The season win was their first since their 2008 wedding - they made New Zealand rally history as the first married couple to be the national series champions. It was also their first as parents to their son Khalid (17 months) and the first in the Subaru Impreza Hatchback they debuted last year.
Mason said their aim was to take a measured approach to maintain the 88-point advantage they bought into the rally and it was "awesome" to put it together.
"We came here this weekend to win the championship and we've stuck to the game plan."
They started as they meant to continue, winning the opening stage, then recording top three times for the remaining five high-speed tests that made up the weather-shortened opening leg.
"We can't remember when we last had so many instances of hitting 200kmh during a day's rallying," Mason said.
He complimented his wife on her stellar note-reading throughout the five rallies, which has seen her also collect the top co-driver's silverware. Even coming down with a croaky voice this weekend did not put her off her vocal duties and the Masteron-based Masons beat Stewart Taylor in his home rally by 1min 32.8sec.
Dunedin's Emma Gilmour won the third and last stages, finishing third overall for the rally, good enough to secure her second in the NZRC for the second year running.
She said it had been a frustrating weekend with a repeat of the power-sapping electrical problem that dogged her Subaru Impreza WRX STI on the previous championship round, re-materialising on the opening day.
The second leg yesterday proved even more fraught as a fuel pump problem struck early on. Gilmour incurred time penalties as her mechanics breached the tight servicing schedule as they worked flat-out to replace the faulty unit.
Those penalties dropped her to eighth in the overall standings, but she was soon on the comeback trail, improving to fourth place over the next two tests, and confirming a podium result by setting the fastest time on the last stage.
"We've ended up with a surprisingly good result from what has been a fairly frustrating event," Gilmour said.
"I wasn't taking any silly risks behind the wheel when we won the rallys second stage and grabbed the lead, so I am confident that if the car had behaved I would have been on track to secure the win I wanted."
Gilmour finished 2011 in front of Hayden Paddon, who did not contest the final round due to his production world rally championship commitments. The Geraldine driver still retains third in the NZRC despite missing two rounds.
Outgoing NZRC champion Dean Sumner, who has not finished two rallies this season, went all out on the opening day with his Mitsubishi Evo 9 15.2secs up on Mason going into yesterday's seven stages.
Posting seven fastest stage times showed he had the pace but a puncture on stage 10 ended his hopes of finishing his championship reign with a blaze of glory. Instead he ended up fourth for the season.
Other national category winners were Ben Hunt, of Nelson in the 2WD competition; Geof Argyle (Palmerston North) taking out the open class and Auckland's Rob Wylie collecting the NZ Historic Challenge Trophy.
