Paddon pulls through for second place finish in Poland

2 July, 2017

Local boy Hayden Paddon, along with new British co-driver Sebastian Marshall, secured their best finish in a WRC rally since Paddon’s win in Argentina last year. The pair finished second place in Poland behind teammates Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsou, making for Hyundai Motorsport’s first one-two finish since Germany 2014.





The team no doubt stoked with the finish after a slow start on day one saw the pair sitting 40 seconds back in tricky conditions, which would close up to a third place standing after day two, and then with Norwegian Ott Tanak crashing out after battling Neuville for first, Paddon was free to squeeze on up.


“For us, it’s a massive relief … It’s been 12 months since we were last on the podium, and this year’s been some of the hardest times of my life … this weekend has helped me lower the shoulders and relax a little bit. This gives us a bit of momentum now that we can build on to work towards future rallies.”

Paddon and Marshall will next appear in Rally Finland, kicking off July 27.
 
 

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup