Running after the World Rally Championship (WRC) top guns and before the national championship contenders, they are sandwiched in the heat of competitive action.
Hayden Paddon will arguably be leading the charge, with one 2010 WRC event - Rally Turkey - already notched up and a desire to win burning in his belly.
"Being our home event, it's our best chance to do really well," Paddon said.
It is the first of six PWRC events he will contest this year - he has added rallies in New Zealand and Japan to his Pirelli Star Driver scholarship-funded WRC events to ensure he meets the quota.
Nine of the 13 WRC events are specified as PWRC rounds, and competitors must complete six of those nine rallies in production-based Group N cars to be eligible for PWRC points.
There is much riding on 2010, as Paddon wants to make his mark internationally and take another step towards a professional WRC career to achieve his goal of winning a world title.
Chasing him hard over the next three days will be the two Rally NZ PWRC wildcard entry recipients, Emma Gilmour and Richard Mason.
Hamilton's Gilmour is determined to break a pattern that has emerged in her recent performances.
"Second, second, and second again - I've got to say it's starting to get to me," Gilmour said.
She has finished as the second Kiwi home in Rally New Zealand twice, including the last time it was run, in 2008.
She was also runner-up in the 2009 Asia-Pacific Rally Championship, and second again in last month's Rally of Otago.
Improvements to her Subaru Impreza hatchback's brakes and perfecting her pace notes with her fiance and co-driver, Glenn Macneall, may help move her above the runner-up monotony.
Mason, of Masterton, has his co-driving wife, Sara, back beside him after she missed the Otago round to look after their then 3-week-old baby.
They, too, are chasing first-Kiwi-home honours, although Richard is still adapting to his new hatchback Subaru.
He is taking a "not overly confident" approach as he and the team become accustomed to all the little set-up changes that make a big difference to results.
Both he and Gilmour will also be aiming to secure as many national championship points as possible in this second round of the series, in which they are second and fourth respectively.
Kerikeri driver Kingsley Thompson is making his PWRC and Rally NZ debut in the Mitsubishi Evo X he began his first national championship-contending season in last year.
"It's all a very steep learning curve for me," he said.
Adjusting to running control tyres and fuel adds to the challenge but Thompson is aiming to finish and is hopeful of a podium spot.
