Christchurch Casino Rally Team 2009 Season Review

Christchurch Casino Rally Team 2009

Christchurch Rally Driver Matt Jansen has made a dream debut season in the Vantage Aluminium Joinery New Zealand Rally Championship, wrapping up both the rookie and junior championships and finishing a stunning fourth overall in the gold star championship.

When the team made the decision to contest the NZRC, it was decided to build a new car to contest it. Once built, the Christchurch Casino Subaru was put through its paces testing with Alister McRae to tune the Proflex Suspension before the first round at Hawkes Bay.

The testing paid off and at the opening round Jansen and co-driver Jason Farmer surprised everyone by taking two fifth place leg finishes amongst the group N cars which placed him fourth for the weekend.

It was also the perfect start to the rookie title that Jansen stated as his goal before the season started, taking maximum points and also claiming the maximum for junior.

After a six week break the Christchurch Casino Rally Team headed for the deep south of Dunedin which proved to be a difficult event. After all of the opening days gravel stages, Jansen was in an intense battle with fellow junior driver Sloan Cox, the pair separated by 1.5 seconds with just the tarmac super special to run.

Jansen was giving it everything when a tyre popped off the rim, sending the car straight into the kerb. Although lucky not to end up parked in a powerpole (It was so close it took the wing mirror off!), the collision with the kerb did serious suspension damage which kept the crew on the job ‘til the wee hours of the morning.

Although his day one position didn’t change, the car was far from perfect for the second day which saw Jansen struggle to 8th in group N.

With just three weeks between Otago and the third round at Whangarei, the team were flat out providing a more permanent repair from the street stage damage and rebuilding the engine and gearbox. On his first visit to the event he drove well, claiming seventh on the opening leg and fifth on the second leg which gave him his second fourth group N of the season.

It also meant that with the half way point of the season gone, Jansen had comfortable leads in the rookie and junior title chases.

Wairarapa was the only blot on an otherwise perfect finishing record for the season. Struggling with an ill handling car, Jansen still recorded seventh amongst his group N rivals, part of a five way battle that was separated by less than a minute at the end of the day.

Looking for a better day two, Jansen was fourth group N until a wrongly written note caused him to slip off the road.

Although the car was unmarked it was beached and going nowhere, ending his day. It also meant instead of a lead, Jansen had an eight point defecit to Kieran Hall in the race for top rookie, although his junior lead was still a strong 30 points over Sloan Cox.

In the two month gap before Rally Nelson, the team fitted a new design of Proflex Shock Absorbers and after some more testing with Alister McRae, Jansen was confident that he could claim both titles.

Faced with having to attack to catch Hall for the rookie championship whilst knowing a mistake could end his hopes for the junior title as well, the job became a bit easier when Cox’s season ended in a tree.

A day long battle with Hall saw the pair separated by 2.9 seconds going into the final stage. With both drivers knowing that winning the day would give them the upper hand in the rookie title fight, it was all on.

Unfortunately Hall had the biggest crash of the year, although it meant that both titles for the year were effectively decided in Jansen’s favour.

As a bonus, Jansen claimed fourth group N car for the leg. Backing that up with a fifth on the second leg gave Jansen another fourth for the weekend and fourth overall for the championship as well as becoming the rookie and junior champion. All things considered, not a bad debut season!

Now into the off-season, the team are looking to put together a package to return to the NZRC in 2010 and are currently in talks with sponsors to make this happen.

With that in place, the team are hoping to break the run of fourth place finishes by upping the pace and aiming for podium finishes.

The Christchurch Casino Rally Team consists of more than just Jansen and he would like to thank the team around him that has made the success of 2009 possible, “Thanks to Jason (Co-driver) and the crew, Chris, Dave, Hamish, Matt, Dad, Taylor and Grenville.”

“Also to our invaluable sponsors from this year: Christchurch Casino, Mitech welders, HGM construction, Armstrong Subaru, Proflex suspension, Dunlop tyres, Blue Bridge and Straight shipping, Elf lubricants, pagid pads, PMT motorsport and ScottSpeed performance engines.”

ends