Good Speed But No Cigar For Jagger

The Rally of Wairarapa at the weekend proved to be a character building event for two up and comers in the 2008 Vantage Aluminium New Zealand Rally Championship.

Whangarei pairing of Ben Jagger and co-driver Ben Hawkins had a minor knock back early on when in the first part of the opening stage at the Rally of Wairarapa they spun their Ford Fiesta and were left sitting stuck on a small bank. The rally car had to be recovered at the end of the stage and they took the Fiesta back to the service park where it was soon repaired and deemed ready for action by the crack repair crew.

"We got the car all fixed up and ready to go but we had to wait for the officials to let us know if we could get back into the rally Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately they came back to us with a no so we just sat around and waited for Sunday." said Jagger.

The pair were definitely ready for action at the start of day two and ended the first stage with a time just 0.6 of a second off the pace of Patrick Malley in the other remaining Ford Fiesta after Chris Lange went out.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day was not going to be plain sailing due to their incident on Saturday which shunted them down in the starting order for the rally. This meant that the pair would be starting behind slower cars and that was going to hold them up for the rest of the day. Dusty conditions at this year's Rally of Wairarapa would cause them to become stuck behind other drivers and that meant they would be struggling for visability through the kicked up dirt from the cars in front of them.

"We got put down the field a bit after our crash and kept catching other people's dust. We never really got a proper run except for the first stage of the day where we were only about half a second behind Patrick." said Jagger.

After their excursion at the opening round of the Vantage Aluminium New Zealand Rally Championship, the pair leave their NZRC debut with no points but much experience.

With valuable time spent in the car Ben Jagger feels much more confident with the Ford Fiesta and is looking forward to the next round on the 10-11th of May at the Rally of Otago.

"The car felt really good and it's a lot easier to drive now after spending some time in it - now that I'm getting used to it. The whole weekend was awesome!" he says.

The pair were pleased that they did show good pace against the other competitors in the two wheel drive class at those times where they had a clear run. Ben Jagger and Ben Hawkins now look ahead to the next round where they hope to show their true potential.

 

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NZ Rally Championship Calendar
 

12-13 April
Rally Wairarapa


10-11 May
Rally of Otago


06-08 June
Rally of Whangarei
Asia Pacific Rally Championship

26-27 July
Rally of Hawkes Bay


28-31 August
Rally New Zealand
World Rally Championship

20-21 September
Rally Nelson