Dean Bond of Balclutha was a popular winner of
Saturday's Catlins Coast Rally. Bond, and co-driver Craig Barclay,
took victory by 2.2 seconds over Alexandra based Andrew Hawkeswood and
Simon Johnstone in their Audi Quattro replica. Kaikoura pairing Regan and
Nigel Ross were third in their Mitsubishi EVO 9.
Hawkeswood looked to be on target to take his first
ever win in the Quattro early in the day. He won four of the first five stages
and finished second in the other, building a lead of thirty-five
seconds in the process. However Bond came storming
home in a strong performance. He won the sixth stage, the longest
of the rally, to slice Hawkeswood's lead back to nine seconds and then
won the penultimate stage by twelve seconds to arrive at the Super
Special Stage in his home town with a three second lead. Hawkeswood
recorded a time of 58.8 seconds in the finale while
Bond went through the stage in 59.3 seconds to seal the victory. In doing
so he won the Darryl Robinson Memorial Trophy and also captured the 2009 Laird
Motorsport Southern Rally Series title.
Bond had been running strongly in second place all
day, his only problem a spin in the opening stage that cost him ten
seconds. It was fellow Balcutha driver Barry Mills who convinced him to
attack over the final stages. "Barry convinced me that with my local
knowledge I should have a real go. There was a lot at stake, our main target was
to win the Southern Rally Series and we could have blown it. It was also nice to
win the Kerry O'Donohue Memorial Trophy," said Bond referring to
the award made to the first South Otago driver home.
Hawkeswood battled overheating issues in the
Audi while Regan Ross held third place throughout the
day and won the short final stage. He eventually finished just over a minute
behind Bond and Hawkeswood.
Gore drivers Paul Cross and Andrew Graves had
a close battle all day in their Mitsubishi EVO's to finish fourth and fifth
respectively while Derek Ayson of Clinton did a fantastic job to bring his
Nissan powered Ford Escort home in sixth place just two seconds behind
Graves. Ayson was the first 2-wheel-drive competitor to
finish.
The top ten was completed by John Giltrap of
Lincoln, Christchurch driver Deane Buist, Steve Wellington of Dunedin
and Paul Dickson of Timaru. Wellington and his co-driver Hudson Briggs won
the Glen Shirlaw Memorial Trophy for the first Otago Sports Car Club crew to
finish.
Second seed Glenn Inkster of Timaru went off the
road in the first stage and lost a lot of time. He recovered
to win the third stage and set several other top stage times throughout the
day. Dunedin's Blair Sutherland was also running well
until he lost time in Stage 4. Canterbury driver Robert
McCallum left the road and failed to finish as did Mainland Rally Series
leader Marcus Van Klink of Christchurch who was running well
until he left the road in Stage 4. The driving debut of
former World Rally Championship co-driver Glenn Macneall ended with mechanical
problems early in the day.
Rangiora driver Matthew King left the road at the
finish line on Stage 4 in the most serious incident of the day, his
co-driver requiring medical attention while former UK driver Willie Rutherford
also had a heavy crash in his Porsche 911RS.
Class winners were Cross in Class D, Graves in
Class E, Ayson in Class G, Deane Buist in Class C and Barry Mills in Class
F after a sixteenth place finish. Timaru driver Lyndon Galbraith won Class
B while former Southlander David Scoles, now resident in Levin, won
Class A.
Other South Otago drivers to fare well in their
local event were Duncan McCrostie of Kaitangata who finished thirteenth and
Balclutha's Mike Verdoner in seventeenth equal.
Conditions were extremely slippery, particularly on
the first two stages and also in the forestry section of Stage
4.