This would be the roughest part of the entire rally, ending on the second pass with a damaged front end and most of the burner missing, with the stage looking more like a motocross track than a rally stage left the Autotek boys to prepare the car for the ceremonial start later that night in Hamilton's city centre.

 

"Our rally is f#$ked so we thought we would help you boys out"

 

The day we had all been working so long and hard to prepare for was finally upon us with 7 special stages to tackle, the excitement was obvious with our goal to get to the finish of the day 1. We started out steady while we consistently worked on the notes to allow the pace to be pushed a little on day 2.

At the end of day 1, Tony and John found themselves struggling a little by their standards to feel confident int he new N14 and with their trust in the new pace note system, but found themselves 31st outright and second quickest N14 in the field.

 

 

 

Saturday's conservative start to the longest day was looking like the order of the day in the ever-changing conditions with damp stages turning to dry and slippery in some places, contributing to the first mistake of the weekend for the Kiwi/Aussie partnership. A long single lane concrete bridge, into a once clean fast right hand bend, has become a loose slippery gravel corner, from over 40 cars braking off the end of the bridge, not allowing the very hard Pirelli Scorpion tyres the grip they needed to make it through the corner. 

stage, plus 100 km of road section before taking on the super special with only the driveshaft and the steering arm holding the corner together. drivers side of the car resulted in the pair becoming stuck in a ditch and even with locked differentials no chance of escape. 

The spirit of the rally award, without doubt, goes tot he Kiwi combo Andre Meier and Jason Farmer in their Meier Motorsports Subaru: "Our rally is f#$ked so we thought we would help you boys out." 

Once back on the road it was obvious their lower suspension arm was broken in two which resulted in a very interesting 28km through the rest of the Franklin stage, plus 100 km of road section before taking on the super special with only the driveshaft and the steering arm holding the corner together.  

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The Autotek crew showed their professionalism at this level repairing the N14 to new ready for the Te Akau South and North stages with over 60km of special stages slipping right back into top 30 times the pair had been achieving before their off in Franklin. Te Akai North was a turning point for the FCACA pairing as Tony discovered a differential setting where he was able to get a feel of confidence with the car. This allowed him to listen and find the limits of the car while glancing the banks to extract the best possible speed from the N14 Subaru.

 

Sunday:

“There is no unaided possibility of getting the car back into the event, and to the Mystery Creek finish ramp…”

 

The confidence gained from the quick times on Saturday afternoon were hoped by all to be replicated on Sunday morning, which was all going to plan until 300m into the first stage where the driver to co-driver intercom decided that Sunday should be a day off and played dead. Various forms of sign language was used in the car but it was soon decided that screaming was a more appropriate form of communication for the Te Hutewai stage.

 

This continued for the much anticipated Whaanga Coast stage that would be halted 3 kilometres into the stage for fellow Autotek team members Misfer Al-Marri and co-driver Chris Patterson to offload the fire extinguisher and continue onto SOS point to advise of their fire. This meant that the pair could have a scenic drive as rally NZ would give a derived time for assisting with fire. 

The repeat run in the afternoon stage of Te Hutewai found the boys 6 seconds faster than the previous pass and then looking to a clean intercom free run through the final Whaanga Coast stage to achieve the teams’ goal of finishing the rally. This unfortunately was not to be as the N14 ran wide off line and camber resulting in a wheel of the road with progress halted unceremoniously by a small tree on a steep bank with no unaided possibility of getting the car back into the event and to the mystery creek finish ramp.

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-Written by Darryl Fernandez