The dominant pair won the Daybreaker Rally in their Hyundai i20 Rally 2 car to continue leading the championship points table after four rounds.
Despite needing to clear heavy gravel on the morning stages and coping with heavy rain during the afternoon, the pair claimed a relatively comfortable win in the one-day rally run in and around Feilding on Saturday.
Paddon and Kennard, from Cromwell and Blenheim respectively, won the rally by more than three minutes from Supercars star Shane van Gisbergen, who had Australian co-driver Glen Weston alongside him.
With one NZRC round to go in Bay of Plenty in October, Paddon now has 118 points with Raana Horan second with 104 points.
Kennard, also with 118 points, is unlikely to be beaten in the NZRC co-drivers’ championship, which would mean his sixth title.
It was the first time Paddon had contested the Daybreaker rally in his 16-year career.
With extreme weather events earlier this year forcing the planned Hawke’s Bay and Coromandel event off the NZRC calendar, championship organisers brought back the old favourite for the first time in years.
Named originally for its midnight starts and challenging early morning stages, the Daybreaker Rally utilised a more familiar schedule, which featured 95 crews competing over nine special stages.
Paddon started the first stage at 6.38am near Taihape and wrapped up the day with three laps around Manfeild race circuit.
"Overall, it’s been a great day at the Daybreaker rally," Paddon said.
"To come away with maximum points for our championship titles is perfect.
"John and I have sort of been in our own rally, leading the field and having to clear a lot of gravel from the roads earlier in the day. Having said that, some of the others behind had dust issues during morning as well.
"We’ve just been trying to keep it clean as it’s challenging to do stages we haven’t driven before with pace notes from a one pass recce. It means you can’t quite commit as you’d normally like to.
"The car’s been working really, really well, and the team’s done an amazing job as usual. All in all, a very successful day and we’re all looking forward to the final round in the Bay of Plenty to hopefully try and bring home the title."
— Staff reporter
