 The real activities hanging down the road past Apotiki, where one of the most revered rally roads in the world, is about to become home to more than 50 competition cars. The Motu was used extensively in the past by Rally New Zealand in the WRC. It is the road legends are made from. It twists its way along the hillside and valley that links the Bay of Plenty with Gisborne. 43 kilometres of this road is designated special stage today. A stretch of road with surfaces varying from loose metal to bedrock. Add in some tightening corners and some sheer drop-offs and you can see why this is a driver's road. The challenge favourites, Stokes and Strong, both show good form, covering the distance in 40 minutes. More than a kilometre a minute. Not bad for such difficult terrain, but Brent Taylor smashes more than a minute off their time in the hybrid Corolla. Reese Millen runs just outside the top 10 in his first pass over the mighty Motu. The RX-7 gracefully sliding around the hill country. The man with the most experience on this road is true to form. It was an absolute shocker for me. We got it off the road in a drain about a third of the way in and bent the steering quite badly and it whacked my elbow really bad and then just lost confidence in a lot of time and coming down the hill we lost a rear brake pipe. So just one to forget. But having said that, I've never had a good run in there. I don't know why I look forward to it because it's just a nightmare. It's a nightmare for Jeff Judd as well. The rally leader succumbing to the reputation of the special piece of gravel. Yuck. I hated it. I had no feel with the car and I was a real pussy through there. So yeah, not so good. It's a dream run though for the second fastest Shane Merland who's beginning to show his cards after a slow start to the 2012 event. That was great.