Dunedin's Emma Gilmour and Balclutha's Rhys Gardner finished first and second respectively in the Otago Sports Car Club's Circle Hill Rallysprint earlier this month.
Since finishing runner-up on a stage at the previous championship round at the International Rally of Whangarei, Gilmour has completed extensive testing to develop her turbocharged, four-wheel-drive 1.8-litre Suzuki Swift Maxi. She is now intent on scoring special stage wins.
This weekend's third round of the New Zealand Rally Championship is a one-day event over nine special stages totalling 116km.
It will, of course, be much tougher than a short sprint on her back doorstep but Gilmour is confident that the development work carried out in the past month has taken the Swift Maxi to another level in both speed and reliability.
''Since then the focus has been on the dozens and dozens of smaller changes that are part of finding the car's full potential.''
For Gardner the OSCC event ''showed the car is on the pace,'' and was an important test for the new group A-spec engine his Mitsubishi Evo 7 is sporting, which is run on ethanol-based fuel.
He finished first rookie team home, sixth in the New Zealand Rally Championship class and ninth overall, in April's Otago Rally. He sat out last month's Whangarei round and is eager to make his debut on North Island roads.
Gardner must return to Dunedin on Sunday, ready to begin the week-long 2013 Elite MotorSport Academy in Dunedin, where he joins eight of New Zealand's most talented young race and rally drivers.
Wairarapa's Richard Mason is seeded first for the Daybreaker Rally, followed by Nelson's Ben Hunt and Timaru's Chris West.
Gilmour and co-driver Glenn Macneall are seeded fifth, Gardner, co-driven by Alex Ramsey, eighth and Oamaru's Scott Simpson, with co-driver James Bee, in 10th position.
