While Dunedin's Emma Gilmour and Rhys Gardner, along with many of the other 54 teams assembling for this fourth round of the six-round competition, will be a little rusty after the nearly three-month, mid-season break, New Zealand's own World Rally Championship star Hayden Paddon will be fresh from Rally Germany last weekend.
He will be getting back in his New Zealand-based Hyundai i20 AP4+ car, and will have a transtasman battle on his hands against top young Australian driver and defending event winner Brendan Reeves.
Paddon will reunite with long-term co-driver Blenheim's John Kennard for the event while second seed Reeves will enlist fellow Australian Ben Searcy as his co-driver. Reeves joins Andrew Hawkeswood's Force Motorsport Team and will drive an all-new Mazda 2 AP4.
Gardner is also in a Mazda 2 AP4 and has spent the months since Rally Canterbury, in June, stripping out the engine, due to a low top speed problem. His team found internal damage but the replacement parts from the United States arrived three weeks late, leaving just under five days for the engine to be built and tuned before the car had to be transported up to the Whitianga-based rally.
He is second in the New Zealand Rally Championship, 10 points behind leader Matt Summerfield, of Rangiora.
``I'm stoked with our current position and very grateful to those who continue to support our ambitious goals,'' Gardner said.
There is no denying the first half of the season has been tough for Gilmour, with retirements from each of the three rallies, so she is looking for a re-set today.
She did some testing in the Waikato's Maramarua forest this week, before the seven-stage, 135km, one-day rally, and bedded in the recent rebuild changes to her Suzuki Swift AP4.
``I just want to have a good run to repay the team and the sponsors for their continued support. We know that when the car is running right we have the speed to be on the podium but our main goals are to aim for a finish, have fun and get a good result,'' Gilmour said.
Summerfield, who has his sister Nicole performing the navigating duties for him, in their Subaru Impreza, will be the third seed behind Rees.
Auckland's Hawkeswood and co-driver Jeff Cress in their Mazda 2 AP4+ are fourth on the road and will be hoping to be free of the niggling issues that have dogged their otherwise front-running pace.
After contesting the first two NZRC rounds in Paddon's Hyundai, Mount Maunganui's David Holder will be returning in a borrowed Subaru Impreza.
Rounding out the top 10 seeds are 2015 event winners Ben Hunt/Tony Rawstorn (Subaru WRX STi), Sloan Cox/Sarah Coatsworth (Mitsubishi Evo 10), Graham Featherstone/Dave Devenport (Mitsubishi Evo 7), Gilmour/ McLoughlin (Suzuki Swift AP4) and Alex Kelsey/Malcolm Read.
A Coromandel local, Kelsey is returning to the series after a two-year break, driving in his spectacular home-built ``Mad-Creation 2''.
