Emma Gilmour has finished third overall and second amongst the national championship contenders on Rally of Wairarapa, fourth round of New Zealand Rally Championship which was held from 18-19 July, to keep her title hopes alive.

Despite a scare on Sunday morning when her Subaru Impreza WRX STI would not start, Gilmour completed the two day event. “It was a challenging weekend,” she said. “We got to the start area Sunday morning and the car stopped and wouldn’t re-start. We eventually got it going but we were 13 minutes late” The team initially thought there was a problem in the ignition system, but at the first service break diagnosed a faulty fuel pump which they replaced. “Once we started this morning we didn’t turn the engine off until we had done those three stages and got to the service crew,” said Gilmour.

In the afternoon Gilmour was flying, winning a stage off rally winner Haydon Paddon and former champion Richard Mason who was competing on his home event.

She was the second fastest driver through the day’s stages. But only finishing seventh on the road after getting two minutes and ten seconds of road penalties. However, with three of the cars in front of her not eligible for championship points on Sunday it was not a complete disaster and combined with her third place on Saturday, Gilmour still finished second amongst the championship runners for the weekend. Gilmour heads to the final round of the series at Nelson in September 61 points behind Paddon."I know we’ve still got a mathematical chance of winning the title, so at least the championship won’t be decided until Nelson,” said Gilmour. “But Haydon would just about have to not score any points over the two days for us to be successful.”

The final round of NZRC, round five “Rally of Nelson” will be held from 19-20 September.