Hawkeswood takes runner up spot at Canterbury

Hawkeswood takes runner up spot at Canterbury

Andrew Hawkeswood has taken second place at the Joe’s Garage/Lonestar Rally Canterbury, round three of the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, held over the weekend.

Hawkeswood came to the event with high hopes after a tough run at Rally Whangarei, but confident that improvements made between events would make the car more driveable.

A great start to the day saw Hawkeswood set the third fastest time on stage one despite a spin and another third fastest time on the second stage saw Hawkeswood head to the first service of the day with the Mazda 2 AP4 car sitting in second place.

Along with co-driver Jeff Cress, Hawkeswood continued a string of top five stage times in challenging conditions that would eventually see more than half of the NZRC field fail to finish. Topping the time sheets in special stage seven secured the second placing, while fourth place in the power stage added another two championship points to the 22 scored for the overall result.

“It’s a great result for us, we didn’t quite have the speed for the win, but we’ll be fighting hard for that next time out,” said Hawkeswood. “It was a tough event with lots of attrition but the Mazda gave no dramas all day and our speed was good enough early on to be at the front all day, we deserved the result.”

The result also moves Hawkeswood back into a strong fifth position in the race for the NZRC title, but only 18 points away from the lead with two rounds remaining.

The next round of the championship is Rally Gisborne on July 2.

ENDS

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