The new year got underway with similar goals to the previous year – to contest the full New Zealand Rally Championship and also the Australian rounds of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship if Covid travel restrictions allowed.
Hayden and John were happy to earn their 5th consecutive win of Rally Otago, with a winning margin of over 7.5 minutes, paying credit to the hard work put in by the team to rebuild the car following the crash last November.
They went on win the International Rally of Whangarei in May, to top the NZRC points-table.
Everything continued to plan at June’s Rally of South Canterbury on Hayden’s his home roads. This win meant Hayden was only five points away from securing the NZRC driver’s championship with two rounds still to go.
Hayden wrapped up his fifth New Zealand Rally Driver’s Championship at the one-day Rally Hawke’s Bay in July, while John secured his fourth New Zealand Rally Co-driver’s Championship title. Hayden paid due credit to his Paddon Rallysport crew who prepared the Hyundai to run faultlessly as the pair won every stage.
Next was the exciting, history-making debut of the Hyundai Kona EV rally car at the Waimate 50 Motorsport Festival. With MotorSport New Zealand having released their electric vehicle guidelines, car clubs organising events now had safety guidelines to work with for this technology which is new for New Zealand motorsport.
Hayden and the five-strong team at Paddon Rallysport saw two years of hard work come to fruition with the 4km rallysprint coming at the right time for the car’s development timeline as the team gathered more data for their continued development work. In another first for the EV rally car project, Paddon Rallysport fitted the car with a prototype mechanical sound device, a project 18 months in the making, not long before the first timed run.
Running in the unlimited 4WD class against 50 entrants, Hayden set the faster and faster times for each run to win the event, making this the perfect competition debut for the Kona EV.