Whaanga Coast rally stage map

by Sidney van den Boogaard

A stage of two halves, and the second one bites. Whaanga Coast starts among the farms inland of Raglan on fast, flowing gravel roads full of crests, then reaches the Tasman Sea and becomes something else entirely: a narrow, twisting coast road with deep, cambered corners that chew through tyres. At 29.3 kilometres it is a long test, and with average speeds of only 87 to 89 km/h in 2022 it ranks among the slowest gravel stages of the New Zealand round. It has been a fixture since the early 1990s. For anyone who has driven the coast below Mount Karioi, or dreams of it.

This work is part of the Rally Stages collection: legendary special stages on tarmac, gravel and snow, each drawn from the real road and finished in the same calm, graphic style. The map reads from start to finish, with the stage's elevation profile below and, along the bottom, the length, the surface and the facts that made the stage famous.

The road is drawn from OpenStreetMap data (© OpenStreetMap contributors) and the profile from Copernicus elevation data. A great gift for any rally fan, for the workshop, the garage or above the desk.