Ambition fulfilled

Swapping the F1 pundit's chair for the hot seat of a Toyota Corolla AE86 to tackle the jewel of the southern hemisphere

- TONY JARDINE

There are three major international historic specialstage enduros that represent beacons of magnificent motorsport. The Roger Albert Clark Rally in the UK, the East African Safari Classic and, perhaps less well-known but burning just as brightly, the epic Silver Fern Rally, set in the one of the world's finest landscapes, the beautiful South Island of New Zealand. It's an event that manages to surpass its reputation when you see and feel it for the first time, as I discovered when hitting the stages for the 2022 rally from 20-26 November.

You get to blast over some of the best roads I have driven in more than 40 years of rallying across the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Europe and the Middle East. Imagine gravel as smooth as Tarmac, crests as high as a multi-storey apartment block, then mid-stage switches from flat-out in fifth to twisty forest tracks with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. On other sections we got in among those peaks, motoring through passes with huge drops and down rough tracks that looked to be in the same state as when early New Zealand settlers' wagons rolled over them 160 years ago in their search for gold in the Kakanui Mountains.

International rallying in New Zealand has produced some cracking stages, such as Waitangi, Maramarua Forest, Tokoroa and Rotorua on the North Island, but the South Island has its own great rally territories to be found in Canterbury, Otago, Westland and Southland. Starting and finishing in Christchurch, the Silver Fern covers a massive 3000km across seven legs and seven days, including 44 special stages totalling 956.27km.

The marathon event draws keen crews back every two years to savour the roads and the challenge of holding their nerve over sustained high-speed sections such as on the 17km Meyers Pass Road after service at Oamaru.