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Star attraction Hayden Paddon and co-driver Jared Hudson claimed a dominant win at Rally Southland in their Hyundai i120N Rally2 on Saturday.
Paddon won every special stage at the Barry Robinson Memorial rally, extending his lead throughout the day to eventually finish with a 2min 43sec margin.
‘‘It was a great day — awesome fun,’’ Paddon said.
‘‘The car ran faultlessly. The stages were very fast in places. All around, it is a big tick.’’
It was Paddon’s first rally in New Zealand this year after doing selected events in the World Rally Championship.
Robinson’s wife, Jane, presented the Barry Robinson Memorial Trophy to Paddon and thanked the Eastern Southland Car Club for keeping Barry’s name and legacy alive.
‘‘Most of the roads were in our old backyard,’’ she said, highlighting that stage two finished just 1km from the front gate of the property they used to farm.
The rally was the third round of the New Zealand Rally Championship, and the first championship competitor was second overall driver Jack Stokes, of Waikuku, in his Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo.
Stokes and co-driver Hayden Graves, of Gore, arrived at the event with a slender lead in the championship over Jack Hawkeswood, of Miller’s Flat.
Hawkeswood had the better of them early on before Stokes got ahead in stage four, pulling away to finish second, 24sec ahead of Hawkeswood and Jason Farmer in their GR Toyota Yaris Rally 2.
Stokes said the roads were ‘‘insane’’, while Hawkeswood said the changing weather conditions had made things ‘‘tricky’’.
Robbie Stokes, of Waikuku, was fourth in his Skoda Fabia, achieving his goal to finish after a horror start to the championship.
Taumaranui driver Quentin Palmer was fifth in his Skoda, followed by Ari Pettigrew (Ohoka) in his Porsche 911 WRC.
Pettigrew was the first 2WD car to finish, admitting to ‘‘a few scary moments’’ along the way.
Gore driver Andrew Graves was seventh in his Mitsubishi EVO 3 on an emotional day as he competed in memory of his former co-driver, Jared Leebody, who died recently.
Graves later introduced the Jared Leebody Memorial Trophy, which will be awarded to the leading class E co-driver at every ESCC rally. Fittingly, it went to Graves’ co-driver, Amy Hudson.
Australian Stew Reid, Thomas Paul (Cromwell) and Harri Silcock (Rangiora) completed the top 10.
Sixty-three crews started after last year’s Wyndham Rally winner, Caleb Macdonald, and 2010 national champion Dean Sumner were forced to withdraw.
— Allied Media