Where Every Tenth of a Second Counts

Media Release

Thursday 12 April 2007

Where Every Tenth of a Second Counts

New Zealand rally championship competitors can be assured their stage times will be correct down to the last tenth of a second thanks to the donation to MotorSport New Zealand of $100,000 worth of timing equipment.

The equipment, which provides almost the same level of sophistication as that used in the WRC, was donated by Rally New Zealand, the organisation responsible for running the New Zealand round of the World Rally Championship.

“It’s a stunning donation,” MotorSport New Zealand president Steven Kennedy said.

“It will be better for the competitors and remove any variations, particularly at the start. The equipment will be managed by MotorSport New Zealand and each of the clubs organising the events will be trained in its use before the event.”

The donation was made out of surplus money accumulated by Rally New Zealand over the past few years.

“Rally New Zealand doesn't directly pay anything out to our shareholders and this is a way of putting what small surpluses we make back into the sport for the benefit of all rally competitors,” Rally New Zealand General Manager, Paul Mallard said.

“We have made $10,000 donations to the MotorSport Scholarship Trust over the each of the past three years. We recognised the need for better timing equipment for rallying and purchased this gear for the sport. It will time down to a tenth of a second, which is becoming more important when the closeness of some rallies last year is considered.

“It replaces older equipment which we have rented out for the various championship events, but while that had a light beam to stop the clock at the finish, the starting countdown was still done by hand.

“The new gear, which is produced by world leading timers MST from the UK, uses starting lights and has a large digital clock to make the checking in procedure much easier.

“The timing equipment is very similar to the equipment used in the WRC and has been the product of over two years of work by Stu Macaskill who managed the previous timing equipment for Rally New Zealand for many years.

The older equipment will continue to be available for local and club rallies to hire.

ENDS

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