King of Ashley Forest notches 15th straight victory

Here is a recurring story.

Mosgiel driver Chris Hey won another Ashley Forest Rally-sprint two-wheel-drive title at the event north of Christchurch at the weekend.

It is news but not new.

The king of Ashley Forest has won the event 15 years in a row.

He teamed up with his son, Koby, 19, again. They won the class in a time of 1min 4.11sec.

Daughter Jorga has also been in the co-driver’s seat in the past, so it has been a family passion.

Hey holds the record time for the class with a run of 1min 0.9sec in 2019.

Kim Austin had held the record since 1988 with his time of 1min 2.45sec. But Hey edged that time in 2017 and improved on his own record two years later.

He was hoping to go faster this year — breaking the 1min barrier is the eventual goal — but knew that was off the cards this time.

"We’re hoping to do it this year, but unfortunately they had a lot of river gravel on the uphill section and the two-wheel-drives just struggled with a lot of traction," he said.

"Even the four-wheel-drives, they were about two to three seconds off the record as well."

That said, the Heys were going fast enough. They clocked 157kmh through the finish line.

The Toyota MR220 was humming along.

The 61-year-old has been competing at the event since 1984 and plans to keep racing "until I’m in the cemetery".

This year, it was particularly exciting.

"Get your pen ready because it was absolutely amazing.

"They got 7000 people through the gates for the weekend. It was really good. And they had the big screens at the bottom of the hill and at the top as well.

"It was an absolute credit to the club and the people that put all the work in."

Meanwhile, a last-minute decision to enter the Ashley Forest Rallysprint panned out successfully for Dunedin driver Emma Gilmour, who won the Rally 4WD class in her debut drive at the event.

After being offered some space aboard the Paddon Rallysport transporter after the recent Daybreaker Rally, her WRC2 C3 rally car had a ride down from the North Island.

“It was great to have the opportunity," Gilmour said.

"I’ve always wanted to do it but never really had the car suitable for a short, sharp 1.7km hillclimb.

“It was a good opportunity to get more seat time in the C3, and I really enjoyed seeing so many fans and spectators out on the course. The big screen with a live feed made for great audience involvement at what is a super cool fun event.”

Gilmour relished the challenge of bettering her times throughout the qualifying runs and steadily kept improving with an ultimate goal in mind.

“I was determined to get under a minute. I just missed out with a 1min 0.07sec time on my top 16 run, so I needed to absolutely deliver on top-eight run to make it into the top four. I blazed the C3 up through the course and back down to clock 59.10sec.”

That time gave Gilmour the class win and fifth overall.

As expected, New Zealand rally star Hayden Paddon was a big attraction in the forest.

He won the event in his Hyundai i20 WRC after a close battle with Rotorua’s Sloan Cox.