An ‘average driver’ by his own admission, John Kennard began navigating in 1972. He made his World Rally Championship debut in Finland in 1985 by accident, when a regular co-driver became ill and John stepped in to take his place. He was, at the time, in Europe as part of the service crew for Christchurch couple Brent and Shirley Rawstron’s rally team. John returned to New Zealand and co-drove for various drivers, scoring his best WRC result to date on Rally New Zealand in 1988: 3rd overall with the late-Malcolm Stewart in an Audi Quattro. Moving to England in 1990, John had the chance to make a living from rallying as a logistics planner for Japanese Mitsubishi driver Shinozuka, contesting mainly African events. In 1995 John became team co-ordinator for the Prodrive Subaru World Rally Team and in 2003 returned to Mitsubishi for a short-lived but successful American rally programme. He returned home at the end of that year and set up a small vineyard, Vicarage Lane Winery in Marlborough, with his Finnish partner Satu. John was approached by Hayden Paddon to co-drive for him in 2005 and they competed together for the first time at the 2006 Rally Otago. Their first win came at Rally Whangarei in 2007. John became New Zealand champion co-driver in 2008 and 2009, guiding Hayden to a Pirelli Star Driver prize win in Australia the same year. That led to joining the Pirelli programme in 2010 and they finished third in the Production World Rally Championship. Last year they returned and won PWRC outright and, in doing so, Hayden and John became the first ever Southern Hemisphere World Rally Champions.