Finishing the tough, four-stage Fuchs Rally of Gisborne, a round of the New Zealand Rally Championship, in fifth place was a satisfying result for Dunedin’s Emma Gilmour.
Her Vantage Windows and Doors Suzuki Swift performed admirably over the nearly two hours of competitive driving in the event, which welcomed the return of classic rally stages including Motu, Whakarau, and Raukaroa to national competition.
“Our Suzuki started strongly finishing the opening stage in second place and ran well all day with no issues aside from some loss of brakes after over-heating them on the last stage,” Emma says.
The final two, short, tarmac stages were cancelled but the gigantic Motu stage at 46.6km made up for it and was one of the longest the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship drivers will tackle this six-round season.
Emma says she was “absolutely exhausted” at the end of it but she and Australian co-driver Anthony McLoughlin relished the challenge of driving the Vantage Suzuki to its limits for 42 minutes on just one stage.
"Now that we are getting some good competition mileage in the Vantage Windows and Doors Suzuki Swift Maxi we can keep fine tuning the set-up to help build our overall speed. The stages in Gisborne had quite slow average speed compared to some of the other events on the calendar, which gives us good information to keep improving the car for the final two rounds,” Emma says.
Auckland’s Ben Hunt won the event over Te Aroha’s Lance Williams and Andrew Hawkeswood, of Auckland.
Caption: Dunedin’s Emma Gilmour and co-driver Anthony McLoughlin splash through a ford on the Fuchs Rally of Gisborne yesterday. PHOTO: GEOFF RIDDER
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