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Giti Tyres offroad race team column for NZ4WD magazine

Having run for over 40 years, Ashley Forest Rallysprint is a true Kiwi classic event. In the 1980s it was a regular commitment – a few brews, a barbecue and an afternoon spent watching the pretty well produced TV programme.

It’s close to my place too – just outside Rangiora in North Canterbury.

The rallysprint features a snippet of the infamous ‘Mt Grey Road’, with a short 1.7km blast up and down the hill. Over the years, winners have included New Zealand national rally champions Neil Allport, Tony Teesdale, and the late Possum Bourne, together with other big names in the sport including Alistair McRae.

Last year’s winner, WRC star Hayden Paddon, smashed the previous Sloan Cox record on his final run. This year, Paddon is set to return in his Hyundai i20 AP4 hillclimb monster. He is also bringing along a strong contingent of crosskarts to debut at the event, with another national champion, Joe McAndrew, amongst the high profile names driving them.

The crosskarts look a lot like a class ten offroader but aren’t built to handle the hammering an offroad course dishes out.

Marcus Van Klink and his Mazda RX8 is bringing competition to current 2WD record holder Chris Hey, in the dominant Toyota MR220.

The event’s heyday was in the 1980s – the days of Rod Millen’s domination of the ‘climb in his special four wheel drive Mazda RX7. There were six wheeled ‘specials’, a massive cadre of Group 4 Escorts, a spicy assortment of V8 Chevettes and other interesting home-builts.

Common wisdom said you should only go if you had more than 200 bhp under your right foot – the uphill was a deceptively steep climb. So the hill itself weeded out the low powered and amped up the entertainment.

Later, the sponsor fell off the event and the coverage got a bit pedestrian and eventually the event itself fell off the map a bit.

What does all that have to do with offroad racing? Well, for a number of years we have been invited to turn demo laps in the GT Radials Ford Falcon V8, and it’s been a great chance to show what the old truck could do and also to talk to the crowd that gathered after our runs to find out more about the sport.

The Race to the Sky took things a step further with international entrants including Monster Tajima, Alister McRae and others.

But even the Race to the Sky is a warm but receding memory now – these events generally have been scuttled by economic conditions, occasionally by politics and now of course by Covid 19.

So it’s great to see this 40 year old epic event back and looking strong and even better, the Giti Tyres team has been invited to turn some demo laps again. Having run the ProLite truck at Hayden Paddon’s recent event and also at the Rod Millen Leadfoot ‘driveway’ sprint, it’s great to get the chance to have a squirt up the classic Ashley Forest course. I love the uphill section, it’s all about going fast but staying away from the edges. The downhill is just scary fast adrenalin overdose.

The organisers have asked that we stay off the racing line, which is fine because a Komodo-shod rear wheel drive turbo ProLite requires very different lines to a four wheel drive Evo or WRX.

The truck can’t be entered in the event itself because it doesn’t comply with any MotorSport New Zealand classes or categories but it’s a great day out in any case.

The event may also see Chang Junior there in the ex-Daniel Powell Jimco V6. Owen’s tweaked the Jimco to suit his aggressive driving style and it’s very impressive to watch off the line or at speed.

We will as always be ‘ambassadors’ for the sport, because the rally fraternity are intrigued by the relative freedoms in design the sport offers. There’s always a cluster of drivers, mechanics and spectators around the truck between runs.

Save the date: September 21 and 22. Get there if you can, or watch it online, it’s very good.

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