Mixed bag for Burley at Waitomo Rally

The recent Rally of Waitomo brought mixed fortunes for the Ryan Burley Rallysport team, when a comfortable second overall disappeared with a puncture in the penultimate (and second longest) stage of the event.
The day dawned cool with the first stage literally blanketed in extremely thick fog. With the front runners all using spotlights to compensate for an early and dark start, they were in effect disadvantaged over the later runners who had natural light to make things a little easier.
“It was just nuts” says Burley, “you literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you which basically rendered the notes useless. I was stunned when we almost caught Neil (Marshall, running ahead on the road) at the end of the stage so we figured we can’t have gone too bad!” he added.
The next few stages saw the top four seeds all swapping stage times, then top seed Glenn Smith crashed out early on SS4 leaving a tight 3-way battle for the lead. Marshall and Kingsley Jones (both in Mitsubishi Lancers) were having a titanic battle for the lead while Burley had now settled into a comfortable third.
It was the 38km SS8 that changed the overall classification of the event. Jones went through a fence early on, the ensuing damage costing him over 20 minutes, whilst Burley and Co-driver Jayson Stringer suffered a puncture midway through the stage and were forced to stop and change the wheel losing over 4 minutes.
“We decided to stop basically to avoid damaging the rear of the car. We’d just spent the best part of a month solid repairing the Subaru from Taranaki and couldn’t see the point in doing any damage unnecessarily. We came away without a scratch on the car and the testing really paid off” reflected Burley afterwards.
Marshall went on to win the event from a very happy David Wright in his rapid Nissan Pulsar, with Northlands Brendon Oakden coming home third overall in his Impreza. Burley finished fourth overall (the first Hamilton Car Club team home) and second in class, a result that the team were happy with despite knowing how close they were to an outstanding podium finish.
Next on the calendar is the Possum Bourne Memorial Rally on August 22, the rally moving from its traditional Pukekohe base and is now based out of Hamilton. The event comprises both current and previous WRC stages such as Whaanga Coast, Kawhia Road, and Waitomo. Already entered for the event is current National Rally Champion Hayden Paddon from Geraldine.
The Ryan Burley Rallysport team would like to thank their sponsors Origin Windows, Biz Tech, Possum Bourne Motorsport, Fuji Automotive, Liquid Feed Systems, and Te Rapa Automotive Repairs.