On one level, that was because it was the first time she had finished an event since she won the Canterbury Rally in June last year, and on another, because her Suzuki Swift AP4 "was a handful" to grapple through the seven-stage, 135km event, due to centre diff issues.
Gilmour was ninth and happy not to be among the 23 teams out of the 56 New Zealand Rally Championship (NZRC) starters that failed to finish, due to a combination of demanding roads and changeable weather.
"[Co-driver] Anthony [McLoughlin] did a great job navigating our way through what was a rally of many, many corners. Also a big thanks to my service crew — a finish is a nice reward for all the hard work they put into every rally," Gilmour said.
Among the most significant retirements were Rangiora brother and sister Matt and Nicole Summerfield and Dunedin’s Rhys Gardner and co-driver Alex Ramsay, the teams that had entered the championship first and second respectively in the points standings.
Gardner described it as a "lucky unlucky day" in a statement.
His Mazda 2 AP4 clipped a rock and broke a suspension upright.
On the positive side, the accident did not damage a wheel, tyre or panel, and the car stopped before dropping into the bushes.
The DNF dropped him to fourth in the NZRC standings with two rounds to go, 21 points adrift of new leader Andrew Hawkeswood and co-driver Jeff Cress, who finished the Coromandel event in second place in their Mazda 2 AP4.
Australian Brendan Reeves took victory by 1 minute 15.3 seconds with co-driver Ben Searcy, in the same model AP4 car as Hawkeswood’s and built by the Aucklander’s Force Motorsport team.
Kiwi WRC driver Hayden Paddon and John Kennard took a small early lead, only to leave the road on stage four. That left Reeves with a comfortable win, ahead of Hawkeswood.
