Mason crashes out of Wairarapa Rally

Monday, July 20, 2009 8:03

The bad luck which has dogged Masterton's Richard Mason in the 2009 Rally of New Zealand championship continued at the Wairarapa rally over the weekend.

Mason's hopes of reclaiming the national title he last won in 2006 disappeared when he was forced to retire near the finish of the 15.3km Central Mangaone stage.

It was then that his BNT Subaru rolled off the road and the crew was unable to right it. They did manage to roll the car from its roof onto its side but could not push it back onto its wheels and regain the road. Neither Mason or his co-driver wife Sara were injured in the incident.

Mason is now trailing Wairarapa rally winner Hayden Paddon by 74 points in the race for the national title and there are not enough points available from the final round in Nelson for him to make him the deficit.

Paddon dominated proceedings over the weekend and with 274 points on the board needs just a minor placing at Nelson to secure back-to-back national titles.

His closest challenger is Emma Gilmour from Hamilton who finished third in the Wairarapa event. That result saw her replace Mason in second place with 216 points.

Paddon, clocked two hours, 27 minutes, 28.9 seconds to beat Palmerston North's Geoff Argyle by 3min 28.6sec for top honours at Wairarapa.

"It's a good points buffer - everything's gone to plan this weekend," said Paddon.

"We wanted to win this rally but we knew it'd be tough.

"We had a really good battle with Richard on Saturday and yesterday morning, unfortunately it didn't happen right to the end which would have been nice but we got the result we wanted."

Gilmour should have finished second but dropped to third after she was penalised for starting late yesterday morning.

" The day didn't begin as we would have liked as the car wouldn't fire up," Gilmour said.- NZPA