 Dunedin described as an endearing city of fine unspoiled Edwardian and Victorian architecture and acknowledged home for learning, heritage, arts and culture in New Zealand. But to gravel rally buffs it's important for another reason. If Dunedin is considered one of the world's great small cities then it's host to one of the great gravel rallies of the world. Welcome to the Stadium Cars International Classic Rally of Otago. Over the past couple of decades it's attracted some global rally sensations. Jimmy McRae, Didier Oriole, Stick Bloomfest, Yuhar Kankinen and Michelle Mouton to name a few. This year the classic has attracted another couple of high profile names. Former British Rally Champion Alistair McRae returns as does NZ's own WRC hero Hayden Padden. They join a regular handful of top-notch classic competitors. But this story is not just about the front riders. There are a raft of drivers and cars in the 2015 classic all with their own tale to tell. Local rally driver Mark Lawton swapped his driving gloves for a microphone to bring you some of their stories. Alistair McRae, we're at the start of the Otago rally in the Octagon. You were here a few years ago but you've come back this year with your own car. Tell us about it. I was here in 2009 and we were leading the rally when the engine went. And then the organisers needed to put a deal together. They've got me down with my own car which has only done one event. It's a Group 4 escort and really looking forward to the event. It's fantastic roads, a great event and just looking forward to getting out there. Obviously Hayden's doing a lot of mileage at the moment. He's going very well in the WRC. He's shown some great speed. But there's also a lot of other New Zealand drivers that will go quick as well. So I think tomorrow morning it's quite a long stage to start. We'll see if we can get a good rhythm going and push as hard as we feel we can. Hayden Padden, we'll just interrupt you while you're signing some posters here. Great to have you at the Otago rally. You're on a world rally programme. What makes you come to Otago or want to come to Otago? For me it's one of the most enjoyable rallies in the world and some of the best roads in Israel. I guess it's the closest I get to home as well and to come and drive a BDA is a lot of pleasure. So really looking forward to this weekend. So you talk about driving a BDA quite different from what you drive in your everyday job. What sort of things do you have to think about when you jump into a BDA? Yeah, it probably couldn't be more contrast than to be honest. But I think when you come back to a classic car it seems like it's in slow motion to what we're used to. But it's almost like a jeep boat as well. You've got to steer it on the throttle. So lots of sideways looking out the side windows and it's the way rallying should be. Derek, you're what we call our local hope this year. Have you got a game plan? Yeah, I think I said in the paper to break later and exhilarate earlier. And so you're going to stick to that? We'll be watching tomorrow, you realize. I'm going to try my best, Lordy, but look, it's a great event. I really enjoy it. Some good competition this year and, you know, if we put a new engine on the car and gearbox, so I'm really looking forward to giving it a good threshing. Marcus Van Kling, you're the first non-40 scored on the road. What's in store for you this weekend? I think we'll give it a good crack, Oregon. It's the best looking car, obviously. So, you know, we'll see our stage 1-2 go and then we'll play it. Well, yeah, it's a long rally and, you know, history goes to. You've got to be there on the last day, so I'm planning to be there or thereabouts. So there we go. The car's about to get underway as they go over the start ramp behind me very shortly. But of course, tomorrow's where it all starts when they get out on the gravel. Good morning, girls. Good morning, Mark. Debra and Heather. Now, you guys are the only all-girl team in the classic rally and you've got an iconic car here. Tell us about the car. It's a wee two-litre turbo starry and motor in it. We've got a nice wee dog box now and it's really set up nicely at the moment. You're seated in the top 10. Do you have a plan for today? I guess you've really got to start off quite fast, otherwise you get left behind. We'll just keep it on those grippy lines and laugh and giggle like we normally do. Heather, you sort of keep everything together in the passenger seat, don't you? Yeah, I try and tell her where to go. It's the only time she listens to me. So it's cool what's written down and we've been through on Wrecker and checked our notes. So they're looking good. 10 straight years in the Otago Classic Rally and Peter, you're a great campaigner. You've got the trusty Toyota Starlet here in for a good day. Well, I hope so. Yeah, it's been good to us every other year, so I don't see what should be any different. And I think it's fantastic husband and wife rallying. Take the wife out there. Does she tell you where to go? Always, but, you know, it's great when both get involved because it's quite a selfish sport of only the husband's doing it. I think when you're both involved, she realises the costs are involved and she never queries, but I need some money to repeat on the car. There's no hesitation to just get spent. And obviously a lot of trust in the relationship. Cherie, you enjoy sitting in the passenger seat? Absolutely. Yeah, it's a pleasure to sit beside him. It's the only time he does listen to me. Departing the Scenic Circle Hotel, Special Stage 1 is 70 kilometres to the north of Dunedin, but Jeff Judd never makes it. Jeff, we're heading out to the first stage. Here you are on the side of the road. I thought the distributor cat was just slightly skewered coming out of Hampton, and then Smithy found some plug leads. He didn't think we were right, so I don't know. You've got it going right for 800 metres and now it's gone flat again, so... How many stages have you done? Zero, thank you. The stages of the day, and clearly there's been a lot of commitment from the drivers, but have a look at the sort of commitment these spectators are putting in. The road's nearly blocked out here, and there's lots and lots of spectators. Plenty of commitment to get to actually see the cars. Drama this morning in the first four stages, Derek Aceham with a blown engine just nine kilometres into the first stage. No problems at all with the car. You know, just had a near the end of the long one there. At first we caught the car in front, and then just an uphill happen, got a bit sideways and naturally coming from four drivers, I'll just keep it pinned and it'll come out, but no, it should keep going around. Number seven, Andy Marvin. You've been following a bit close. Yeah, unfortunately in that stage, we caught up to the car in front of us and one of our Aussie brothers, and he couldn't see us behind him clearly. Wouldn't pull over, so when he dropped the clutch, it smashed the windscreen and he pulled over about 100 metres up the road and we kept going without a windscreen, so it was pretty unfortunate. So you got the crew working furiously there, you'll be right to get out to stage five? Yeah, we've got us to be a window there, so other than this, the car's going really well and we're enjoying the rally so far. Pretty special car you've got here, it's a V8. Yeah, it's a five litre V8 and an old 74 Capri. We usually have a few V8s, but this year I'm the only one. And you've got young Nikita in the passenger seat again, I think this is her third year and I see she's going through pace notes there, tell us about that. Yeah, it's her second year on notes and third time she's done the rally, so she did it blind the first time and then we started teaching her notes at a few hill climbs and rally sprints and did notes last year and she's done an amazingly good job of it. So Craig, from Belcluth, normally a co-driver in the Otago rally, is this your first Otago rally? Yes, this is my first go as a driver. You've got young Daniel Mills in the passenger seat, his father's pretty well known around these parts. Is this his first go at co-driving? No, this is his fourth go at co-driving for me. We've done three Ketlins rallies but this is his first time with the Otago rally and first time on notes. Well, he hasn't got you last yet today? Only once. He's got me last on the touring stage, so there's a couple of words said, he's only young and rural learning and it's still part of the game. One of the interesting things about the Otago rally is not only all the New Zealanders that do it but there's a whole lot of Australians that come over every year. It's almost like something they must take off their bucket list. I've got with me here, Bernie, and how come you're here? Well, I think you nailed it actually. I've been across here and spectated a few times in the past and I've also come here to help service a couple of other Aussies that have been here in the past and I thought, well, it's probably my turn so, yeah, I'm here this year having to go at it. Now, the car you've got here, Bernie, is an Isuzu Gemini, it's actually a New Zealand car. That's correct, yeah, yeah. It was originally Malcolm Guds car and last year it made a mind to Peter Light. I've done a deal with Malcolm to run the car and then Peter's kindly offered me the opportunity to have a go in the car as well. So, here I am. It's been a classic day at the classic rally of the Otago. Just one more gravel stage this afternoon before they head into the all-important super special stage. Spencer, you've had a hell of a day really. You were quite firmly within the top ten. We get to the end of the day and what's the problem now? Yeah, we noticed some noises in the depth on the transport stage back this afternoon so after some exploratory service, we've found some teeth missing off the groundwell so it's early drinks for us. Oh, the roads are fantastic. Drivers' roads, like, there was no let-up, there was no rest. It was fantastic. The roads are awesome. How on day two, how do you write Otago Rally? Yeah, Otago Rally. I've done it before. It's probably one of the best rallies around, especially with the roads. A bit drier this year than you would normally expect down here but not really enjoying it, great roads and good fun. The car's gone really well. It's obviously, it's a full Group 4 spec Escort as they run back in the late 70s, 80s, BDG engine, Atlas AXL, tension on it but non-adjustable, their classic stuff and, you know, really good car, great fun to drive. Today's roads are quite different to yesterday. Yeah, for sure. They're more on the shire side and very fast in flow and some of them really, really quick and a lot of overcrest, turning overcrest. Probably a little bit Finland, like Finland in places so difficult to make notes for and obviously you've got to be committed on the roads. Bro, and you hit a bit of an off in stage six yesterday, tell us what happened. It was a bit of a shame, really. We probably got the wrong pace note, I think. I didn't quite get it right in the recce so I was doing what I was told to do but what I was told to do was wrong. So, yeah, a bit of a spill. You weren't able to finish the day but you got the car back here for day two. Doesn't look like it was too badly damaged. No, we were pretty lucky really. It was a bit of a crash, you know, so got away with it. We had a few problems getting through the last few stages, the steering column collapsed and we had a steering wheel that was doing this and then we blew the gearbox in the last stage. So we put a road car gearbox in it, no limited slip diff, it's good for about 180 mile an hour in top so it's going to be, I don't know, it'll slow us down or speed us up, we'll see, it's going to be great. You've previously been seated number one in the Otago rally many years ago, what year was that? I think that was 1976, which says a lot really, I shouldn't be here. Oh, you should and we love having you as part of the rally. So back in those days you were a regular campaigner in the national championship, what sort of car? RX3s, I competed in the 76 international and RX3 and we were fortunate enough to get eighth overall so I was pretty happy with that. This is your first rally in the Ford Escort, you've purchased it from Andy, it's previously got third in this event, there's many of them in the field, there's obviously a reason why everybody chooses them. Yeah, I'm finding it a challenge actually, I'm noticing it's so much heavier and it doesn't react as quickly in corners, it's sort of a technical thing and it's also my ability to adapt to it and I'm actually not as happy with it as I'd hoped I would but it's not the car's fault, this car's got third in this event and so I'll blame me at this stage. Well Marcus, the sticker says it all way, the Group B days, what's so special about this car? Well we've built it up as a new shell basically just to, well that Mazda used to run back in the early 80s and as good as we get to, well they were so yeah, it's just got the body kit here and it runs the same sort of engine a 30B profile port, you know, 300 horsepower. So it's a full replica of the original Group B Mazda that they used to run? Yes, as good as we could build one in New Zealand so it's pretty much as close as we can get and yeah it's gone really well. We're trying moments to save their brakes but we're up to second now because McCree's had a puncture so yeah I think we're in a good position, you know, for a podium providing, you know, it's a long rally still to go. Great, you've had a good weekend you're running a fifth day overall. Some of your Australians seem to come over and do the Otago rally, can you tell us what the attraction is? Oh, it's just the class rally, it's just look at the opposition you've got, the field is fantastic and the event, the roads just awesome and don't forget I'm a Kiwi too so In the car, the BDA escort you lease that car over here, tell us about the car? It's a steam used car from Kamsa, it's an RS8-800 it's very similar to my car in Australia I know Dean pretty well so he looks after me, it's great, just really love it. It makes it an easy way to go rallying, I guess the car can be prepared you turn up and it's ready to go and you jump in and drive. Oh, it definitely helps doing it here because it's a fair logistic battle to bring it from Australia in container, spares plus your service crew so that's you know, it's a big ask to do that. So I guess you would say the hard part of the rally's over and done with now with the long stage, how are you going to play it for the rest of the afternoon? Oh, I think if you say I'm coming fifth I'm happy if I thought I could ever finish in the top 10 I'll be wrapped, so I'm just happy it's fantastic, so it'll be take it easy I think. Well Hayden, setting some impressive times this morning and you're actually now just one second off the overall leader of the Otago rally. We're just doing the same thing as what we were yesterday, just driving our own rally and enjoying it and probably if anything just trying to drive it a bit straighter and a bit smoother today I think that's probably the best way to get the fastest time so it's good but obviously a long way to go I'll be a bit of a sting on the tail so we need to keep a clean pair of heels. I see the service crew here working on the car, it's a lot of work keeping these older cars going isn't it? Yeah well they are a bit more basic I guess he's not too much to them but they obviously do need a bit of maintenance and keep an eye on things so the guys have been doing an amazing job the last couple days and these are the guys that are always with me working, best mates and they can put a lot of passion into it. Can you tell us about these WRC cars and the difference? It's a different car to a fish like there's absolutely no comparison to this sort of car but you know the Hyundai is just an amazing car to drive and to be part of a factory team is a dream come true and you know when you're in those cars they do absolutely everything you want as a driver the team is working tirelessly to be able to be winning so to be in that environment is great but obviously there's a lot of pressure to perform as well. John Kenard, what a ride you were having. Yeah it is, it's pretty special it's the beginning of our 10th year together so I think he's out there trying to perform just for that. But sitting in this escort must be quite different to what you do every day. Yeah it's vastly different than the world rally car I thought it was going to be more different in the past when you come back to New Zealand after you've been somewhere and you're really tight twisty stages you come back here and you physically have to stop yourself from reading the next note like that but now we're going quick enough that you do have to read notes fairly quickly as well. Is he scaring you at all? No it's all pretty good, it was under control most of the time, it was odd times when we had missed gears and things and then sort of slidging into corners and neutral but other than that it was good. While not competing in the classic division there was another team here with WRC experience. Keen Block what brings you to the Otago rally? Well I first did this rally back in 2007, it was only my third year racing and I had a deal to come down here and race part of the championship and I knew how amazing these roads looked on cameras so I wanted to come down and visit them myself so I did four events that year and it was a really big learning experience but I enjoyed this event when I come down here but I ended up crashing out before the end so I wanted to come back and try and finish it. Tell us about the car. Yeah well this was the first car that we built with M Sport to race Gymkhana Rallycross and Stage Rally and it's built as far as Stage Rally to fit into the US regulations which is a 2 liter turbocharged engine so it's a WRC car that they build from M Sport but we adjusted it to do all these other different things so it's worked quite well as a Gymkhana car, did Gymkhana 4 it's done a bunch of Gymkhana demos around the world raced rallycross for one season and now we just use it mainly to do stage rallies wherever we can around the world. Have we delivered with the roads at Rally this year? Yeah definitely, there's a couple rougher roads in here that aren't really my preference but a couple of the roads are some of the best in the world including the Gorge road that we did this morning it's one of my favorite roads to anywhere so really enjoying it as much as I can possibly can. Ken wasn't on his own enjoying the final stages of the 2015 Otago Classic. X-Pad Kiwi Grant Walker came from Melbourne local Regan Ross who regularly features in top three battles had to settle for fourth on this outing. Marcus Van Kling grabbed third place and importantly Maximum Points in the National Classic Championship and in his second attempt the best the Ozzy Bay Scotsman Alistair McCrae could master was second but in light of the competition it's hardly surprising that Kiwi sensation who's reviving New Zealand's interest on the world rally stage had left his mark. Well this truly has been a classic at the Otago Classic Rally not only has Hayden Padden won the rally by some 11 minutes we've really witnessed something here because he's also won the National Round by two and a half seconds. It's a bit of a bonus obviously we never came here to do that but it's great for Tony and the team for allowing me to drive the car but obviously we had to push a little bit in the last couple of stages the deficit was getting to a point where it was achievable we never came here this weekend to push hard but we had to try a little in the last couple and it worked out.