There are numerous hurdles to jump over when organising events on public roads, so when a last minute challenge for the organising committee came in the form of no Rallysafe timing due to grounded flights in Tasmania, a replacement timing system had to be found at 9.30pm on Friday night.  A solution was quickly found with thanks to Graham Wilson at Autosport who lent us some clocks, Dwight Parlane who made adaptations to the Ratec timing equipment and Dave McCahon who prepared master logs for the stage crews.  A little after midnight we were ready to go.

It was a small but quality field of 13 that started the rally on a sunny Saturday morning with low cloud briefly shrouding parts of the stage.  Fortunately the breeze soon cleared the cloud away. 

Special Stages 1, 2 and 3 ran along the Summit Road from Worsleys Road to Gebbies Pass.  Marcus Van Klink and Dave Neill in the Citroen C2 S1600, aka the Telephone Box Torpedo as one of our officials dubbed it, set the pace from SS1 with a time of 6.38 which gave them a 15 second lead over Peter Scharmach and Jacob Bennett in a Subaru Impreza.  Sean Haggarty and Matt Wright in a Subaru WRX were 4 seconds behind. Another 4 seconds back were 19 year old Ari Pettigrew and his Rotorua based co-driver Max Tregilgas.  Next up was Rory Callaway and Jordan Cane in the Subaru WRX STi with a 7.05.  Sam Gardiner made his rally debut here in his Subaru Legacy RS with co-driver Willy Hawes and was sitting in 6th in a time of 7.08.  Jeff Judd with son Taylor sitting beside him in the Vauxhall Chevette HSR was 7 seconds back in 7th.  Marlborough's Hugh Owen and Jonty Brennsell, Mitsubishi Evo 9, were having a good battle with first time rally competitor Craig Cox and Matthew Terry, Mitsubishi Evo 2, with one second separating them at the end of SS1.  Not far behind were Dave Ollis and Matt Butler in the Subaru Impreza WRX RA in 10th overall.  Rounding out the field were Darryl and Melanie Smith, Subaru Impreza RS, Ray and Jonathon Deaker, Porsche Carrera 964 and Darryl and Anita Campbell in their Toyota Altezza.

SS2 saw the status quo maintained amongst the front runners.  The times dropped significantly with Marcus and Dave shaving 10 seconds off their SS1 time.  Peter and Jacob were 13 seconds quicker through this stage.  The Haggarty/Wright, Judd/Judd and Owen/Brennsell crews were all 16 seconds quicker.  The biggest improvement was Craig and Matthew who were 19 seconds quicker in a time of 7.09.  Sam and Willy passed Rory and Jordan for 5th place.  Darryl and Melanie over took Ray and Jonathon on this stage.

SS3 saw the placings stay the same at the pointy end of the field.  There were two simultaneous DNF's on this stage when Sam and Willy found Darryl and Melanie parked across the road after a spin on a blind right hander.  Both crews were ok and drove out of the stage but would go no further in the event due to suspension and body damage.

The stage was now reset to run from Gebbies Pass to Worsleys Road.  Marcus and Dave set a 6.26 on SS4 which was the same as his SS3 time which was set in the reverse direction. Jeff and Taylor dropped down to 8th overall behind Craig and Matthew and Hugh and Jonty. 

SS5 saw small increases or decreases in the times being set throughout the field.  Marcus and Dave were still comfortably holding off Peter and Jacob.  The big mover on this stage was the Judd crew who moved to 5th overall, gaining 3 places. 

The final stage of the day saw no position changes.  Craig and Matthew joined the sub-seven minuters in a time of 6.58 beating Dave and Matt, who also set their first sub-seven minute time, on that stage by one second. Our Finish Control marshal, Doug Good, commented that Craig was the most excited competitor he'd seen during the day. 

Congratulations to Marcus and Dave on their win in the 2018 Christchurch Port Hills All Tarmac Rally.  This was Marcus and Dave's maiden outright rally win.  The second spot on the podium was claimed by Peter and Jacob.  Third overall was Sean and Matt .  This was Sean's second tarmac event following on from his victorious tarmac debut at the 2017 Hawkswood Sealed Sprint.  Marcus and Dave, Peter and Jacob and Sean and Matt also won their respective classes. Making an impressive tarmac rally debut was Ari and Max taking 4th overall and their class win.  Jeff and Taylor took out 5th overall and 1st in class.  Rory and Jordan also won their class and finished 7th overall.

Thanks to our event sponsors A Little Bit Sideways​ and Rubber Developments Limited and our event supporters Crowesport, James Hunter Architectural Design, Outback Communications and Racecraft Engineering.

A report on the event will be in the next issue of A Little Bit Sideways magazine. 

Thanks to the organising committee of James Hunter, Doug Good, Teresa Good (Event Secretary and results), Dave McCahon (Clerk of Course and route book) and Dwight Parlane for the huge amount of work that goes into organising this event. 

Thanks also to all the helpers who set up throughout Friday and at a ridiculously early hour on Saturday morning and to everyone who helped with packing up on Saturday afternoon. 

A huge thanks also goes to the timing crews marshals who coped admirably with the sudden reversion to manual timing.  Without the experience of these people, we could not run our events. 

A final thanks goes to the competitors who supported this event.

Click here for the results.