August 21, 2024 • 10 mins
NZ rally driver Hayden Paddon joins Craig Cumming to chat racing and the European Rally Championship
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm talking motor racing on the program or Rudy racing,
and I'm delighted to having joining us from over in Europe.
Hayden Patting, Good morning, Hayden one, and great good evening
to you. Well, thank you very much for being available. Excited.
I just let our listeners know that this will be
quite an educated discussion because you've got two former pupils
from Timmory Boys High School, so you know we both
(00:20):
we both went there for our education, didn't we.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Is it a good or a bad thing?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Though, It's better when I'm talking to you than when
I'm talking to Brendan Laney because people think them, yeah, okay, yeah,
So it might be an elevated discussion. But as opposed to.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Something in the water and say, don't they I mean,
this is something that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
There's a private conversation. But in Timory Boys is the
love Lock oak which was given to Jack Lovelock. I
was thinking, and I was going to ask you if
there was a tree put at Tomorrow Boys reflecting you,
what sort of tree would that be?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, I can tell you I've had a few trees
that really yeah, nickname pine three patterns, so maybe video
pine true.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I can tell you we wouldn't be as big as
the Tom Molstree anyway. Put it that way another form role.
Well mate, you've just finished up, you've got two rounds
left to go, you're leading the European Rally Championship, you're
defending title. It's been a tough year though, so how
things going.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You've definitely been a tough year. We obviously knew were
going to be up against it this year when you
you know, I think when you try and defend a title,
it's always harder than trying to want it for the
first time. You've got that target pain on your back
and there's no secrets, and you know, we're behind the
development race this year. You know, we've effectually got the
same cars last year and the other the other manufacturers
and teams have made a big jump up, and yeah,
(01:41):
we're sort of fighting with our hands tied behind their
back somewhat. So it's making it incredibly tough for us
this year, which you know, I'm enjoying that challenge as well,
but we're having to be pretty patient and go about
in the way that I normally wouldn't go about things.
So yeah, two rounds ago. We're in we're in seed
at the moment, but it's certainly not easy.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah. I mean, I you heard a bit of you
interview at Darcy water Grave and you spoke about that.
Is that just simply because of the constructor you're you know,
and I didn't want to upgrade it? Is that the
reason why you you're fighting with the last year's vehicle?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, I don't know. He put it in a nice way.
It's politics. There's a whole lot of politics and all
forms of motors board and you know, when rallying, everything's
got to be amolligated, so you can only run a
molligated parts and the power and each manufacturer's only assigned
a certain amount of jokers that they can add on
to the car within the five year life span on
the car. So our car doesn't really have any of
(02:35):
those jokers remaining, and the ones that they do that
they're saving for next year. So that means, you know,
what we're you know, what we're trying to do this
year is effectively well a one year old car, while
everyone else has got a whole lot of upgrade. So
you can't make excuses. This is what we got and
and we knew that was always going to be the
case this year, and you know, there's a there's an
element that I'm actually really loving that having the deep
(02:57):
and drive faster than that we've done before, and more
risks than what we've done before. And it doesn't show
on paper because you know, when we're fighting for third
or fourth or fifth, it doesn't reflect that. But from
inside the car, John and I are certainly pushing pretty
hard and we're having to work for this championship the
old school way, shall we say?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, I was going to ask that. I mean, you know,
you got to find different ways, so different challenges for you,
and you know, what are the key years you've got
to do well now as opposed to when you've got
a faster care.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The biggest thing is we can't afford to make mistakes
and we can't afford to having they zero points scores.
I'm hoping this is very a bit more of my
age and wisdom comes into playing age. You know, if
I took the younger version of myself ten years ago,
you know, I'm pretty competitive person. And if you're not
there winning yet, you get worked out pretty easily and
you start to overthink things and overdrive and that's accidents
(03:46):
and things happen, Whereas now it's a man of taking
a chill pill and you know, taking it in stride
of what the situation is, accepting it and then going
to the events with different goals and different targets and
make sure we keep picking up points. And you know,
we had a few little into is where we've dropped
a few points this year, but compared to our competitors,
we have been more consistent and that's what's paying off
(04:06):
at the moment. But you know, coming down to the
crunch end of the championship, we need to deliver some
results now. So next week in Whale is going to
be better of digging a bit dead and try and
find more performance where we can. Yeah. We're trying to
extract absolutely everything out of both myself and the car
and doing everything that we can.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, I mean in some ways, Yeah, obviously you want
to be consistent, But is it the same level of
satisfaction knowing that you're chasing points because obviously you always
want to be on the podium.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No, definitely not. Yeah, that's why it's such so mentally
tough this year. You know, I love driving, I love racing.
That's obviously why I do it, but even more than that,
I love winning. So when we're not winning events this year,
it's a tough pill to swallow. If at the end
it means that we can win the championship, then it'll
be all worthwhile. But if we can pull this off,
(04:52):
this would definitely be the hardest championship that we've ever
had the one before and I think mentally, of aged
about ten years, this years got a few more gray
years and bits and pieces. So yeah, we just have
to make these next two rounds count on us to
make the year worth while.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, I mean, when you look at it, you're going
to Wales. Are we tarmac or is it gravel?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Tarmi So the majority of the US's championships on tarmac,
which I guess is worked against us a little bit.
Last year it was more gravel this year, more tarmaic,
so a little bit outside the comfort zone. But in
saying that, Whales is a rally that we did two
years ago and we were able to win it when
it was a non championship event. So it's always good
going back to an event that you've got some good
memories of, and yeahs hopefully if we can repeat that
(05:34):
sort of result then get up us in a good
position before the last round of porn.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Is that a tougher thing too with the car being
on tarmac because again me being a bit more of
a novice, but having watched and also followed your career
being on gravel, driver skill and understanding the roads obviously
plays a big part, and you know the way your
skill factor was is tarmac around about the cars speed
being more important.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, on gravel you can definitely make more of difference
as a driver. You can drive around the pros or
cons of the car. There's a lot more variables in
terms of the surface and the grip and everything, whereas
on tarmacs you do need more outright performance of the car,
you know, not quite to the same degree. But it's
like Formula one, you know, trying to see a Williams
trying to win a Formula one races, it's not certainly
(06:19):
going to see because it comes down to the performance
parameters of the car. So yeah, tarmac is about, you know,
the more refined performance of things, and it does make
a little bit tougher for us, but at the end
of the day, we're not going to make excuses as
well as I say, you know, these are the tools
we've got. We've got to just make sure that they
worked to the best of our abilities.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I can imagine, wows, a little bit of moisture around
the tarmac might have a little bit of slide for you.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yes, it's not very often you the way it was rainings. Yeah, no,
that can help us. But yeah, we've just got to
be prepared for whatever it's going to throw us.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean, I know you've always been busy, but you're
still enjoying being on the road. You're still enjoying being
over here in Europe and being competing, you know, you know,
week to week.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Oh, I'm loving it. Like obviously, last year was their
first full year back after COVID, so yeah, sort of
back into the swing of things a bit more normality,
but looking forward to going home as well. I've been
over here now for two months living out of a suitcase,
so I forgot really to head home and visit the
cat again. And then of course we've got a busy,
busy program back in New Zealand all the way through
(07:23):
the Christmas as well. So yeah, it's definitely nice to
be on the road. But there was an element of
trying to get back to the normality at some such
I was going.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
To say, are you have you been? How many races
you've been involved in the New Zealand Rally.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We've done half a championship and then once we get
yep and then once we get back we've got the
final three events. So the calendar's actually worked that quite well.
That while there was a big gap in New Zealand
was when the majority of the European events was on.
And then of course we've got a whole of the
rally sprints and single venue events. We've got some stuff
going on with the electric rally car and some development
things as well. So I think all the way through
(07:58):
once to get home, I think I've got one weekend
off between September and Christmas. So it's going to be
your hands on deep Bay, not just myself but our
whole team because you know they're working pretty hard at
home at the moment getting everything ready and prepared. So
once we get back working at the ground running.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It has the electrical side of things going in the
business up there, you know, based in Cromwell being busy
and you're happy with where that's been going.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, we're working on a few things in the background. Obviously,
the electric rally car is still sort of our flagship
in terms of the future where we want to go
and that technology race within motors work. We are integrating
some new technology into that car at the moment, which
we hope to launch next year. So yeah, we're not
standing still, but you know, the boys are always working hard.
And of course when we're at the rallies in New Zealand,
(08:40):
it's not just our car. We're also running four cars
for customers as well, So when you're at rallies with
four or five cars, it's logistically a big effort by
the whole team. And yeah, but in saying that, I
love being busy, I love what we're doing, and we've
got aspirations to try and do more international stuff with
our own kV team next year. So you know, step
by step where we're building it.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Up exciting and you'll be looking forward to getting back
to some New Zealand roads. You going to get on
the gravel over here.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Can't beat the gravel as a clear so says she's
been quite a while since we've done a gravel rally. Well,
you didn't do it. I might have forgot, I might
have forgotten how to drive a well.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I don't reckon you would have. I can tell you
better than what I used to be when I used
to practice around Peel Forest, and that when I wasn't
meant to be a mum and Dad's car back in
the good old days, Hayden. Because you didn't do the
Targo rally this year, did you.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I know we missed a Targo, but we did South
Canterbury and South and Rally. But of course the religion
we get back on the North holand starting with Daybreaker rallying.
But then we've got Ashley Forest and your crush Shutch
as well, so we've got a pretty special car that
we bring along to that event that we're looking forward
to showcase some people.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well I can't wait. But first of all, all the
very best in Wales and all the very best in
the European Rally Championship two rounds ago. We'd love to
see you at the top of the podium at the
end of that and appreciate you being available this morning. Hayden.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Thank you very much. I appreciate it, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, seventeen minutes past eight o'clock. One way to describe
Hayden good bugger, absolute good bugger. And yeah, and perseverance
as well. Perseverance when it comes to all the challenges
around you know the political side of the game, and
obviously you know what he's been able to do. But yeah,
it's been a tough year, but still top of the table.
Two rounds to go, fingers crossed and then can't wait
(10:15):
to see him back on the New Zealand shores doing
what he does here on the rally roads of New Zealand,
on the gravel, as he said,
I'm talking motor racing on the program or Rudy racing,
and I'm delighted to having joining us from over in Europe.
Hayden Patting, Good morning, Hayden one, and great good evening
to you. Well, thank you very much for being available. Excited.
I just let our listeners know that this will be
quite an educated discussion because you've got two former pupils
from Timmory Boys High School, so you know we both
(00:20):
we both went there for our education, didn't we.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Is it a good or a bad thing?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Though, It's better when I'm talking to you than when
I'm talking to Brendan Laney because people think them, yeah, okay, yeah,
So it might be an elevated discussion. But as opposed to.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Something in the water and say, don't they I mean,
this is something that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
There's a private conversation. But in Timory Boys is the
love Lock oak which was given to Jack Lovelock. I
was thinking, and I was going to ask you if
there was a tree put at Tomorrow Boys reflecting you,
what sort of tree would that be?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, I can tell you I've had a few trees
that really yeah, nickname pine three patterns, so maybe video
pine true.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I can tell you we wouldn't be as big as
the Tom Molstree anyway. Put it that way another form role.
Well mate, you've just finished up, you've got two rounds
left to go, you're leading the European Rally Championship, you're
defending title. It's been a tough year though, so how
things going.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You've definitely been a tough year. We obviously knew were
going to be up against it this year when you
you know, I think when you try and defend a title,
it's always harder than trying to want it for the
first time. You've got that target pain on your back
and there's no secrets, and you know, we're behind the
development race this year. You know, we've effectually got the
same cars last year and the other the other manufacturers
and teams have made a big jump up, and yeah,
(01:41):
we're sort of fighting with our hands tied behind their
back somewhat. So it's making it incredibly tough for us
this year, which you know, I'm enjoying that challenge as well,
but we're having to be pretty patient and go about
in the way that I normally wouldn't go about things.
So yeah, two rounds ago. We're in we're in seed
at the moment, but it's certainly not easy.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah. I mean, I you heard a bit of you
interview at Darcy water Grave and you spoke about that.
Is that just simply because of the constructor you're you know,
and I didn't want to upgrade it? Is that the
reason why you you're fighting with the last year's vehicle?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, I don't know. He put it in a nice way.
It's politics. There's a whole lot of politics and all
forms of motors board and you know, when rallying, everything's
got to be amolligated, so you can only run a
molligated parts and the power and each manufacturer's only assigned
a certain amount of jokers that they can add on
to the car within the five year life span on
the car. So our car doesn't really have any of
(02:35):
those jokers remaining, and the ones that they do that
they're saving for next year. So that means, you know,
what we're you know, what we're trying to do this
year is effectively well a one year old car, while
everyone else has got a whole lot of upgrade. So
you can't make excuses. This is what we got and
and we knew that was always going to be the
case this year, and you know, there's a there's an
element that I'm actually really loving that having the deep
(02:57):
and drive faster than that we've done before, and more
risks than what we've done before. And it doesn't show
on paper because you know, when we're fighting for third
or fourth or fifth, it doesn't reflect that. But from
inside the car, John and I are certainly pushing pretty
hard and we're having to work for this championship the
old school way, shall we say?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, I was going to ask that. I mean, you know,
you got to find different ways, so different challenges for you,
and you know, what are the key years you've got
to do well now as opposed to when you've got
a faster care.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The biggest thing is we can't afford to make mistakes
and we can't afford to having they zero points scores.
I'm hoping this is very a bit more of my
age and wisdom comes into playing age. You know, if
I took the younger version of myself ten years ago,
you know, I'm pretty competitive person. And if you're not
there winning yet, you get worked out pretty easily and
you start to overthink things and overdrive and that's accidents
(03:46):
and things happen, Whereas now it's a man of taking
a chill pill and you know, taking it in stride
of what the situation is, accepting it and then going
to the events with different goals and different targets and
make sure we keep picking up points. And you know,
we had a few little into is where we've dropped
a few points this year, but compared to our competitors,
we have been more consistent and that's what's paying off
(04:06):
at the moment. But you know, coming down to the
crunch end of the championship, we need to deliver some
results now. So next week in Whale is going to
be better of digging a bit dead and try and
find more performance where we can. Yeah. We're trying to
extract absolutely everything out of both myself and the car
and doing everything that we can.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, I mean in some ways, Yeah, obviously you want
to be consistent, But is it the same level of
satisfaction knowing that you're chasing points because obviously you always
want to be on the podium.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No, definitely not. Yeah, that's why it's such so mentally
tough this year. You know, I love driving, I love racing.
That's obviously why I do it, but even more than that,
I love winning. So when we're not winning events this year,
it's a tough pill to swallow. If at the end
it means that we can win the championship, then it'll
be all worthwhile. But if we can pull this off,
(04:52):
this would definitely be the hardest championship that we've ever
had the one before and I think mentally, of aged
about ten years, this years got a few more gray
years and bits and pieces. So yeah, we just have
to make these next two rounds count on us to
make the year worth while.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, I mean, when you look at it, you're going
to Wales. Are we tarmac or is it gravel?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Tarmi So the majority of the US's championships on tarmac,
which I guess is worked against us a little bit.
Last year it was more gravel this year, more tarmaic,
so a little bit outside the comfort zone. But in
saying that, Whales is a rally that we did two
years ago and we were able to win it when
it was a non championship event. So it's always good
going back to an event that you've got some good
memories of, and yeahs hopefully if we can repeat that
(05:34):
sort of result then get up us in a good
position before the last round of porn.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Is that a tougher thing too with the car being
on tarmac because again me being a bit more of
a novice, but having watched and also followed your career
being on gravel, driver skill and understanding the roads obviously
plays a big part, and you know the way your
skill factor was is tarmac around about the cars speed
being more important.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, on gravel you can definitely make more of difference
as a driver. You can drive around the pros or
cons of the car. There's a lot more variables in
terms of the surface and the grip and everything, whereas
on tarmacs you do need more outright performance of the car,
you know, not quite to the same degree. But it's
like Formula one, you know, trying to see a Williams
trying to win a Formula one races, it's not certainly
(06:19):
going to see because it comes down to the performance
parameters of the car. So yeah, tarmac is about, you know,
the more refined performance of things, and it does make
a little bit tougher for us, but at the end
of the day, we're not going to make excuses as
well as I say, you know, these are the tools
we've got. We've got to just make sure that they
worked to the best of our abilities.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I can imagine, wows, a little bit of moisture around
the tarmac might have a little bit of slide for you.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yes, it's not very often you the way it was rainings. Yeah, no,
that can help us. But yeah, we've just got to
be prepared for whatever it's going to throw us.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean, I know you've always been busy, but you're
still enjoying being on the road. You're still enjoying being
over here in Europe and being competing, you know, you know,
week to week.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Oh, I'm loving it. Like obviously, last year was their
first full year back after COVID, so yeah, sort of
back into the swing of things a bit more normality,
but looking forward to going home as well. I've been
over here now for two months living out of a suitcase,
so I forgot really to head home and visit the
cat again. And then of course we've got a busy,
busy program back in New Zealand all the way through
(07:23):
the Christmas as well. So yeah, it's definitely nice to
be on the road. But there was an element of
trying to get back to the normality at some such
I was going.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
To say, are you have you been? How many races
you've been involved in the New Zealand Rally.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We've done half a championship and then once we get
yep and then once we get back we've got the
final three events. So the calendar's actually worked that quite well.
That while there was a big gap in New Zealand
was when the majority of the European events was on.
And then of course we've got a whole of the
rally sprints and single venue events. We've got some stuff
going on with the electric rally car and some development
things as well. So I think all the way through
(07:58):
once to get home, I think I've got one weekend
off between September and Christmas. So it's going to be
your hands on deep Bay, not just myself but our
whole team because you know they're working pretty hard at
home at the moment getting everything ready and prepared. So
once we get back working at the ground running.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It has the electrical side of things going in the
business up there, you know, based in Cromwell being busy
and you're happy with where that's been going.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, we're working on a few things in the background. Obviously,
the electric rally car is still sort of our flagship
in terms of the future where we want to go
and that technology race within motors work. We are integrating
some new technology into that car at the moment, which
we hope to launch next year. So yeah, we're not
standing still, but you know, the boys are always working hard.
And of course when we're at the rallies in New Zealand,
(08:40):
it's not just our car. We're also running four cars
for customers as well, So when you're at rallies with
four or five cars, it's logistically a big effort by
the whole team. And yeah, but in saying that, I
love being busy, I love what we're doing, and we've
got aspirations to try and do more international stuff with
our own kV team next year. So you know, step
by step where we're building it.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Up exciting and you'll be looking forward to getting back
to some New Zealand roads. You going to get on
the gravel over here.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Can't beat the gravel as a clear so says she's
been quite a while since we've done a gravel rally. Well,
you didn't do it. I might have forgot, I might
have forgotten how to drive a well.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I don't reckon you would have. I can tell you
better than what I used to be when I used
to practice around Peel Forest, and that when I wasn't
meant to be a mum and Dad's car back in
the good old days, Hayden. Because you didn't do the
Targo rally this year, did you.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I know we missed a Targo, but we did South
Canterbury and South and Rally. But of course the religion
we get back on the North holand starting with Daybreaker rallying.
But then we've got Ashley Forest and your crush Shutch
as well, so we've got a pretty special car that
we bring along to that event that we're looking forward
to showcase some people.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well I can't wait. But first of all, all the
very best in Wales and all the very best in
the European Rally Championship two rounds ago. We'd love to
see you at the top of the podium at the
end of that and appreciate you being available this morning. Hayden.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Thank you very much. I appreciate it, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, seventeen minutes past eight o'clock. One way to describe
Hayden good bugger, absolute good bugger. And yeah, and perseverance
as well. Perseverance when it comes to all the challenges
around you know the political side of the game, and
obviously you know what he's been able to do. But yeah,
it's been a tough year, but still top of the table.
Two rounds to go, fingers crossed and then can't wait
(10:15):
to see him back on the New Zealand shores doing
what he does here on the rally roads of New Zealand,
on the gravel, as he said,
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