Gilmour and her team have made a late decision to withdraw from the opening round of the New Zealand Rally Championship because their exciting new Suzuki is not quite ready.
She will instead take part in the rally as the ''zero car'', tackling each stage first but not appearing in the official results and facing none of the pressures of servicing time.
Her car, a turbocharged four-wheel-drive, has been stripped back and re-engineered over the past six months at Gilmour Suzuki, under the guidance of Glenn Macneall.
In a letter to her sponsors, Gilmour said the car was ''like nothing that has ever been built in New Zealand, with fabricated front and rear subframes and chassis modifications that will make it one of the best rally cars in the Asia-Pacific region.''
The Rally of Otago had been brought forward a week, due to the change of date for the V8 Supercars in Pukekohe. Some car parts had also been slow in arriving from overseas.
''Unfortunately, what this means is that we haven't had time to test and shake down the car in competition-type conditions.''
Gilmour said the team and sponsors had decided it would be too big a gamble to start the first round of the championship with an unproven car.
''Zero car'' duties would allow the Suzuki to be tested in competition conditions without the pressure of limited servicing time and the overnight parc ferme, where the vehicles are locked away.
That should get the car in top shape before its proper competition debut in Whangarei in May.
Gilmour was ''very disappointed'' to miss her home rally but she said the car - a ''work of art'' - would be worth the wait.
