Daybreak was done, but the sun was still very much sleeping when the DirtFish team arrived at the junction of the Turakina Valley and Pohonui Roads on Saturday morning.
As you might have gathered, we’re reasonably big fans of rallying in New Zealand. It’s hard not to be. The locals love the sport, the roads are all-time classics and the cinnamon buns are some of the finest you’ll find on the far side of the equator.
Last week’s Daybreaker Rally took all that to another dimension. It added a retro cherry on top. As well as car liveries straight out of the ’80s, some weird wigs and interesting pants, there was an alarm clock set for three in the morning. There’s something very special about heading for the stages in the dead of night. The darkness only serves to heighten the sense of anticipation, the lack of caffeine on the other hand only serves to heighten the sense of agitation. It’s worth it. A couple of hours north of Palmerston North and we’re where we need to be.
Staring down the valley, it’s impossible not to be moved. Minute-by-minute the planets are doing their thing to bring sunshine to an already stunning part of the world. Hard as it is to imagine, Colin Clark is lost for words.
Then he’s not.
“I’ve watched rallies in a lot of countries,” he said, “but this is something else. I can’t think of anywhere more beautiful to watch a rally. Why would you want to be anywhere other than right here, right now?”
Daybreaker returned after a decade-long hiatus in 2023, and got even better in 2024
Springtime mists were rolling in and out of the valley, while a dozen or so Friesian-Jersey crossbreeds meandered between the trees, mooing their way into the weekend. Evocative didn’t come close. Such was the intensity of the scene, the locals had almost forgotten the All Blacks’ latest loss to South Africa. Almost.
Sensing a first timer in his part of the world, Charlie Duncan arrives with gumboots and a mile-wide smile.
He nods towards the horizon. The lights have come on and the world is shaping up nicely. “Not bad, eh…”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement. He’s right.
“Charlie,” there’s a shake of the hand that’s firm, straight off the farm.
The farm is beef and sheep, close to Hunterville, just down the road. The latest round of the New Zealand Rally Championship is running right by his place. The gravel roads his cows cross to deliver their milk are closed right now. Today’s race day.
Duncan’s attitude towards the event is as insightful as it is typical of those across the wider Manawatū and Rangitīkei districts, the footprint towards the bottom of the North Island for a rally recently reborn.
“Inconvenient?” He smiles, before adding a typical Kiwi response: “Yeah-nah.”
The Daybreaker takes rally cars - from dawn until dusk - through some of New Zealand's most stunning countryside
But very much more nah, than yeah.
“Mate, we need events like this,” he said. “Soon as this rally was talked about, I was all for it. Agriculture’s tough in this part of the world – we need as much additional income as we can find and having an event like the Daybreaker is fantastic for us. It brings people and money in – and they get to see our stunning part of the world.”
Duncan knows more than most about the farming hardships at the bottom of the world, he runs an agricultural school teaching children in the ways of agriculture.
“We’ve got to keep this way of life going,” he adds, in a slightly more serious tone. “It’s all we’ve got down here.”
The can-do Kiwi approach is everywhere, nowhere more so than between Tony McConachy and Paul Fallon – the two dyed in the wool rally fans who decided this event had to come back last year. Three in the morning wasn’t a problem for them on Saturday. In fact, it was a lie-in.
“It’s been a fairly intense few days,” smiles Fallon from beneath the cap of a Daybreaker cap working valiantly to keep him dry from the incessant drizzle. “But Tony and I are passionate about this sport and this rally. We have such incredible support locally in Palmy (Palmerston North) and all the surrounding areas.
“We had the idea to run all the cars in a convoy through the city from the ceremonial start in the square out to the superspecial. Essentially, we were asking to close roads in the city for a six-minute convoy during rush hour.
“No problem, we were told. But the traffic lights will be in your favor for six minutes. We had to be on the money, we had to make it work.”
They did. And 70-odd cars ran bumper-to-bumper through the city in an extraordinary display of rallying color. It was a sight to behold. If it didn’t before, Palmy certainly knew what it was doing once the convoy was done.
Australia's Brendan Reeves hopped across the ditch to finish fourth in a PRG-run Hyundai i20 AP4
Families poured into the stages, stood in the fields, bought cups of tea and bacon sandwiches off their fellow locals and had an absolute ball.
Talking to Hayden Paddon about what we’d seen and he can’t help himself.
“You should just move down here,” he grinned. “DirtFish needs to be based in New Zealand. You’re here for Otago, Daybreaker… just stay. It is pretty special though, isn’t it. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a bad stage down here, but these roads really are something special. The weather’s been, well, we’re just down with a New Zealand winter, so it’s bound to be a bit damp, but nobody’s worried about a bit of rain. Pull the boots on and get out there.”
That’s the mentality. Always. Paddon won by half a dozen minutes from NZ championship leader Ben Hunt, with 19-year-old Zeal Jones third. Co-driven by his Aunt Waverley, the teenage Škoda driver could be Kiwi rallying’s next rising star.
In or out of the car, one thing is sure: with the likes of McConachy and Fallon at the wheel, the sport of rallying has a bright future. For the Daybreaker, the morning has well and truly broken.
Teenager Zeal Jones and his Aunt Waverley were stars of the show, finishing on the podium's bottom step
