With the start of the Vantage Aluminium Joinery 2008 New Zealand Rally Championship only weeks away, the Wilford Motorsport team of Nathan Thomas and Richard Kelly are raring to go.

Returning this season with the same Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7 they used last year, the team is aiming to continue their reliability and consistency. “We haven’t done much to the car, just freshened it up for this season”, says Nathan, “the car was reliable last year and we want to maintain that.”

Despite having not previously competed on most of last year events, the team ended the 2007 championship in an outstanding 5th overall. Now with that experience under their belt the team is aiming higher. Nathan says, “I want a podium this year…  …second or third in the championship is the aim.”  From his co-driver’s perspective, Richard adds, “we have a lot more confidence inside the car, now we have a good base to build on”.

The team is also eyeing the rule changes for 2008 to see if this has any benefit for them. This year all cars must run on 98 octane unleaded petrol, the same that you can buy from your local service station. Effectively phasing out leaded fuel like AvGas.

“We ran 98 pump gas all of last year”, says Nathan, “so we are hoping that it might level the playing field a bit, plus we’ve had a whole year of running this fuel already.” The experience gained will put them in a good starting position.

Already the team has been getting in some valuable practice. With an excellent start, Nathan took the overall win on Barton’s Line Rallysprint. That was followed by a 4th overall place on the mighty Whariti Road Hillclimb, just 3 seconds behind winner Richard Mason, with only Andrew Hawkeswood and Geoff Argyle in between.

As well as being good results, it also allowed the team to take valuable sponsors for a couple of ‘hot laps’.

Stephen Duder - Marketing Manager from Actrix Networks - had a smile from ear to ear as he got out of the car at Barton’s Line. “Wow, that was impressive”, he said. Jokingly he had implied Nathan was slow on the first run. “I almost wish I hadn’t, that second run was wild….. He is an impressive driver, very confident and so relaxed….. I’ll be doing all I can to help the team.”

This year the first rally of the season is Nathan’s favourite, Rally Wairarapa. “We did well there last year, and I love those roads. I can read them so much better than other rallies”, says Nathan. “We just can’t wait to get started”.

With a good lead-in to the season, and a well sorted car, the team is confident they can improve on last year. Anything can happen in motorsport, but as Nathan says, “our aim is to be consistent, we proved that last year, and our plan is to do that again…. The trick is being consistently fast”.

With good preparation the team’s outlook is positive. Roll on the 12th of April when the action starts and all of the hard work is put to the test.