Richard Mason is the greatest driver in New Zealand Rally Championship history, bettering greats such as Hayden Paddon and Possum Bourne.
So say the results of ‘NZRC’s Greatest – the top 25 drivers in history’, which was recently published on the championship’s official website.
The five-time champion was voted as the number one, ahead of Paddon, Neil Allport, Joe McAndrew, Bruce Herbert and a host of other local legends.
Possum Bourne was judged only the 15th best driver in NZRC history.
Of course, the polling only takes into account their performances in the NZ Rally Championship, and with five titles, it’s hard to disagree with Mason’s selection as number one.
It hasn’t stopped social media from exploding with opinions for and against the top 25 rankings though.
Paddon, Bourne and even Rod Millen had much greater international success than the primarily home-based Mason, but those overseas results weren’t considered when the voting commenced.
And like any ‘best of’ or ‘greatest of all time’ voting – no matter what the sport – you’ll never please everyone.
The Coronavirus pandemic has forced all sports to think outside the box in order to keep fans engaged when there’s no action actually taking place.
The World Rally Championship is culling their list of superstars to find the sport’s greatest of all time. The four remaining are Sebs Loeb and Ogier, Juha Kankkunen and Carlos Sainz.
The real problem with any motorsport list, however, is that when different machinery is involved, it’s virtually impossible to come up with a definitive winner.
In sports like rugby or cricket, you can judge a player on talent and statistics alone. In motorsport, drivers are in different cars, driving for different teams, and on roads that don’t always offer the same conditions to everyone.
Then there’s the different eras. Can you realistically compare Sainz and Kannkunen to Loeb?
The Frenchman won his nine titles for the one team. Kankkunen, on the other hand, won his four titles for three different makes, drove for a total of six factory teams, and won titles in Group B, Group A and in World Rally Cars.
The final voting will probably show that Loeb is at the top of the pile, but those of us who’ve watched the WRC from the 70s until the 2020s perhaps won’t see it that way.
Similarly, it would be easy to argue that Paddon is a far greater talent than Richard Mason. It’s just that their career paths differed markedly.
Make no mistake though, Mason is a worthy winner, and as one respected NZRC regular told me recently: “In equal machinery on any given day, I wouldn’t bet either way”.
It’s further proof that Kiwi rally drivers are the real deal.
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