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Jansen powered his MITECH WELDERS Subaru safely through the 16 high-speed special stages to be the first local home, and was only headed off by the four international stars in their more powerful Super 2000 cars.
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"We had a fantastically clean run through the entire weekend," said an ecstatic Matt, "and made the most of every opportunity to come away with our best ever performance."
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"Jason [Co-driver Jason Farmer from Huntly] was absolutely 'Spot-On' calling the [pace] notes and the further we went, the more confident we got in both ourselves and how the car was running. It really was awesome fun and the car never missed a beat."
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The gravel roads in the Whangarei and Kaipara districts were in hard, if somewhat dusty, condition and proved very slippery, especially when used for the first time on each of the two days.
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"They were so loose and slippery, we initially thought something was wrong with the setup of the car, but soon realised it was the road surface and therefore the same for everyone," said Matt, "So our new Dunlop DZ87 rally tyres performed very well and really enabled us to press on and we enjoyed the more swept nature of the roads on the second pass in the afternoons."
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Under the revamped points system introduced this year, Matt now leads the MotorSport New Zealand Gold Star Rally Championship for the Group N 4WD cars and will go the the next round in Wairarapa at the end of April third in the national championship and 2nd in the Junior series.
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"We really couldn't have asked for a much better start, as we have now got a good haul of early points, and a bit of a jump on some of our more favoured rivals."
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The PMT Motorsport Team will now return to their base in Christchurch before heading north again in a month's time for the next round - Trust House Racetech Wairarapa.
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