The International Rally of Whangarei was the last chance for reigning New Zealand Champion Dean Sumner to bank enough points to give him the opportunity to defend his 2010 title. However, it was not to be with what turned out to be a weekend fraught with irritating problems that started in the first 3kms of the event.
Sumner was 2nd in the championship after the opening round at Otago in May, however dropped to fourth after slipping off the road at Rally New Zealand. Fighting back at Wairarapa, Sumner made ground and closed the gap to third placed Emma Gilmour with a strong drive to finish in 2nd overall at the Masterton based event.
Heading to Whangarei at the weekend, Sumner had one goal and that was to get more points on the board with the hope of being able to seriously fight for the title at the final round in Hawkes Bay in August.
“It’s a bit of a long shot after our disappointing mistake at Rally New Zealand, but if we go well at Whangarei, we may still be in with a chance to defend our title” said Sumner before the weekend.
However, the ITM Rally Team was to be served a stroke of bad luck, just 3km into the opening stage of the event.
Entering the first tight corner of the 13km Brooks Stage, Sumner placed the ITM EVO9 in exactly the place as any top rally driver would do, tucking in tight to the inside bank. The EVO was unexpectedly ‘sucked into the bank’ with a hard hit and spun around facing the wrong direction and heavily damaging the car’s intercooler pipe cutting off boost.
“Due to the vast amount of international cars on the road ahead of us, the inside of the corner was rutted out, and although the ideal line is to have your wheel in the rut, it flicked us around and slammed us into the bank.” Said Sumner
Sumner managed to get the car to the end of the stage with low boost and made rapid roadside repairs to the car, however on the following two stages, Sumner struggled with the pipe coming off, causing the crew to continually stop, losing up to 16 minutes over the morning group of stages, putting them out of contention.
Having repaired the initial problem, Sumner then made a charge the following morning under better weather conditions and with a more ideal road position.
Bad luck was to strike again just 5kms from the end of the morning’s first stage.
“We would have been doing around 180kph along a short straight and as I went to brake, my foot just went straight to the floor.” Said Sumner.
“It was one of the scariest moments I’ve had as a rally driver, you just have to try and throw the car through the corner and hope for the best.” (See Sumner losing his brakes here)
Sumner again tried to do roadside repairs, however with insufficient parts on-board and still another three stages to go, as well as having to tour back some 40km to Whangarei, the crew had no option but to retire from the event.
This leaves Sumner and co-driver Paul Fallon faced with the reality that the championship is now out of reach, however with just one round to go, Sumner is not despondent.
“Yeah it's disappointing as it would have been nice to successfully defend our title, but we know we still have pace and will head to Hawkes Bay in a few weeks time with our game face on again and see what we can do there to end the year.”
Click here to watch the In-car of Sumner losing brakes on SS9
New Zealand Rally Championship Drivers Points (Top 10)
1. Richard Mason 410
2. Hayden Paddon 384
3. Emma Gilmour 322
4. Chris West 280
5. Glenn Inkster 247
6. Dean Sumner 235
7. Ben Hunt 196
8. Ben Jagger 184
9. Sloan Cox 177
10. Josh Marston 164
Photo - Scott Johnson
