Star driver and NZRC dominator (whenever he is in New Zealand long enough to contest all rounds) Hayden Paddon is focusing on this year’s Australian Rally Championship.
It paves the way for the best of the rest to fight over the New Zealand crown, beginning this weekend with the 280km, 15 special stage Otago Rally.
Ten years on from his record-breaking outright win in an Escort BDA, Paddon has elected to drive the same two-wheel-drive model — this one owned by Christchurch’s Tim McIver — in the International Classic Rally.
His battle will be with five-time WRC event winner Kris Meeke, of Northern Ireland, who is defending his 2024 win.
Jack Hawkeswood, currently based in Millers Flat, will be the national category’s first seed tomorrow, having won the 2024 Central Machine Hire-sponsored Otago Rally.
The talented youngster returns with his Toyota Yaris AP4, aiming to repeat that performance. Fresh from a recent Popotunoa Rallysprint victory, he has the pace, coupled with experienced co-driver Jason Farmer, to carry off a second consecutive victory.
Defending NZRC champion Ben Hunt (Auckland) is seeded second in his Skoda Fabia Rally 2 and, along with home-
town favourite Emma Gilmour, would dearly love to add an elusive Otago Rally trophy to the cabinet.
Cantabrian Robbie Stokes received an exciting preseason present in the form of a factory-built Skoda Fabia Rally 2 car.
How quickly he can get to grips with the recently arrived charger and adapt to new co-driver Shane Reynolds will determine how high up the pack he finishes.
Stokes’ younger brother, Jack, will take over the steering wheel of his sibling’s Ford Fiesta AP4 and is seeded behind Cantabrian Josh Marston (Holden Barina AP4), who returns to the NZRC after taking a season off.
Marston will have Gore’s Andrew Graves in the co-driver’s seat, while Graves’ son, Hayden, will sit beside Jack Stokes.
Dunedin driver Gilmour finished third in the 2024 NZRC, and with professional Australian co-driver Ben Searcy signed up for the full 2025 season, she enters a third year of familiarity with her Citroen C3 rally car.
Arguably, it adds up to her best shot at winning a national title in a career spanning over two decades.
Auckland’s Kingsley Jones is another to make a return to the championship, piloting his Skoda Fabia R5 car that his nephew, Zeal Jones, did so well in last year.
As the two big guns duke it out in the Classic Rally, there will be a trio of Cantabrians waiting in the wings to pounce should Paddon and Meeke fall by the wayside.
Dean Buist and Ari Pettigrew will both be piloting Ford Escorts, and Marcus van Klink is back in his crowd-pleasing Mazda RX7 Group B.
Queenstown’s Caleb MacDonald (Mitsubishi Evo 6) felt the heartbreak rallying can produce last year as he saw a terrific campaign come unstuck with titles on the line.
He will start 2025 as the favoured victor in the Rally Challenge 4WD class on familiar roads.
Dunedin driver Ian Warren (Nissan Pulsar) and Cromwell’s Thomas Paul (Honda Civic) will headline the Rally Challenge 2WD class.
Cambridge’s Bryn Jones leads out a trio of Ford Fiesta Rally4s in the NZRC 2WD class as he chases a 2025 title ,but will face stiff competition from Dunedin’s Tim Mackersy and Japanese driver Fuyuhiko Takahashi.
Stalwart septuagenarian Dave Strong’s wild mid-engined Honda Jazz leads contenders in the Open 2WD, and is likely to be challenged by the Toyota Corolla of Southland driver Paul Cross.
