Absolutely epic stuff. The bloody rain was the main protagonist throughout the whole event but made the experience all the more memorable. The top guys are just absolute weapons, unreal the speed they carry through, especially in those conditions. Epic effort from the team that built the Jack's Ridge track, what an arena! Hopefully the weather is a bit more lenient next time. If there is a next time...
Whilst being a great turnout by NZ standards, I don't think it's anywhere near enough to guarantee this magnitude of events coming here on a consistent basis. The cost of logistics is probably the highest out of all the events on the calendar and when you compare it to other venues in Europe that consistently pull 300k+ spectators across a race weekend, we sadly don't even come close to making it worth the effort. We caught up with the main organiser of Rally Estonia at one of the stages, dude's been to every event on the WRC calendar this year and out the blue remarked that he was shocked by how few spectators there were. We were taken aback a bit, looked around and were rather impressed by how many had trekked through knee-high mud to sit through downpour after downpour to watch a few cars whizz by, but he's obviously got a wider perspective. So whilst there's definitely a market there, on a global scale it looks to be magnitudes behind the main players. I just hope it's not another 10 years before we see them back here.