Christchurch’s Marcus van Klink has produced a near faultless drive to record a solid class victory and top ten overall result at the South Canterbury Rally, the fourth round of the New Zealand Rally Championship, held over the weekend.
As a new event on the calendar, the Timaru-based rally represented a new challenge on some of the fastest roads in the calendar. Despite the early frosty and icy conditions, van Klink was immediately the fastest of the two-wheel drive cars and disgraced many of his four-wheel drive rivals to 11th fastest stage time.
About the only blot on the copy book for van Klink across the day was a rather public spin at a junction in stage three, but the Buteline Mazda RX-8 was still leading the chasing pack in the Gull Rally Challenge outright as well as the two-wheel drive class when the teams made the first service.
As the day warmed up, the pace continued and by stage seven van Klink and co-driver Dave Neill had worked their way into the top ten outright amongst one of the most competitive fields seen at an NZRC event in recent years.
With a top ten result looking secure, van Klink let his hair down on the final stage around Levels Raceway near Timaru, putting on a display that entertained the crowd. For van Klink, it was the perfect way to finish off one of his strongest days behind the wheel of the triple-rotor powered RX-8.
“I’m pretty chuffed really, it couldn’t have really gone any better all day and to not only win the two-wheel drive class, but the overall Gull Challenge is pretty awesome,” said van Klink, who was awarded a drum of Gull fuel for his result. “It was a new event and we really, really enjoyed it, the fast roads were awesome!”
The Klink Rallysport team now assess their options as to their next event.
SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO READ THE FULL STORY
