Bay of Plenty Rally a forgettable outing for Gilmour

Emma Gilmour’s return to the New Zealand Rally Championship for the penultimate round – the Battery Town Bay of Plenty Rally – ended in disappointment with a mechanical failure on stage two of the ten-stage rally.

“I was looking forward to some rally mileage in the Vantage Windows and Doors C3 before we head to Rally Tasmania in four weeks time. Unfortunately the exhaust manifold cracked on the second stage yesterday. This created a small fire under the bonnet, which melted some of the wiring, solenoids and the sensors. Effectively our rally was over before it began.” Emma says.

Emma’s Paddon Rallysport mechanic Ollie Talbott worked hard with the team to replace the C3’s damaged exhaust manifold in time for her to return to the afternoon’s seventh stage. Photo credit: Paddon Rallysport.

She and Australian co-driver Ben Searcy returned to the service park where the Paddon Rallysport team set to work fitting the spare manifold, turbo and sensors.

“The team did a really good job making all the repairs in a short space of time. We went back out and completed stage seven but discovered further issues from the fire, so we had to retire on the following stage.”

“It was still good recce mileage, and although less competitive seat time than we had hoped for, Ben and I are looking forward to taking some better luck to Australia for the Rally Tasmania over the November 7 to 9 weekend.”

Emma will be driving a Skoda Fabia R5 owned and run by Perth-based Maximum Motorsport.