Despite his expected biggest threat, Steve Murphy, unable to compete when the boat shipping his car to the event broke down, Inkster spent Saturday's four qualifying runs aiming to go as fast as possible and by days end had recorded a 58.59 second pass, the first of four cars that would go under the magic minute barrier over the weekend.
The first elimination round almost brought the end of the event for Inkster when he made a mistake going up the hill, calling on all of his talent to keep the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6.5 out of the trees. With the mistake, he recorded his slowest time of the weekend, a 1.03.92, but still did enough to make the top 16 run off.
After setting the fastest time in the top 16, Inkster became involved in a big battle with Glenn Frew and as the two cars progressed to the final, Inkster was on the back foot by half a second.
Running first in the final, Inkster laid down a personal best time of 57.40 seconds and when Frew left the road Inkster took victory, his first win from three attempts.
Inkster now looks forward to his final event of the season, the week long Dunlop Targa. It will be Inkster's first crack at one of New Zealand's biggest rallies and he is looking forward to the challenge.
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