Jagger Buzzed over Rally NZ Experience

For Ben Jagger and co-driver Ben Hawkins, Rally New Zealand was a challenge and an experience they would never forget and hope to have the fortune to involve themselves with again in the future.

Although suffering a withdrawl on the opening day, the pair put in a creditable two days of rallying with Jagger holding the lead in the Junior Drivers Championship and staying within the top 10 in the Group N 4WD Championship sharing ninth place with two time NZRC champion Richard Mason.

"We were disappointed with what happened on Friday but apart from that we were pretty happy with our stage times before and afterwards. We went off the road on a really slippery section on the first stage of the second day and were trying to claw back time from then on and stay on the road. The stuff the WRC drivers had left on the road made it like driving on marbles." said Jagger.

It was always going to be a tough rally for the pair dubbed 'The Two Bens' but the unfortunate mechanical failure put the Northland pair on the backfoot after only Special Stage Two of Rally New Zealand on the Friday morning.

Disappointing all the more so with the first day's stages being contested on the boy's home turf of the Whangarei region and including a remote service within the Northland city which proved to be popular with the locals who flocked to see the locals and international drivers from the WRC.

Picking up the pieces, and a replacement input shaft for the SeedForce Subaru WRX, Jagger and Hawkins tackled day two with a new vigour to reclaim all they could after losing an entire day's points from the three day event.

On Saturday morning nine kilometres of sealed road on the opening stage curve-balled a new challenge for all drivers on their gravel tyres and with the Group N cars running down the order after the WRC competitors they were also encountering debris kicked up from the WRC drivers which made their work all that much more difficult.

That trouble with the opening stage left Jagger employing damage control finishing 18th in the Group N standings for Saturday but with marked improvement on the final day finishing with the ninth fastest time out of the local production class drivers.

"We were lucky we had a spin on that one but did a complete 360 and managed to get going again. And we had a big moment in the last stage of the rally too when we went into some trees but again we were ok, we just came in a bit too hot. There was a lot of carnage in the rally on the last day but we made it through to the end."

"It was getting hard towards the end of the rally and at the end of the final Whaanga Coast Rd stage where it started to tighten up I was getting a good workout." he said.

Jagger although not achieving another impressive top five placing as he had done at the opening round of Rally Otago last month, was glad to complete the gruelling three day Rally New Zealand and retain a strong standing in the current Vantage Aluminuim Joinery New Zealand Rally Championship.

The points from the three days of competition left Jagger dropping from fifth in the Group N standings after Rally Otago down to ninth equal with three rallies left remaining, Rally Whangarei in July followed by Rally Nelson then Rally Wairarapa.

Jagger is still leading the NZRC Junior Drivers Championship ahead of Sloan Cox and Stephen Barker.

"It was pretty hard and a very long three days but it was heaps of fun! I would do it all again but it was very long and we are both tired now after a week of early mornings and late nights. Rally Whangarei will be a good one and a lot more low-key than this one and we hope to go hard out. All the hard work we did on the notes went very well for us and we will be writing our own again at the next rally."

Rally Whangarei takes place over the weekend of 3-4 July 2010 and is the third round of both the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship and the Vantage Aluminium Joinery New Zealand Rally Championship.

Ben Jagger is the current Rising Stars Scholarship recipient in the Group N 4WD championship and a graduate of the Elite Motorsport Academy.