Each of the event’s three categories has a smorgasbord of international and domestic rally royalty offerings that encompass 37 international teams representing 11 different countries.
The foreign firepower is strongest in the Otago Classic Rally in which World Rally Championship heavy-hitters Irishman Kris Meeke, Norwegian Mads Ostberg and Pasi Hagstrom, of Finland, will be gunning for two-wheel-drive glory.
Classic top seed Meeke will again drive the Rossendale Ford Escort Mk2 on his third Otago appearance. He won in 2024 before a puncture in 2025 denied him the chance to repeat the victory.
Ostberg also returns for the third time and, after retiring with a mechanical failure in 2018, he bounced back with a win the following year.
He will drive a top-spec Mazda RX3 owned by Southland businessman and competitor Scott O’Donnell and has Christchurch co-driver Jared Hudson reading his pace notes.
These two former victors will have Hagstrom, a three-time classic event winner (2004, 2006 and 2008), in a Porsche 911 to keep them on their toes.
The Kiwi cat among the overseas pigeons will be last year’s winner, Christchurch’s fast and consistent Deane Buist, pedalling his Ford Escort RS1800.
Crossing to the four-wheel-drive top contenders and the Otago Rally New Zealand Rally Championship field is set to become a battleground between the first and second-seeded Stokes brothers.
Both are driving Skoda Fabia Rally 2 evo cars, elder sibling Robbie leading out the huge pack of 82 teams entered in the NZRC and Allcomers events.
A recent Popotunoa Rallysprint crash forced his team to undertake a hasty “mainly just cosmetic” rebuild, which was finished just in time for the Otago Rally, Stokes said.
Robbie has enlisted the services of an experienced new co-driver Australian Andrew Sarandis, while Jack has stayed local with Gores’s Hayden Graves calling his pace notes.
Third off the start line is championship frontrunner Jack Hawkeswood, who has shown he is in fine form preseason, winning the Waikato-based Possum Bourne Memorial Rally last month in his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.
The next five drivers demonstrate the truly international flavour of this 50th Otago Rally and represent Australia, Japan, Spain and India.
All of them are entered in the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship component of the rally, along with the first three seeded New Zealanders.
Two-time winner of the gruelling Dakar Rally in the motorcycle category, Australian motorsport great Toby Price, is seeded among the top 20 drivers.
He switched to four wheels for the 2026 Dakar Rally where he drove a factory-backed Toyota Hilux to eighth, the best result for an Australian in the car class.
Price will this weekend be behind the wheel of a brand-new Toyota GR Yaris, prepared by the Hawkeswood family’s Force Motorsport business.
No doubt lured by the anniversary event, Andrew Hawkeswood has dusted off his overalls to contest the Allcomers event. Having last competed in 2019, he entered the Possum Bourne Memorial Rally in March to get back into the gravel groove and finished third in his Mazda 2 AP4.
Hawkeswood senior and Dunedin’s hometown heroine Emma Gilmour (Citroen C3 Rally 2) will be tussling over top stage times in the 50-car Allcomers’ field. She is not contesting the national rally championship this season and will be choosing select events to enter instead.
The Otago Classic 4WD Rally has the highest proportion of regional drivers per entries with six of the 20 hailing from Otago.
The Otago Rally gets under way in Dunedin’s Octagon tonight from 5.30pm before two days and 16 stages of competitive action tomorrow and Sunday.
