There’s light at the end of the tunnel

I probably should be thankful for small mercies, but over here on the western side of the Tasman, we’re all pretty jealous of you Kiwis this year.

You might have lost your NZ Rally Championship early in the whole COVID-19 pandemic, but at least your strict lockdown rules enabled life, and rallying, to get back to some form of normality pretty quickly.

Things haven’t been that good in Australia though. Some events have been held, but many more have been cancelled.

And incredibly – and surely from the “only in Australia files – in the past month we’ve even had rallies cancelled because of severe bushfire dangers, and through torrential rain.

Still, things could be worse. In Victoria, where I’m based, we’ve just racked up 11 days straight without a new Coronavirus case, and life is starting to get back to something like that which we’re used to.

There may even be a rally held on the last weekend of this month, should the restrictions ease a little more in the coming weeks.

Already, 80 entries have been received for the event, so you see that Aussie rally crews are pretty keen to get back out in the forest again.

We’ve had this feeling of jealousy for our Kiwi neighbours for months, with events being held successfully in the north and south of the country.

What makes the feeling even worse is that many of us have missed out on two trips to New Zealand this year, for the Otago Rally in April, and Rally New Zealand in September.

If anything good can come from it, it’s that I’ve got flights booked and ready to go for whenever travel can be allowed again.

Before any of that can happen though, those in the North Island are beside themselves with excitement over this weekend’s City of Auckland Rally, and the Battle of Jack’s Ridge.

Any event that has Hayden Paddon on the entry list is worth attending, but with names like Hunt, Summerfield, Gilmour, Hawkeswood, Stokes and Allport also in the top 11 starters, attendance becomes a no brainer.

Oh, and there’s a couple of extras as well. There’s some guy named van Gisbergen driving a Ford Escort RS1800, and another name from the past that you may have heard before … Bourne.

Rather than having the weight of the rallying world on his shoulders, Spencer Bourne is contesting the City of Auckland Rally in the right spirit. It will be his first rally, and he simply wants to get to the finish and enjoy the sport that made his father famous.

Fittingly, Spencer’s Subaru Impreza WRX will sport the number 62, the same number that Possum’s WRX had in its final event, the 2003 Rally of New Zealand.

Sunday’s Battle of Jack’s Ridge will be more of a ‘made for TV’ spectacular, but it could well be the event that gives rallying a much needed publicity boost in what has otherwise been a frustrating year.

Again, names like Paddon, van Gisbergen, Bourne, Murphy and Allport will give the purists something to smile about.

It’s going to be an incredible weekend of action, and hopefully the first in what will become an annual event.

My only regret is that I can’t be there myself. Bloody COVID!!