Matt Summerfield of Christchurch drove superbly to win the twentieth edition of the Catlins Coast Rally in his Mitsubishi Mirage AP4 on Saturday.  

Summerfield won four of the six Special Stages, taking the lead after the third, and building a gap of 52 seconds before Gore driver Andrew Graves won the final stage, cutting the margin to 38.8 seconds at the finish. “We had a really good day, you have to drive pretty hard to beat Duggie (Graves)”, said Summerfield. “We had a spin in the first stage and I had to change what I was doing but the day went pretty smoothly. It was a good battle and it is a great event. Duggie really kept the pressure on. This makes up for the last two years. In 2018 we were going well and had a problem and last year we went off the road. I have to thank everyone behind the effort, even my sister Nicole who vacated the co-driver seat to let my sponsor and friend Jared Christofferson sit with me. Jared and I had driven together for those last two years and I got him on board again because we were going to get this bloody thing.”  ...more...

It is a special year for the Catlins Coast Rally this year as the Eastern Southland Car Club hold the 20th edition of the event on Saturday 8 August.  

Amongst the eighty-four entries are two drivers, Andrew Graves of Gore and Barry Mills of BaIclutha, who have competed in every single one – with a fair degree of success to boot. There is another as well, Derek Ayson, who did the first eighteen before helping the club by performing Zero Car duties for the last two years.  

Graves has both driven and co-driven in the event and has experienced wins in both roles. As co-driver for Derek Ayson, the duo won the event in 2005 before Graves took the wheel himself. He remembers the 2007 event well, because he rolled, but after stepping into his Mitsubishi EVO 3 Graves took wins in the event in both 2010 and 2013 before returning to the co-driver seat alongside Tony Quinn in 2014 and 2015. He returned to the driver seat, once again in his EVO 3, before winning in 2017 and 2018. Last year he grabbed the lead early and was cruising with a comfortable lead only to slide off the road in Stage 5 after a wheel parted company with the car.  ...more...

The Catlins Coast Rally celebrates twenty years of action this Saturday and the spectacular entry list of more than eighty competitors is appropriate for such a momentous occasion.  

Spectators will see some of the biggest names in New Zealand rallying with no less a driver than Hayden Paddon running at the head of the field, not competing, but testing his Hyundai i20 AP4. It is an amazing opportunity for local motorsport fans to see the only kiwi to win a World Rally Championship event, a former Production World Rally Champion and four-time New Zealand Rally Champion in action. Paddon will run with notes to prepare for upcoming events, something the actual rally participants will not be able to use.  

Four-time Catlins Coast Rally winner Andrew Graves with son Hayden in the co-driver’s seat is the top seed in his ageing but fast Mitsubishi EVO 3. Graves was well on target for win number five last year only to lose a wheel and go off the road on the penultimate stage while leading by over three minutes.  ...more...

Spectators at this year’s Catlins Coast Rally on Saturday will get a rare treat as Hayden Paddon makes an appearance at the event at the wheel of his Hyundai i20 AP4.  

Paddon is the only kiwi driver to ever win a World Rally Championship event having won 2016 Rally Argentina. He was the 2011 Production World Rally Champion and has won the New Zealand Rally Championship four times, in 2008, 2009, 2013 and in 2018. He currently resides in Cromwell where he operates Paddon Rallysport.  

Paddon will be running as a lead car in the event, not actually competing as he treats the day as a test day. He will run with notes which none of the competitors in the event will have as Catlins is a blind rally.  

“There have been no rallies for quite a while,” explains Paddon, “so it is a test session and time in the seat. I was last at Catlins fifteen years ago and it will be nice to do it,” he says. “The Eastern Southland Car Club have been helpful in allowing me to do it. I haven’t done a blind rally for about fifteen years either so there was not much point testing without notes.”  ...more...

The cancellation of the New Zealand Rally Championship for 2020 due to Covid-19 looks to have had an upside for the 20th Catlins Coast Rally this Saturday (8 August).  

Josh Marston, a leading competitor at National level with finishes of third and second in the 2018 and 2019 New Zealand Rally Championship respectively, will bring his MRF Tyres/Rubber Developments Ltd Holden Barina AP4 south for the event as he changes his focus to this year’s Mainland Rally Series of which Catlins is Round 2.  

Marston took both his and Holden’s first NZ Rally Championship win in Rally Canterbury in 2018, 19 years after his father Leigh won the same event. ”Winning Canterbury was a real highlight,” he says. Other career highlights include topping the Motorsport NZ Elite Motorsport Academy in 2009 pipping the likes of Simon and Mitch Evans and winning the NZRC 2-wheel-drive class in 2013. Another is co-driving with his father in the Silver Fern Rally and winning their class on two occasions – a different class each time.  ...more...

This year’s Catlins Coast Rally which takes place on Saturday 8 August will see one of the best fields in the history of the event as many of New Zealand’s top drivers line up for the 20th Anniversary of the rally.  

One such driver is Matt Summerfield of Christchurch who will drive his Mitsubishi Mirage AP4 in the event. Summerfield has been at the pointy end of the New Zealand Rally Championship for many years with a best result of second overall in 2017 and has seldom been out of the top four since 2014.  

Summerfield has done the Catlins event several times before and was in contention last year, battling with Andrew Graves until he went off the road in his Subaru in Stage 4 of the event.  

“I would love another battle with “Duggie” (Graves), but he is fast down there. It would be good to get one over him at home, we will have a nudge at it in the Mirage.”  ...more...