One week ago we competed in Canterbury Rally, we had soo much fun but it wasn't without its challenges.

SS1 about mid stage we lost power, a reset of the car by turning off the ignition and master temporarily fixed the issue and at service park the crew changed the throttle body which seemed to keep the gremlins at bay.

SS2 was one of our better ones, we had no issues and Terri and I got in a really good rhythm.

SS3 - SS6 We still had heaps of fun through these stages with a real mix of fast, tight, twisty, cresty, seal and gravel sections. We did come into quite a bit of dust during the longer stages as we were catching the car in front but this just meant I had to concentrate extra hard and believe in my notes.

At last service I swapped my front and rear tyres and made the silly mistake of not adding air to the rear tyres which meant they were well below the working range making the car oversteer quite bad in SS7 & SS8. And then I made a mistake 1.5km into SS8 where the rear end let go and we spun into the bank, the car wouldn't start and we lost just over 40 seconds from this wee mishap.

SS9 We finished off the day doing some laps around Ruapuna, what an awesome track and such a fun way to finish the rally!  

Another last minute call up meant sitting in the silly seat beside Terri Taylor at South Canterbury Rally! Awesome driving and thanks to the team for giving us a reliable car & feeding us all day In other exciting news I will be driving at Canterbury Rally and Terri Taylor will be co driving for me... We just like to keep people on their toes by swapping seats See you all out there!!!   

I had a great week at Otago Rally after a late opportunity to co drive for Dean Sumner! Awesome driving all weekend, I'm stoked we took home a 3rd in class. It was such a fun week and it's motivated me to get the R2 back out for a skid so watch this space.  

South Canterbury Rally was another great weekend rallying but not without its character building moments.

The highlights were definitely achieving 2nd in class and 38th overall, improving our pace and continuing to work on the notes.

Our battles started on Friday when the service van wouldn't go but thanks to the team for jumping in to save the day and finding another vehicle.

Once we had the car at the rally we sadly toured through SS1 after an accident. At the start line of SS2 we lost the throttle and couldn't get up the hill so we had to reset the car which fixed the throttle but unfortunately then the speedo and steering stopped working which continued to haunt us throughout the day with it coming and going. Before first service we damaged the LF shock but without a spare elected to just keep pushing on through the day... Who needs a LF shock, it's a bit of a novelty anyway. SS6 got a little interesting when the front brakes started to disappear and I had to use the handbrake climbing down a pretty steep downhill, we found out at service this was due to a cracked front rotor.

Despite some of the struggles we had so much fun, a lot of laughs and are very spoilt to have such an amazing team helping.  

What a week at Otago Rally with great roads and great people!

After a long week completing a two pass recce we were ready to take on the roads at Otago Rally. But it was an adventure with two withdrawals and two rejoins due to throttle issues and an oil pressure light coming on. Despite this we completed some stages and Terri and I started to get into a great flow and pick up the pace by the end of the weekend.

The service crew were amazing, nothing was to hard and they kept driving into the middle of nowhere to come help us.

Next up we'll be working hard to fix the throttle/idle issues and make it to South Canterbury Rally where we will continue to build speed.  

Bri and I were back in the car together for South Canterbury Rally. We completed day one and two of recce and I was feeling very happy that our notes were consistent and some of the better notes we had written. 

We decided to try some different tyres this rally to see if it made a difference to the balance of the car. We initially noticed a big improvement which gave me the confidence to push on more than I had previously. The whole day went well for us, the team did an amazing job at the services and the car was a rocket ship! Bri did a great job calling notes and we really started to get a flow before our tyres started losing grip in the last couple stages. 

We got 44th overall out of 79 and 6th in class which I am super proud of after the struggles we had at Otago rally. 

I'm now really looking forward to the next event although we have now finished the major rallies for us in 2023. 

Matt and I had heaps of fun at Canterbury Rally. We started recce on the Saturday and wrote our notes for the rally. He helped me get my steering wheel in the recce car set up even better.

Onto rally day it was really cool and a good learning experience to see how hard he pushed the car. We still couldn't get amazing balance in the car but he drove the wheels off it. He even managed to get in the top 10 for a couple of the stages which is an awesome effort. I did some stages driving but still lacked some pace, however I think we still made some improvements. 

We managed a 4th in class which was awesome. Onto South Canterbury rally with a 2 week turn around. 

After Otago rally I was lucky enough to have two test days so we could play around with the set up and try make some improvements. 

I also got some driver training to help me feel comfortable sliding the car around and build confidence to push the car forward. 

From this we did learn quite a bit and are ready to take on Canterbury rally with a small twist. This year Matt and I will be share driving the car so again I can hopefully learn heaps and get better and better. 

Otago Rally was all about learning the new car, I was super exciting to be competing at my first rally in the Fiesta R2. I also had my first co driver from 2019 back in the car with me so we were looking forward to getting familiar with how each other works again. We had a great couple days of recce and enjoyed the two pass offering more consistency to our notes. On day one of Otago rally we struggled to find any pace, we had a couple different issues from having to much rear brake to ride height being incorrect. Overall I was struggling to find a good balance in the car and was finding pedaling the R2 harder than driving the wheels off the Corolla. We also had a clutch fail and finished day one on the trailer back to Dunedin. Lucky I have such an amazing team who pulled the gearbox out Saturday night to fix the clutch and get us back on the road for day two. Sadly we also didn't have much success on day two and I had a small off road excursion which I then decided the best option was to pack up for the weekend and go back to the drawing board. We learnt heaps at Otago rally but I was a little upset to not finish one of my favourite rallies. We have some work to do but I'm looking forward to getting back in the car at our local, home rally in June.

Canterbury Rally was an interesting experience for me this year. At the last minute my co driver had to pull out due to an injury and because I write my own notes finding a co driver to fill in and take on this task was quite the challenge. Friday before recce on Saturday I was calling anyone I could think of who might be able to make it happen. Luckily I succeeded and had Teri come up from down South to help me out. She did an amazing job and learnt very quickly how to write notes. We had another fantastic weekend and I really cherished every moment driving again. The roads were tricky being in the forest with a lot of rain having fallen the days before. Some parts were fast before it'd turn tight and twisty. Some roads were grippy while others were incredibly slippery but we stayed on the road to achieve a successful 4th in class and 39th overall.