{"id":378046,"date":"2026-04-13T23:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T23:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378046\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T23:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T23:06:09","slug":"new-zealand-4x4-trials-grand-final-in-hawkes-bay-draws-crowds-and-crashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378046\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand 4×4 Trials grand final in Hawke\u2019s Bay draws crowds and crashes"},"content":{"rendered":"
NZ 4×4 Trials national competitions officer Chris Tomalin said the drizzle on Saturday morning made things a bit tougher with tacky ground conditions.<\/p>\n
But he said it was a well-executed course and fitting for the final round of the season.<\/p>\n
Close to 800 people came through the gates to catch the action.<\/p>\n
Morrinsville drivers dominated the weekend – Shaun Nicholson, Bryce Nicholson and Cody Fogden winning the event.<\/p>\n
Morrinsville\u2019s Chris Gifford won the overall season and came second on the weekend with Sam Thomsen.<\/p>\n
Tomalin said Gifford put in a massive effort this season and he wasn\u2019t surprised to see him finish first overall.<\/p>\n
Competitors at the New Zealand 4×4 Trials Grand Final in Crownsthorpe, Hastings. Photo \/ Carl Gundersen<\/p>\n
There were a few crashes over the weekend, with Tomalin saying he had \u201ca bit of a balls up\u201d and took a couple of rolls down a hill himself, as did others.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut everyone was safe and no one was injured,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety systems work and the gear that we use to keep everyone safe did its job.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be a trial if there wasn\u2019t some drama, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n
Competitors at the New Zealand 4×4 Trails Grand Final in Crownsthorpe, Hastings. Photo \/ Carl Gundersen<\/p>\n
Hawke\u2019s Bay 4wd Club president and event organiser Tim Dodge wanted to thank all the sponsors, volunteers and people who helped on the day.<\/p>\n
Dodge encouraged anyone wanting to give the sport a go to get in touch with the club.<\/p>\n
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZ 4×4 Trials national competitions officer Chris Tomalin said the drizzle on Saturday morning made things a bit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35539,95,196936,1561,3390,75888,2841,29422,26636,29059,18983,15211,5904,10813,1976,78,117,111,43,139,69,58601,203,1305,544,165,8229,14577,6861,6436,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-378046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-4x4","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-angles","11":"tag-bay","12":"tag-best","13":"tag-climbs","14":"tag-country","15":"tag-crashes","16":"tag-crowds","17":"tag-descended","18":"tag-draws","19":"tag-drivers","20":"tag-final","21":"tag-grand","22":"tag-hawkes","23":"tag-in","24":"tag-new","25":"tag-new-zealand","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-newzealand","28":"tag-nz","29":"tag-offroad","30":"tag-sharp","31":"tag-show","32":"tag-some","33":"tag-their","34":"tag-they","35":"tag-trials","36":"tag-vehicles","37":"tag-well","38":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}