29 August 2006
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| Copyright © SUBARU New Zealand |
Mason's second place was more than enough for him to win his second consecutive national championship title with a round to spare. And West and Mason's combined efforts have secured Subaru the rally manufacturer's title for 2006.
"It was a real battle today," said Westy, who won five of the six stages over Mason. "Richard's done a real good job all season to win the title again."
"There was nothing much between us out there. We were pretty much on the limit."
The pair we often only seperated by a few tenths of a second on each stage. After two tests the two were tied in first, with Mason damaging the front left hand corner of his Impreza WRX STI, ironically on the road where he grew up.
By the lunch break at Eketahuna, Westy had a narrow 1.6 second lead.
Even going into the final stage his advantage was only 2.4 seconds, where he and co-driver Garry Cowan eked out another 2.2 seconds to cement the heat win in the Winger Subaru Impreza WRX STI.
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| Copyright © SUBARU New Zealand |
Mason said circumstances had allowed him to win the overall event this weekend after taking out Saturday's first heat. "We started prepared to give away the event because the championship was more important," said Mason, who will miss the final round at Nelson in four weeks time because of a clashing event in the Chinese championship.
Westy and Brett Martin who was third today and for the weekend, along with Emma Gilmour and Sam Murray all have a chance of taking the remaining podium places in the championship at Nelson.
Gilmour finished fourth today and for the weekend in another Impreza, while Murray had an off road excursion to blunt his championship point's gathering.
"We'll go to Nelson and have some fun and see if we can get further up the order," said Westy, who is currently fifth on the points table, one point behind Murray and only six behind Gilmour.
