At 14, James had expressed an interest in driving and competing in hill climbs or similar, but I would not agree until he had 'served his time as a volunteer official for at least a year.
Once he had done this we bought him a little 1987 Toyota Corolla.
Way back in Christchurch I personally had competed in trials, and volunteered and organised speed events.
In particular had assisted Errol Inwood in organising the 1970 Silver Fern Rally. These things do go in cycles and I had not been involved in motor sport for many years when in 2004 the call went out with the question would anyone, competitors, officials or anyone else be interested in recreating the marathon rallies of yesteryear – such as the Silver Fern Rally ?
At that stage I had both boys so I said ' count us in'.
So it was that in 2006, while the boys were still at Hikuai School we took good old #2, Ace the Hi ace and did program selling.
The headmaster at Hikuai agreed that they and (Johann- another friend) could have time off
provided they EACH wrote a write up every day saying just what they had done that day so it could be emailed back and read to their classmates next morning.
This they pretty much did and it has started a procedure which I have continued until this very day.
Some of that information is repeated below too.
My write up for each rally since follows..
A little bit of history! I have been involved in motor sport for probably nearly 60 years -once rallying became the norm I, as a trials driver, felt that speed was not really my thing and moved into the administration and organisation side of the sport.
Hence my involvement with the original S.I. Silver Fern in 1970 (the plaque of appreciation still hangs on my wall).
These things do tend to go in cycles and for a number of years I took no active part in the sport.
However when the call went out back in 2004 or thereabouts, for people interested in recreating a marathon rally like the original Silver Ferns my hand shot up!!
By this time I had (have) teenage boys who, I suggested might like to get involved.
This then is why we have been part of the Silver Fern team in 2006,2008,2010, 2012, 2014,2016,2018 during which time we were trained to step into any place that became short staffed for whatever reason. In reality it meant that we did rock clearing and block marshalling as required, more recently timing too.
As mentioned above my teenage son (James) was very keen to compete at car club level (we belonged to Marathon and Thames Valley Car Clubs) but I would not let him compete until he had served his apprenticeship by helping out as an official on many events.
Although he now does compete in club events we (all) still enjoy being part of event organisation.