\u201cI mean, the roads up there are just sublime,\u201d the Cantabrian said of Northland.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can carry so much speed because of the camber, and there\u2019s lots of corners, but it\u2019s still quite high speed, which I quite enjoy, and I mean the car was going great up until then, so it was really enjoyable.\u201d <\/p>\n
Conditions were wet, but visibility was still good. <\/p>\n
The stage finish was a few hundred metres away.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you sort of probably get a bit excited that you\u2019re nearly at the finish and probably just forget that you\u2019ve still got that little bit to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
As they reached a corner, Stokes kept his foot down. That method worked last year.<\/p>\n
Flying around the bend about 170km\/h, the rear of the Skoda stepped out, sending the car sideways.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all happens so fast that you don\u2019t really have time to register what\u2019s going on at all,\u201d Stokes said. <\/p>\n
The left rear of the car clipped a tree stump at the roadside, the impact knocking the pair unconscious.<\/p>\n
Stokes\u2019 foot was still pressed down on the accelerator, meaning the Skoda spun in circles at least five times before coming to a standstill.<\/p>\n
Rally driver Jack Stokes’ car after the crash.<\/p>\n
Stokes\u2019 next hazy memory was waking up still inside the car as following co-driver Jason Farmer attempted to rouse him.<\/p>\n
Stokes managed to clamber out of the car. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty dizzy at that point,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Stokes\u2019 brother, who was also competing, helped get Graves out a few moments later.<\/p>\n
The pair sat down at the roadside, tried to drink some water, and waited for first responders. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt sort of took probably five or 10 minutes to actually remember what was going on,\u201d Stokes said.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, the only damage to his gear was a crack in his helmet where the microphone came out.<\/p>\n
He was thankful his head and neck support worked too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich was probably the big reason why we weren\u2019t more injured, to be honest,\u201d Stokes said.<\/p>\n
The pair were taken to Whang\u0101rei Hospital in an ambulance for medical checks.<\/p>\n
Diagnosed with concussion, they had been stood down by Motorsport New Zealand until being cleared by a doctor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe past few days have been pretty average,\u201d Stokes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trying to focus on the recovery at the moment and reflecting a bit on what went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s crash wasn\u2019t the first for Stokes, although it was his most severe. <\/p>\n
He had no doubt he\u2019d be back competing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty addictive, so hard not to do it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
But Stokes couldn\u2019t help but feel like he\u2019d missed out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, we\u2019ve put thousands of hours into it. It was a pretty cruel way for it all to be taken away, but it\u2019s just part of the sport, the risk that you accept when you sign up for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amount of work that you put into it gets ripped away from you like that. But yeah, it\u2019s all part of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking at his car while speaking to the Advocate, Stokes said the damage wasn\u2019t catastrophic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just back at our workshop, so we\u2019ll fix it eventually. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be in any rush. We\u2019ll do it properly and do a nice job of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He knew he\u2019d be back out at some point. <\/p>\n
Stokes grew up around racing. His dad was a veteran. The whole family was involved in one way or another.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my first memory is being at a rally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what I\u2019ve thought so far, I don\u2019t really have any qualms about getting back in the car in terms of being able to do it again.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brodie Stone covers crime and emergency for the Northern Advocate. She has spent most of her life in Whang\u0101rei and is passionate about delving into issues that matter to Northlanders and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI mean, the roads up there are just sublime,\u201d the Cantabrian said of Northland. \u201cYou can carry so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[304437,74,95,1975,18239,38143,72827,3549,18984,57470,22259,5503,4505,111,139,1536,1067,69,16237,213,5433,71294,21419,67355,20424,3608],"class_list":["post-618252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-170kmh","tag-after","tag-and","tag-at","tag-championship","tag-charging","tag-codriver","tag-crash","tag-finish","tag-frontrunner","tag-jack","tag-knocked","tag-moment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-rally","tag-sports","tag-stage","tag-stokes","tag-towards","tag-unconscious","tag-violent","tag-were"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618252","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=618252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}