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Rally NZ Stage named after Possum
New Zealand motor racing great Possum Bourne will be posthumously honoured in the Rally New Zealand.
Organisers of the fourth round of the FIA World Rally Championship from April 15-18 have named a stage after Bourne, who died in a car accident last year. Appropriately, it is the longest and toughest stage of the rally.
Two stages on the first leg of the rally in the Kaipara region north of Auckland have been joined for a single long afternoon stage, to be called Possum.
"Possum was synonymous with this event and we wanted to remember him in some way during the rally," Rally New Zealand chairman Morrie Chandler said.
"This is the signature stage on the first day of the rally. It's a long stage that may prove quite critical to the overall rally. It will demand skill, speed and concentration -- all the traits that made Possum Bourne so special."
Chandler said in a statement that rally organisers were "slightly disappointed" that original plans for the stage have been pruned back at the request of the world governing body FIA.
"Initially this combined stage was to be 56km which would have made it the longest stage in the World Rally Championships. However we were asked to shorten it because of concerns over tyre wear," he said.
"At 48km it will still be a real test, but just not quite the absolute test that we first sought."
The full itinerary for Rally New Zealand was released today.
It will open with a super special stage in Manukau City on April 15, with the first full day on Friday including five stages in the Kaipara region north of Auckland, covering a total of 142km. It concludes with a second night of super special stages at Manukau City.
Saturday's stages are again in Kaipara with eight special stages over 144.5km.
The final day on Sunday returns to the Raglan region in Waikato with six special stages over 115km, finishing the event with the spectacular Whaanga Coast stage.
The drivers return for a ceremonial finish at the America's Cup Village in the Viaduct Basin in downtown Auckland.
The rally will cover 401km of special stages with a further 1012km of touring.
Rally New Zealand organisers also confirmed they will run the event under the new Mille Piste formula.
The FIA last week deferred plans for mandatory introduction of the new format, and offered rally organisers an alternative system.
The Mille Piste system, aimed at cutting costs, includes a single pass through stages in reconnaissance and the second run each morning before the competition stages later in the day. The alternative Two-Plus-Three system allows for the traditional two days of reconnaissance and three days rally.
- NZPA
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