Kaiapoi’s Marcus van Klink has dominated the second round of the Historic Challenge class of the New Zealand Rally Championship, taking a full haul of points and taking the lead of the championship after finishing in an incredible fifth overall.
After a successful debut in the Mico sponsored Group B Mazda RX7 at Otago, van Klink continued his pace-setting ways on the opening stage, only bettered by the non-championship Ford Escort of former national champion Brian Stokes.
By the second stage, van Klink and co-driver Dave Neill had upped the pace and closed the gap to Stokes across the second and third stages before a spin on the Hampton Downs super special stage left the gap at 11.1 seconds behind Stokes, but over two and a half minutes ahead of his nearest championship rival.
The afternoon was a repeat of the four stages used in the morning and van Klink took victory on all of them as he turned an 11 second deficit into a 48 second lead and also took maximum points for day one in the NZRC historic challenge with a margin of over six minutes.
Day two saw van Klink in a fierce battle with Stokes, although at the lunch break a team decision was made to settle for second in the non-championship battle and concentrate on securing maximum points.
Despite the settle for second attitude, van Klink took the final gravel stage win through the infamous Whaanga Coast stage. After pulling a couple more seconds on the final tarmac super special stage around Hampton Downs, van Klink closed the gap to a mere 2.6 seconds, but more importantly a four minute win for leg two in the national championship standings.
Van Klink also claimed fifth of the New Zealand Rally Championship competitors across the two-day event, a result that a two-wheel drive car has not achieved in many years
With the results from the weekend, van Klink has now taken a slender two point lead in the Historic Challenge trophy as the series heads to Rally Wairarapa, on May 28-29.
Press Release by BB Media
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