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Silver Fern Rally N.Z. 2010

By Colin Thompson
NZ Silver Fern Rally started Saturday 13th November 2010, and would last 8 days.
Average of 150 stage miles, and 300 road miles per day.
Always exciting when the helicopter is the same height as the car!
Early morning mountain pass was foggy.
Photo 5 of 28
A typical hairpin bend, of which there were many on mountain climbs.
Downhill sections were very fast, and sometimes dangerous over blind crests with big drops.
Photo 8 of 28
The cars were set off at minute intervals, the dust made it difficult when catching cars on longer stages.
Dust wasn't an issue higher up the mountain where it was 'mildly moist'.
Hard work being an international navigator you know!!
Average temperature was between 26 and 30 degrees celsius. In car temperature was unbearable at times, as you can imagine for a hobbit...
Rallying is a little like rugby... You make friends....
...cover them in shit and bruises (in this case from the gravel being thrown up), then have a beer with them after the event!
Photo 15 of 28
Socialising between stages.
The rally needed hundreds of marshals for it to run smoothly. Most were given campers to travel the country in so they could camp by the stage they were to run the following day. My best mate was a lady handing out jelly beans at the stage start...
Photo 18 of 28
The car were were in was a Ford ex works Escort Mk2, used in the 70's by rally champion Roger Clark. The car was sponsored at the time by Cossack hair products, and is more or less as it was in the 70's.
Photo 20 of 28
One of the service areas, the car pictured is our team mate Geoff Bell from South Africa. Both cars were run by Dansport of Chesterfield, who provided a team of 5 mechanics.
Waiting to start a 62 mile stage, the longest of the event.
20 miles into the stage...
Half way through the stage, could do with an ice cream...
3/4 way through the stage, still going strong but busting for a pee at this point.
Stage clear!
We finished 4th overall from 84 starters, and 3rd in our class of 22 (the largest class in the rally.
Christchurch town centre, a view before the cars started the event. Thankfully we didn't stay long as they had a fairly major earthquake before we got there, and several smaller tremors while we were there...

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