Josh Marston places 4th at Canterbury Rally A fourth place finish overall and first group N car home in our local rally was a good result for the JMR and RDL performance team.

The first pair of stages included some very muddy and twisty roads as well as some of the fastest roads, so was a great challenge for the team to get the tyre and suspension choice’s correct.

Unfortunately what suited one stage didn’t suit the next! We ended the loop in 5th overall.

After service and some suspension tweaks, a very rough Okuku pass road was tackled and again it shows that everything has to be right. The suspension was much better however the tyre choice was not and we ended up losing 22 sec’s to our nearest competitor....

Back at service, and the boys doing a frantic job servicing both us and Leigh (who was zero car), got us out again and we were hopeful of some good times on the repeat stages of 1@2 from the morning.

Our mud tyres were well suited to conditions but a puncture and excessive tyre wear led to us losing more time and allowed those behind to close right up. The last pair of stages started to prove we were on the right path with some good times and a much improved feeling in the car.

Josh then pulled away from the pursuing pack and took time out of the car in front. Overall a good way to end the event and build confidence for the future.

After our very successful rides day in the Ashley Forest, we packed up the truck and car and headed off for the first round of the Vantage NZ Rally Championships.

This was held on public (and very dusty!)roads in Otago over the weekend of 10th 11th of April.

Talk about a tough weekend. The new turbo blew 10km into stage one and that was day one over. By the end of the day we had sourced a replacement and fitted it to the car in preparation for a super rally restart the next day.

Day two rolled round and on the first loop of stages Josh complained the car was handling in an irregular fashion. At the first service in Middlemarch we changed the centre diff pump but to no avail. The car was no better performing through the next loop so the decision was made to just try to finish the event.

In my opinion this has been the hardest and most disappointing event we have done. So all we can do now is work hard to get the car ship shape for Rally NZ and hope for a little better luck.

Wow this has been a very busy season on the circuits of New Zealand.

We have been preparing and crewing on Andy Knights Radio Live sponsored NZV8.

After a rebuild in the offseason and some positive testing in the preseason we all headed off to Pukekohe with high hopes of a good result.

As a team we all worked well and Andy rewarded us with 8th place overall. Ruapuna in Christchurch was our home track and we had an awesome round with a podium result. Although an hour after the racing was over we ended up with a 50 second penalty in the reverse grid race which dropped us back to 7th.

The International series started after Christmas at Invercargill and again the car, team and Andy went well with a couple of solid top six results. Though the reverse grid race again proved our downfall after an incident left us down in fourteenth spot and still eighth overall.

Timaru was a crazy round! Fifth in qualifying was a good start but a drizzle at the start of the first race meant a spin for us (last) but through a slick tyre change and some nice driving Andy ended up 7th.
A help into a spin meant race two was no help tho the reverse grid race Andy got a great 5th place finish. Not our best weekend!

Manfield (near Fielding) was probably one of our most consistent rounds with two 5ths and a great drive to 6th in the reverse grid race. For us tho the whole round was torturous on brakes. We were constantly working on new ways of trying to cool the brakes to make them last! Not very successfully but better than some!

For The finial at Taupo we were in position to challenge for 5th overall and after the first two races it all came down to the reverse grid race. Andy made a great start, 12 spots in two laps and even the possibility of a race win was looking on. The car then appeared to slow and a puncture was diagnosed. After pitting and then another puncture we worked out the diff mount had broken due to an earlier crash. Bugger 7th overall was it!

The v8 supercar round at Hamilton was awesome! We ended up 2nd overall with a 2,3,4 results for the weekend. Amazing effort by everyone and a great way to end the season on a high.

Bring on next year!

Hamish has been putting together a blog for the Legacy Rally car and the upcoming Silver Fern Rally.

Click here to view it!

The Legacy for the Silver Fern is coming along nicely with new parts arriving all the time. The motor is together and looks great with the Group A carbon intake etc. 5 genuine Legacy rally wheels arrived today and they look cool. They are Prodrive rims out of Possum Bourne Motorsport.

For more information, please contact: tony@rdlperformance.co.nz

At the 2008 Canterbury Rally we really struggled with Josh's car. We couldn’t get the handling right at all. The car just wouldn’t turn or inspire any confidence so Josh just drove around and ended up tenth. He did however bring a big smile to our faces with his drifting display on the final tarmac stage!

We made major changes to the car for the next event including an active center diff.

Leigh used the Canterbury Rally as a test for the legacy. He ran as the 00 car in front of the field.

The following weekend was a two day sprint on the west coast. We only managed one run before 2nd gear cried enough and it was time to go home (for some of us, others stayed to sample the hospitality!) We still managed 2nd place on the sat event.

Yet another mad dash to get the car ready as the following weekend was the Mt Thomas eliminator sprint. Josh was 4th after the first run and then was the fastest on the next 4 runs! I am still not sure if Les Summerfield was just foxing or he had a problem earlier but he piped us by 0.5sec on the final run. Still a very pleasing result!

So that’s where we are. Josh’s car is now sold and he has some very exciting plans for the rest of this year and next. These include an Evo 8 and NZRC, gunning for the rookie title. Should be a great challenge!

We should be ready for testing at the end of September. Stay tuned!

Tony Power @ RDL Performance

Over the summer race season, Tony has crewed in the Knight Motorsport team doing servicing and preparation on the number 19 car driven by Sam McNeil. Sam enjoyed his drives but didn’t have a lot of luck go his way. The team car of Andy Knight did manage to win the Toyota Racing Series overall. Tony enjoyed his time with the team and took away some good ideas to work on at RDL.

Following on from the summer series Jim Hewlett Motorsport (ph 027 33 22 700) contracted RDL Performance to continue some work on a BMW endurance car that was in the build. Most of this work was custom fabrication and final assembly. The car was then run on the dyno but developed some small gremlins which precluded it running in the season finale at Teretonga raceway.

At the same time Jim Hewlett Motorsport was preparing and servicing a former Stone Brothers Racing AU Falcon V8 Super car for Gary Carter. The car was a 2^nd place finisher at Bathurst in 2002 and is still an awesome machine!

The Autosport rally and sprint season is under way again. The Rakaia zigzag was first up and for RDL was not the best weekend. Josh broke an axle on the start line and after grabbing one from a car in the pits then broke intercooler piping on his next runs. Very frustrating. Nick had a reasonable run in his Datsun coupe but desperately needed more grip up the steep hill.

The next event was the Autosport Auchenflower Road Sprint and Nick was getting faster still! He had a new diff and ratio which gave much more traction and usable power.

Josh had a very forgettable day with a engine breakage due to fuel pump failure causing an engine bay fire - overall that sucked.

contact: tony@rdlperformance.co.nz

The Onepunga Road sprint was a new road to  the RDL team of Josh, Nick and Tony.

Whilst not completely suiting the gearing of Josh’s wrx he was able to run in the top five overall all day. Josh’s remarks were, The handling feels fantastic I just cant wait for the new motor over Summer!! We just need a bit more torque.

Josh finished in the top 5 on the ultra fast road

Nick and Tony were sharing the Datsun and they both improved there times over the day. The new shocks and some radical tyre pressure changes transformed the ride over bumps and both loved the tar seal section! Overall Nick beat Tony by 0.6 sec, it was very close and an enjoyable event.

Nick & Tony had a battle in the green machine

The results and video of the event are on the Autosport website, you can view these by clicking here.

Due to recent rain the roads were incredibly slippery and Josh had made the switch to motocross like tyre, the Silverstone mud tyre, which proved to be a very good choice. Some downhill sections were so treacherous that drivers were advised "not to touch the brakes or throttle or you will end up off the road".

Nick with partner Kate co driving, managed 3rd in class behind seasoned competitors Deane Buist (2nd overall in his green Evo engined Corolla DX) and Trevor Crowe in the V8 Skoda.

On the youtube video below you can see Josh very committed on the second corner of the rally and some great shots of Nick during the rally. Josh and Tony spent the rest of the day servicing Nick's car which ran without a fault.

 
A Youtube of the Hanmer Rally 2007

> click here for the full results of the rally

 
A Youtube video of the Mt Thomas Sprint

The race was run in the opposite direction to previous years for reasons of safety and the road held up to the punishment from the cars very well.

Josh set the 3rd fastest time after the first run before discovering some play in a front wheel bearing. The huge offset of the Ex Prodrive WRC rims on the car meant even more force on the damaged bearing, so Josh took it easy for the rest of the day (still managing 4th overall).

Nick was loving being at the wheel of his green machine and was 12 seconds faster in his second run and then a further 2 seconds faster in his third! He took nice clean lines as he got to know his freshly built Datsun.

Tony also had a crack at the sprint in Josh's car and enjoyed his day out, finishing less than 10 seconds behind.

> results and more video here 

Josh was on form and was running in the top 5 of a 51 car field before ripping his exhaust off during the final run. He finished in 14th place.

Josh sliding around a corner at Tarn Road

Dave had a trouble free day but struggled with the slippery road and finished up 20th.

> click here for the results