RallySport Magazine December 2016

More documents

Recommendations

Info

REPORT: NSW RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP QUINN CROWNED NSW CHAMPION PHOTOS: PETER WHITTEN Nathan Quinn has taken out the Gary’s Motorsport Tyres NSW Rally Championship, following his win in the final round at Rally Australia. For the second consecutive year, Quinn has narrowly won the championship over Peter Roberts, who finished the event in third place. The duo were trading times at each event throughout the year in a tightly fought battle. The final round of the championship saw Roberts hampered by dust early in the first pass of the 50km Nambucca stage, giving Quinn a 49 second lead, which he went on to extend to 1 minute 18 seconds by the end of the day. With Adrian Coppin finishing second in the NSWRC field, Roberts collected 36 points from the event, Quinn 40, giving the Coffs Harbour local the title. Peter Roberts’ co-driver, Andrew Crowley, scooped enough points on the day to give him the title of first outright co-driver in the championship. Suffering from heatstroke during the event, Crowley’s efforts to guide Roberts through the challenging stages were commendable, and the title is a fitting result. Competing in a Citroen DS3, Tony Sullens and Kaylie Newell finished the event in third place, elevating Sullens to third outright in the championship. Heading into the final round at Coffs Harbour, Tim Wilkins led the pointscores, with Tom Clarke narrowly behind. A broken gearbox towards the end of the first stage put to bed any of Wilkins’ hopes of a podium finish, unfortunate after a near-flawless year competing in his Nissan S15 Silvia. Clarke was driving to impress at the 58 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - DECEMBER 2016 event, but was unable to catch the Evos of Quinn and Roberts, and had to settle for seventh place in the rally. Tom Dermody and Eoin Moynihan in the red Escort once again took out the Pocket-Rocket class, and Moynihan finished the year with enough points to see him finish third overall co-driver. Rally Australia was included in the 2016 Gary’s Motorsport Tyres NSW Rally Championship following a lengthy collaboration between the NSW Rally Panel and the event organisers. The NSWRC component of the event was designed to provide statelevel competitors an opportunity to compete at the most prestigious and exciting event on the Australian rally calendar, without the typical time and cost commitments required by such an event. The NSWRC was conducted over the six Saturday stages of Rally Australia only, giving crews 130 tough, competitive kilometres. Competitor feedback from the event has been extremely positive, and the event will remain on the NSW rally calendar for 2017. Information on the presentation for the NSW Rally Championship will be released shortly on www.rallynsw.com. au The 2016 pointscores have been finalised, and the outright championship winners are: Driver Co-driver 1st Nathan Quinn Andrew Crowley 2nd Peter Roberts Katie Fletcher 3rd Tony Sullens Eoin Moynihan Nathan Quinn, Tom Dermody and Tony Sullens in action at Rally Australia.
REPORT: SOUTHERN CROSS RALLY MORE ‘CROSS MEMORIES MADE The Historic Rally Association added another iconic event to its portfolio of revived classics when it ran the Southern Cross Gold Anniversary Rally in November. The club has previously revived the classic BP Rally of South Eastern Australia and the Alpine Rally that dates back to 1922. The 3000km Southern Cross event, run to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of the inaugural ‘Cross in 1966, started in Albury on Tuesday, November 8 with a welcome BBQ function at Lake Hume Resort, attended by special guest George Fury (pictured right), winner of the 1978 and 1979 Southern Cross events. The course for the first half of the event generally followed the route of the 1966 event south through Mansfield, Pakenham and Sale, then north over the scenic and challenging Barry Way along the Snowy River to Jindabyne, Cooma and Canberra to Sydney. Sadly Ian Reddiex and Mike Mitchell, all the way from Queensland, had an engine failure in their highly favoured Datsun 1600 before the start, and took no part in the rally. Apart from this, reliability among the field was pleasingly high. Fittingly, the first touring stage of the event followed one of the sections of the notorious 1966 Bethanga Stampede, where four competitive loops were run into and out of the tiny town in an atmosphere of absolute pandemonium. The locals still remember it. The rally was run as a Touring Road Event, which allowed vehicles not fitted with roll over protection to compete, lowering costs for competitors. Competition included several timed sections each day, mixing closed road forest sections, autocross tracks, hill climbs and other venues with touring stages along the original Southern Cross route. To reflect the retrospective By BOB WATSON nature of the event a night navigation stage was held in the Mullungdung forest south of Sale. A dinner was held in Sydney to farewell Albury to Sydney sector competitors and welcome those competing from Sydney to Coffs Harbour. Highlight of the evening was a live TV cross to six times Southern Cross Rally winner, Andrew Cowan, who chatted with former team mates Dave Johnson, Barry Ferguson, Bob Riley and John Bryson about Southern Cross days (pictured below left). Commentator Will Hagon gave an excellent retrospective of the significance of the original Southern Cross events, which placed Australia firmly on the international rally scene. Winners of the Albury to Sydney sector were Steve Blair and Dave Johnson in the ex-Shekhar Mehta Datsun PB210 from the 1977 ‘Cross. From Sydney the rally headed north to Coffs Harbour via Taree, Port Macquarie and Kempsey, to join in the activities of Rally Australia, the final round of the World Rally Championship. Another night navigation stage was thrown in near Kempsey, and the route followed many of the famous Southern Cross roads of the 1970s. The event gave a true taste of what the original events were like. The Southern Cross cars took part in WRC forest stages at Lower Bucca and the WRC Super Special stages at Coffs Harbour and Raleigh Raceway. Iconic venues such as the site of South Australian Tom Barr-Smith’s hair raising high speed crossing of the Pacific Highway, the Taylor’s Arm Hotel (Slim Dusty’s ‘pub with no beer’) and the Gordonville ford near Bellingen were included in the route. Winners of the Sydney to Coffs Harbour segment were Mark Pickering and Dave Boddy in Mark’s Peking to Paris Rally winning Datsun 240Z. The sound of this car’s engine is like a mechanical symphony! Overall winners in a Datsun 1600 were the experienced combination of five times Aussie rally champ and 1980 Southern Cross winner, Ross Dunkerton, navigated by wife Lisa, but the win was far from easy. Hot competition from Steve and Benjamin Marron in a beautifully built and driven Mitsubishi Galant, Darryn Snooks in an immaculate George Fury replica Datsun 710 Violet, and John Rawson and Jenny Pollock in a very Husband and wife teams were a feature of the Southern Cross Gold Anniversary Rally. rapid Datsun Stanza all took fastest times on occasions, and in fact the Marrons scored more fastest stage times than the winners. Mike Batten/Steuart Snooks (Datsun 1600) and Ian and Val Swan in the much rallied Volvo 242 kept them all honest, and Andrew White’s beautifully restored Volvo 122S (an original Southern Cross Rally car) was jaw droppingly quick and sounded magnificent. The finale was another outstanding dinner at the Sawtell Golf Club where trophies were presented, tall tales told and another brilliant live TV cross, this time to George Fury’s navigator Monty Suffern in Texas, was again organised by communications guru Mike Ward. The SCGAR was a fitting commemoration of the first Southern Cross Rally. The format of touring, mixed with short, sharp speed tests and plenty of socialising time is popular with competitors and officials. We look forward to the concept, originated by Australia’s best road finder and road director, Graham Wallis, leading to more of such events. DECEMBER 2016 - RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE | 59
Page 1 and 2:
Issue #8 - December 2016 FREE EVERY
Page 3 and 4:
STMAS GIFT IDEAS RALLYSPORT MAG T-S
Page 5 and 6:
CONTENTS - #8 DECEMBER 2016 FEATURE
Page 7 and 8: NEWS@RALLYSPORTMAG.COM.AU MINI PROG
Page 9 and 10: PICTURE PERFECT M-Sport’s 2017 Fi
Page 11 and 12: ALL FINNISH AFFAIR Toyota has snapp
Page 13 and 14: LING ected, although the man Sebast
Page 15 and 16: There were scenes of emotion around
Page 17 and 18: Esapekka Lappi scored a well deserv
Page 19 and 20: made us happy. Q: There was a lot o
Page 21 and 22: Baker’s Creek stage again before
Page 23 and 24: to win the Certina Timing Award for
Page 25 and 26: Story: TOM SMITH Photos: PETER WHIT
Page 27 and 28: applied to the Pedders Peugot for l
Page 29 and 30: BATES MASTERS KENNARDS KLASSICS The
Page 31 and 32: What does it mean to bring Les Walk
Page 33 and 34: RallySport Mag’s Luke Whitten wit
Page 35 and 36: in 2012 and give it another go, thi
Page 37 and 38: FOOTNOTE: Kelly Motorsport Merchand
Page 39 and 40: E DECEMBER 2016 - RALLYSPORT MAGAZI
Page 41 and 42: To the winners, the spoils. Also do
Page 43 and 44: four days and somewhere in the regi
Page 45 and 46: So torque is similar to what we alr
Page 47 and 48: The grand father of Henry Ford III
Page 49 and 50: REPORT: INDIA RALLY Skoda’s Fabia
Page 51 and 52: REPORT: BEGONIA RALLY MUD MASTER St
Page 53 and 54: TRAVELLING MAN ... At the end of a
Page 55 and 56: Stewart Reid had Kiwi Dave Neill ca
Page 57: finished sixth), were the exception
Page 61 and 62: Moss and Jenkinson on their way to
Page 63 and 64: DECEMBER 2016 - RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE
show all

RallySport Magazine December 2016

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?