Paddon claimed victory at Rally Bay of Plenty, the fifth round of the New Zealand championship, while Gilmour finished third overall but second in the championship.
It was a nice shakedown for Paddon before he heads to Poland for the final round of the European Rally Championship, where he aims to win a second title with longtime co-driver John Kennard.
At Rally Bay of Plenty, Paddon had young Christchurch co-driver Jared Hudson in the Hyundai i20 Rally2 car for a one-day event that featured the opening stage at 6.35am and stage 12 at 4pm.
Paddon and Hudson secured a 3min 13.8sec victory over second-placed NZRC competitor Gilmour, winning the power stage as well to maximise the points earned.
With 120 points, Paddon is now just 12 points behind NZRC leader Ben Hunt with one event — the International Rally of Whangarei — to complete the season in early November.
"It was a good weekend at Bay of Plenty", Paddon said.
"The Hyundai Rally2 ran faultlessly, and the team did another amazing job.
"We missed out on a clean sweep of stage wins with a puncture on the last stage, but otherwise it was a successful and clean day.
"It was great for all of us to tick the box and take maximum championship points to help us close in on the championship leaders just one round to go next month."
Paddon now heads to Rally Silesia for the eighth and final round of the European championship in and around Katowice, the capital city of the Silesian province in southern Poland.
The all-tarmac event comprises a super special stage in Katowice on Friday, eight stages (96.74km) on Saturday and six stages (81.56km) on Sunday.
Paddon and co-driver Kennard lead their respective championships with 131 points, 27 points ahead of the second-place pairing of Mathieu Franceschi and Andy Malfoy.
Rally Silesia is part of the ERC for the first time.
The podium result came soon after the Dunedin driver’s class win at the Ashley Forest Rallysprint.
"It was such a satisfying feeling to finish on the podium and to be back near the front of the NZRC field", Gilmour said.
"I had a great day with Malcolm [Read] co-driving and it was a really rewarding result for all the hard work we’ve been putting in over the last few events."
Gilmour credited the performance to the amount of seat time she had been able to get in the WRC2 C3 rally car in recent weeks, including winning the Catlins Rallysprint and driving in the DayBreaker Rally.
Gilmour and Read started out steadily in the NZRC’s penultimate round on the Bay of Plenty roads and kept up good speed through the first three of 12 stages.
It was in stage four that they moved into third place, and they held the podium spot right through to the finish.
Mike Young finished second behind rally winner Paddon, but he is not registered for the NZRC, which meant Gilmour was runner-up for the purposes of NZRC points.
"I was very happy to be on the national championship podium again. My maiden national win at the Rally of Canterbury in 2016 was the last time."
She and Read will team up again at the International Rally of Whangarei.
Gilmour sits in fourth place — equal with Zeal Jones on 102 points — and will be looking to secure a championship podium at this season-ending event.
