part of the Vantage Aluminium Joinery 2008 NZRC with which he is entered into.

The Taranaki Rally was just a one day event with documentation and scrutineering on the Friday night. So Andre, Hamish (one of the service crew) and I took the service truck down Friday afternoon with the rally car on the trailer behind.

'Scrutineering' was a two minute affair, we didn't even need to take the car off of the trailer! This is because it had already been scrutineered recently and the main thing they wanted to look at was the turbo to check for tampering.

After getting lost a few times searching for the accommodation and doing the shopping for the weekend (and causing some havoc in the supermarket) we were done for the night and turned in ready for the next morning.

Up at 5.30am, quick breaky then down to the Warehouse to get the car out of parc ferme, wish Anton and Dave luck and then shoot out to Stratford to set up for the first service.

The team, well, mostly just Andre and Brendon, have been finding themselves a reputation for mucking around and doing stupid things in the service park. At Stratford, we found a clock tower that the boys found delight in climbing...

The Stratford service was a quick spurt of 15 minutes but due to there being no time control for services, the service was slightly shorter to give Anton and Dave enough time to get out to their next stage. Two minutes to pack up and we were all back into the service truck and the rangey (Range Rover) and on the road to Inglewood.

The Inglewood service was again without time control and only 15 minutes. We were more into the swing of things by then and had everything finished on the car before they had to move out again, so it was a little less stressful.

In an aside, while we were in Inglewood, a couple of guys rolled up in a Nissan GT-R V-Spec. Now I can honestly tell you, there are moments involving certain cars that I remember more clearly than anything else. This was one of those. This car is amazing, all dark charcoal-huge rims, the only thing that spoiled it was to find out later in the day that it was an automatic - that broke my heart. The mighty GT-R (released end '07) replaces the Skyline which has been around for many years.

After Inglewood, it was a casual pack-up and drive out to Okato on the other side of New Plymouth for the last service of the event of about 20 minutes. Because Anton was running high up in the field we were able to get the best spots for servicing and Okato was no exception, because of the way we positioned the truck we were able to get packed up and out of the little town with no time lost after servicing. This 'strategic time management' enabled us to get out to see the last stage of the day.

Stage 8 was the last stage and because there was no re-group at any stage of the day everyone was still running in their start of rally positions, regardless of times. This was good for the spectators because the front running guys that had had problems during the day put on a bit of a show by doing wheelies when they came to the junction.

At the end of the day the team of Anton Meier and Dave Devonport came home in 8th place overall and gained points by coming 4th in the North Island Series.

RALLY NZ HAS A TITLE SPONSOR

2008-05-15T09:57:00.003+12:00

For a couple of years now, Rally New Zealand has been run without a title sponsor. This is due to the new regulations preventing sponsorship with pharmaceuticals therefore preventing Propecia to continue to sponsor Rally New Zealand like they did for many years. But yesterday the Rally New Zealand organisation announced a new title sponsor, REPCO.

Repco will now sponsor both Rally New Zealand this year and Rally Australia in 2009. This is the first sponsorship deal of its kind. Repco plan to do a lot of advertising and promotion to the event to try and raise the profile of rallying in the Australasian/Asia-Pacific region.

This will all hopefully mean that there is bigger hype and more spectators at our round of the WRC this year. I remember hearing a few disappointed comments about the lack of hype and people at the event last year, which is sad because of the world-wide profile that the event has and how it puts NZ on the world stage.

The WRC is watched by more than 100 million people around the world, a lot of which are from Europe which happens to be New Zealand's biggest tourism demographic.

Information about Rally Australia is still unavailable; venues and the rally route are yet to be confirmed. But the event is to be held in the Brisbane area, shifted from the last Rally Australia held in 2006 in the Perth region which was won by Mikko Hirvonen.

The new rotation calendar means that Rally Australia and Rally New Zealand run each in their own year. Rally New Zealand runs in August this year, then Rally Australia at about the same date next year, then in 2010 Rally New Zealand jumps to an earlier May date.

The new calendar plans mean that the World Rally Championship will run over two years and 24 events with no event given exclusive status to run every year. This is to help cut costs for teams and to try and include new rallies trying to get into the championship. Meaning of course that each rally will run every two years.

Lately there have been some issues with teams regarding the 2010 calendar because of three 'unknown' events being run. Whether the FIA will change the calendar or the teams will cease their involvement with the WRC at the end of 2009 is still uncertain.

So presenting, Repco Rally New Zealand and Repco Rally Australia!

-Meerly 100 days until the week of Rally New Zealand.... (Repco Rally New Zealand :) )

Rally Jordan

2008-05-02T18:44:00.004+12:00

This rally was a piece of work. Rugged terrain seemed never ending and there were blind crests aplenty.

The most interesting and shall-we-say, controversial event was the crash of Sebastien Loeb's.

The story goes that he was traveling between stages, came around a bind crest to greet Conrad Rautenbach who was late for his next stage. The resulting head-on crash caused extensive front end damage to the cars. Both Loeb's and Rautenbach's cars were fixed and they were able to restart on Day 3 under SupeRally rules.

Also interesting on the table for this rally was Brit Barry Clark's surprise debut. He stepped in at the last minute in place of Luiz Perez Companc in the Munchi's Ford Focus and ran in the rally without having completed recce. He brought the car to an amazing 12th place in the event. Clark was the winner of the 2007 Fiesta Sporting Trophy International.

Results courtesy of Crash.net

Overall times after SS22 / Day 3 - Top 20:

1. Mikko Hirvonen BP Ford Focus RS WRC 07 4hours 02mins 47.9secs M
2. Daniel Sordo Citroen Total WRT C4 WRC +01mins 15.7secs M
3. Chris Atkinson Subaru WRT Impreza WRC 2007 +05mins 00.4secs M
4. Henning Solberg Stobart Ford Focus WRC 07 +07mins 35.8secs M
5. Matthew Wilson Stobart VK Ford Focus WRC 07 +10mins 41.7secs A8
6. Federico Villagra Munchi's Ford Focus WRC 07 +11mins 22.2secs M
7. Jari-Matti Latvala BP Ford Focus RS WRC 07 +12mins 15.6secs M
8. Gigi Galli Stobart Ford Focus WRC 07 +12mins 24.4secs M
9. Khalid Al-Qassimi BP Ford Focus RS WRC 07 +19mins 05.7secs A8
10. Sebastien Loeb Citroen Total WRT C4 WRC +23mins 38.1secs M
11. Sebastien Ogier Citroen C2 S1600 +27mins 09.9secs J
12. Barry Clark Munchi's Ford Focus WRC 07 +31mins 19.2secs M
13. Shaun Gallagher Citroen C2 S1600 +32mins 10.0secs J
14. Gilles Schammel Renault Clio R3 +34mins 41.5secs J
15. Abdullah Al-Qassimi Mitsubishi Evolution 9 +34mins 50.8secs N4
16. Nick Geogiou Mitsubishi Evolution 9 +36mins 42.4secs N4
17. Ameer Najjar Mitsubishi Evolution 9 +39mins 42.1secs N4
18. Florian Niegel Suzuki Swift S1600 +43mins 36.5secs J
19. Michel Saleh Subaru Impreza +45mins 35.1secs N4
20. Amjad Farrah Mitsubishi Evolution 9 +45mins 35.2secs N4

Wet 'n' Wild Rally Argentina - WRC Results

2008-04-01T11:53:00.010+13:00

Mikko Hirvonen

Faultless Loeb

After the extremely difficult conditions of Rally Argentina, with many prisoners taken by the changing weather, a clear cut leader emerges. But, lucky enough for most, this leader still remains in reach. Five points now separates Frenchman Sebastian Loeb from Fin Mikko Hirvonen, after Loeb's winning weekend in Argentina.

But it did not always look like it was going to happen this way. The first day of Rally Argentina saw Mikko Hirvonen take an early lead, shoving it to those who have recently said that he may not have what it takes to be a number-one driver. But disaster struck in the second half of day one, in the form of a broken suspension. Hirvonen restarted day two at 25th place and fought his way back up to finish inside the points in 5th place.

Team make Jari-Matti Latvala also hit trouble on day one, forcing Team Director Malcom Wilson to cringe at the thought of a repeat performance of 1999 Rally China, where both Fords retired on the first stage. Latvala rolled his Focus on the 9th stage on day one, he lost 9 minutes getting back onto the stage and started to fight back until disaster stuck again when he hit a rock on day two. He restarted again on Sunday and fought from 21st up to finish in 15th.

In the Subaru camp it looked as though the team was going to have an awesome finish, with Petter Solberg in second, on track for his best placing since Rally Portugal 2007, followed by Chris Atkinson in third. Disaster struck for Solberg when a complete electrical failure forced him to retire, while Atkinson brought home a solid second place for the team. Atkinson and Subaru now sit on third place in their respective championships.

Dani Sordo brought home a third place podium for Citroen, much to the delight of the team.

In the Stobart Ford camp Gigi Galli flew the team flag to seventh position overall, while Henning Solberg and Mathew Wilson failed to finish the rally. The older Solberg, Henning, managed to retire each day of the rally under different circumstances. His final retirement was on the first stage on Sunday where he suffered suspension damage. Wilson ran well on the rally until the half way mark on Saturday when a track control arm broke on the final corner of SS15.

The other Ford outfit, Munchi's Ford Word Rally Team, was led by Federico Villagra who finished sixth overall, bringing home four manufacturers points and gaining his best World Rally finish to date. Team mate Luis Perez Companc retired on the last stage of day one when he slid off and caused some small suspension damage. His car and recovery crew became stranded in the huge number of spectators and blockades and he was therefore unable to restart on day two.

Suzuki World Rally Team had problems but managed to get P-G Anderson to finish the rally in 24th place. Toni Gardemeister could not complete the rally due to hydraulics issues.

Overall leaderboard:
1. Loeb
2. Atkinson +2:33.2 3.
Sordo +4:04.7 4.
Rautenbach +20:03.5 5.
Hirvonen +25:15.3 6.
Villagra +27:42.0 7.
Galli +27:51.8 8.
Aigner +28:59.3

Driver’s Championship
1. Loeb – 30 pts
2. Hirvonen – 25 pts
3. Atkinson - 22pts
4. Latvala – 16pts
5. Galli – 11pts
6. Sordo – 9pts
7. Solberg – 9 pts
8. Duval – 5 pts
=. Rautenbach – 5pts

Manufacturers’ Championship
1. BP Ford - 44 pts
2. Citroen - 41 pts
3. Subaru - 33 pts
4. Stobart - 22 pts
5. Munchi’s - 10 pts
6. Suzuki - 6 pts

The teams now prepare for Rally Jordan at the end of April.

Henning Solberg

All image credits to Rallystuff
Information sources
Crash.net
Wrc.com

Rally Argentina 2008

2008-03-25T16:31:00.004+13:00

Now, as part of my degree we are to write a blog on a subject that interests us. So for this post, I will look at Rally Argentina that will run this weekend.

This weekend the World Rally Championship will be paving the way on the gravel roads in Argentina. Rally Argentina is the fourth round of the WRC this year and the second round held in the Americas this month after Rally Mexico.

The event is based in the town of Villa Carlos Paz and is generally seen as one of the most spectacular events on the calendar. Stages are mostly sandy gravel, which can cause ruts in the road for back running cars and second passes of stages, as well as river crossings which make for interesting viewing for the many spectators that file out to watch the event.

A favourite among the drivers, Rally Argentina pulls out the spectators. Many say that the enthusiasm of the spectators really makes the rally special.

Reference

The Driver's Championship also looks to be hotting up this weekend. Four-time world champion Sebastian Loeb goes into this event second on 20 points, a mere one point behind championship leader Mikko Hirvonen. Loeb is the favourite for the event, having won the '05, '06 and '07 Rally Argentina. Jari-Matti Latvala rounds out the top three drivers on 16 points, his pace this year has amazed everyone, his win in Sweden making him the youngest to win a WRC rally at only 22 years old. This will be only his second start on this event. Australian Chris Atkinson sits next closest fourth in the Driver's Championship on 14 points.

In the Manufacturer's Championship, BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT continue their excellent form of last year on top with 37 points, while Subaru WRT and Citroen Total WRT both sit on 25 points.

Along with the Driver's and Manufacturer's Championships, this years Rally Argentina will play host to the P-WRC, production cars. Juho Hanninen with Ralliart New Zealand is leading after one round in Sweden.

Rally Argentina kicks off on Thursday 27th March with the Ceremonial Start at 20:30 local time.

Wrc.com always has full coverage including stage times, videos and WRC podcasts.

- Six more rounds until Rally New Zealand.

First motor-sport post of 2008

2008-02-29T16:41:00.000+13:00

Now, this year is looking to be very interesting from where I'm sitting.

I am now in the second year of my Journalism degree and have also thrown myself head first into my desired specialty, motor-sport. In particular, rallying.

So far this year I have taken over as Hamilton Car Club Bulletin Editor, this is a monthly magazine that goes out to all the car club members as well as to other car clubs throughout the country. The perspective readership is quite large. Hamilton Car Club is the biggest in New Zealand currently, with about 300 members.

My second big role this year is doing the publicity for the Waitomo Rally. The Inframax Rally of Waitomo is going to be the 4th round of the Top Half Series and the 2nd round of the Rally Extreme Series, this added to the fact that it is a gravel rally will put the entries up towards 100. I'm in charge of sending out and writing all the press releases, up to and after the event. I think I will also be doing promotion type things as well, such as talking to the local radio stations etc.

Then of course, the end of August will be Rally of New Zealand, our round of the World Rally Championship. I will be working again with British journalist Martin Holmes, working on drivers quotes and interviewing drivers.

There also may be a plan to go to another round of the WRC this year, possibly Wales Rally GB. But at this time I am still waiting on some confirmation as to what I could get into doing at that rally, so no tickets booked yet unfortunately.

On the published works front, I had an article published in my regional paper, the Waikato Times, yesterday. It was on a recent Hamilton Car Club event, a 9km tarmac hill climb at Ngutinui towards Kawhia. I also competed at this event, coming 38th out of 50 starters and finishing second female. Not too bad for the wet conditions and the fact that I haven't done a long event in quite some time.

Lastly, I had my 'letter to the editor' published in the New Zealand Autocar magazine. Not a huge achievement, but it is still something and will hopefully show a bit of diversity for my work portfolio.