Darren Galbraith and Rockky Hudson (Evo 8) have won the 2017 Westland Rally from Matt and Nicole Summerfield (Subaru WRX) with Jeff Judd and Grant Marra (Subaru WRX) third. It’s the third consecutive win for Galbraith joining Christchurch’s Rob Gerard and the late Alan Hewlett from Kumara, both also winning the event three times.
It was a close win after eight stages with just 20.6 seconds separating Galbraith and Summerfield. Summerfield won the opening stage but dropped over a minute in stage two to Galbraith.
“Matt (Summerfield) had a problem in stage two and we gained a minute on him,” commented Galbraith. “I wasn’t expecting that as we have a new car and the purpose of the rally was to test it in time for the NZ Rally Champs. In the end we got the win which we are really thrilled about.”
It wasn’t a straight forward win for Galbraith with brake issues in the last two stages.
“It’s only the second event in the car,” said Galbraith, having moved up from a Mitsubishi Evo 6 to an Evo 8.
“We had brake issues at the end of Stage 7. My foot went to the floor and we had to pull up using the hand brake. We were able to bleed the brakes before the final stage but went on to experience locking issues.
After a long dry spell on the West Coast drivers looked as though they would face very dusty conditions but overnight rain settled the dust and the event went ahead in fine weather with roads described as ‘magic’.
Making its first appearance on gravel the newly completed Holden Barina AP4 car was driven by Josh Marsdon as the Zero car for the event. There was only one major incident with Christchurch’s Roger Townsend rolling his Ford Escort on the second last stage. Teams now get ready for the opening round of the 2017 NZ Rally Champs which takes place in Dunedin. Rally Otago gets underway 7-9 April 2017.
Results (Top 10)
1 Darren Galbraith Mitsubishi 59:36.3
Rocky Hudson Lancer EVO 8
2 Matt Summerfield Subaru 59:56.9
Nicole Summerfield WRX
3 Jeff Judd Subaru 00:35.6
Grant Marra WRX
4 Robert McCallum Ford 01:11.0
Peter Kennard Escort
5 Michael Tall Mitsubishi 01:13.1
Nikita Gibson Mirage
6 Richard Bateman Mitsubishi 01:16.9
Sharisse Guckert Lancer EVO 9
7 Regan Ross Ford 01:17.2
Blair Bartels Escort
8 Graham Ferguson Ford 01:25.8
Ross Moody Escort RS1800
9 Carter Strang Mitsubishi 01:34.9
Stewart Robbie Lancer EVO 6.5
10 Garet Thomas Mitsubishi 02:29.5
Gemma Thomas Lancer EVO 2
Comments