Although a puncture near the Rally of Otago's tail end ruined a faultless score card of stage wins for Masterton couple Richard and Sara Mason, it did not prevent them from claiming a dominant victory.
The husband and wife duo won the New Zealand Rally Championship (NZRC) component by a huge margin of 4min 11.5sec over Mount Maunganui's David Holder and co-driver Ben Hawkins. It was the largest winning gap between first and second in the rally's NZRC class for at least 10 years.
The Masons won every stage of the 15 held over the weekend, except for stage 12, when a front tyre on their Subaru Impreza WRX STi ruptured. Richard Mason said it was ''quite a slow puncture change'' and despite dropping to 15th position for the stage, their buffer over the rest of the field was substantial.
An exhausted Holder (25) was relieved to have overcome what felt like a long event, to achieve his first podium in the NZRC's 4WD class.
''It was slow and rough but we got there,'' he said.
Mentored by WRC driver Hayden Paddon and driving his former Mitsubishi Evo 8, Holder described his car's performance as ''amazing'', delivering him top eight results in all stages bar one.
Christchurch's Matt Jansen was third in his Subaru Impreza after a ''tough, demanding'' event - his brake callipers seized on Saturday - just over a minute behind Holder.
Drivers are allowed to drop their worst round of six in the NZRC, so budget constraints meant Jansen elected to miss Rally of Whangarei last month, which would have been his furthest travelling distance of the season.
In the car's first full-distance event, Aucklander Andrew Hawkeswood nursed his misfiring Mazda 2 Maxi home to fourth.
Dunedin's Emma Gilmour came tantalisingly close to a rally podium, with her Suzuki Swift Maxi achieving its best results yet and running in second place, before its fuel pump stopped working 2km into stage 12.
She was ''very gutted'' after setting top five stage times all event and recording three, runner-up fastest stages times behind Mason before the mechanical failure.
Chris West and co-driver Chris Cobham had a far more dramatic exit from the rally, early on day two, when they crashed their Mitsubishi Evo 9 heavily in Sunday's first test at Taieri Beach, causing the stage to be cancelled. Rally spokesman Roger Oakley said Cobham was checked by medical personnel but walked away with a black eye and bruises.
Max Bayley put together a consistent run in his Ford Fiesta to win the NZRC's Group N 2WD section, while Brent Taylor was first home in the Open 2WD class.
Wallacetown's Carter Strang drove his Mitsubishi Evo 6 to 16th overall and first in the Allcomers category.
His rally had been going smoothly until stage 12 when his car slid off the road on a marbly corner and he and co-driver Stewart Robbie took several minutes to get going again.
He credited their ''never give up'' attitude and the gap between himself and second-placed Allcomers competitor Robert McCallum for his victory.
The NZRC's third round is the Canterbury Rally at Queen's Birthday weekend.
