Paddon flourishes in forest

Hayden Paddon has clinched his sixth Ashley Forest Rallysprint title with a winning time of 52.62 seconds, which was six-tenths of a second outside the course record he set two years earlier.

Driving a Hyundai I20 AP4++, he chose to go second in the final top two shootout of the Canterbury event and successfully beat the 56.55s set by Blenheim’s Neil Webb over the 1.7km forestry road.

It was the third time Webb has steered his Mitsubishi Mirage into the runner-up spot. Dunedin driver Mike Wellington completed the podium after clocking a time of 1m 00.06s. 

Paddon, pictured, is unbeaten in the hillclimb since his second victory in 2019, with the event cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid-19. He first won the competition in 2011 driving a Cordia V8.

Emma Gilmour also enjoyed a triumphant return to the Ashley Forest contest, which was held over September 20 and 21, and won the Rally 4WD Class for the second consecutive year.

The Dunedin dealer was in the top five in every run she did at the wheel of a Citroen C3 and progressed to the top-eight shootout.

“In that run, we recorded a 1m 00.01s time, so we were just .02s from going under the coveted one-minute barrier,” she says.

“It was so close between us and the fourth-placed car, which clocked a one-minute time. It meant we missed out on our goal of reaching the top four shootout by only .01 of a second.”