1980 CAMS AUSTRALIAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP

THE EVENTS The 1980 CAMS Australian Rally Championship: 1 Rally of the West West Australia West Australia Car Club Fury/Suffern 2 Lutwych Shopping Centre Rally Queensland Brisbane Sporting Car Club Fury/Suffern 3 Akademos Rally Victoria Melbourne University Car Club Dunkerton/Beaumont 4 Bega Valley Rally New South Wales Australian Sporting Car Club Fury/Suffern 5 Donlee Rally South Australia Barrier Sporting Car Club Portman/Runnalls

FINAL POINTS 1 George Fury Vic 31 1 Monty Suffern Vic 31 2 NSW 27 2 John Dawson-Damer NSW 27 3 WA 17 3 Jeff Beaumont Tas 17 4 Geoff Portman Vic 12 4 Ross Runnalls Vic 12 5 ACT 10 5 Fred Gocentas ACT 10 6 Barry Ferguson NSW 5 6 Steve Owers NSW 5 7 Clive Slater WA 4 7 Barbara Stubbs WA 4 8 Tony Masling NSW 3 8 Brian Hope NSW 3 9 Barry Burns SA 3 9 David Milne SA 3

Manufacturers Award Not awarded.

1980 Australian Rally Champions – George Fury, Monty Suffern and Datsun Stanza 103

SUMMARY

Continuing their almost complete domination of major Australian rallies in the second half of the seventies the Total Oil Datsun Team convincingly won the 1980 Australian Rally Championship with George Fury, Monty Suffern and Datsun Stanza. It was the second championship for Fury and Suffern but more satisfying as they shared the title with teammates Ross Dunkerton and Jeff Beaumont in 1977. The team won all five championship events – three to Fury, one each to Dunkerton and Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls (Stanza).

The title was the fifth in six years by Datsun (soon to be Nissan) and in that time it also won the Southern Cross International Rally in successive years, 1977 to 1980.

The 1980 series followed the by now familiar format with one round in each of the mainland states. The opening round was in Queensland, followed by West Australia, then New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia (at Broken Hill).

As had been the case since 1977 the chief protagonists for the 1980 series were the Datsun (now Nissan) and Ford works teams. The other factory backed team, Holden, never really sought to contest the series as a whole, and there was no one privateer who competed in all five rounds.

Datsun made its usual professional attack on the series, with two litre twin cam Stanzas for George Fury/Monty Suffern and Ross Dunkerton/Jeff Beaumont. A third twin cam car was made available for Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls to run in the last two rounds under separate sponsorship. Between them the Datsun drivers won all five rounds.

By way of contrast the Ford team attack on the championship never really got running smoothly throughout the series. This was not a reflection on the team members but rather a result of the somewhat half-hearted support from Ford Australia, which was curtailing the sales of the Escort after 1980. The RS 1800 was used by Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas and Colin Bond/John Dawson-Damer. Carr had a disappointing year, with some form of mechanical problem in every round, usually when he was in the lead or close to it, and he only finished two events. On the other hand Bond was a model of consistency, finishing second in four events and fourth in the other event. Just how reliable Bond was can be seen by the fact that in four years with the Ford team he started in 16 championship events and finished every one of them – never worse that fifth.

The Holden team with its two Geminis did not make a concerted attack on the series and only contested three of the five rounds.

Amongst the privateers the ever present Clive Slater, with Barbara Stubbs, in his Toyota Corolla was the only competitor to tackle the whole series, contesting four rounds (from West Australia) but finished in only one (third in the first round). Tony Masling/Brian Hope ran their Datsun Stanza in three rounds, but mechanical problems kept the car out of points except for the opening round when he finished fourth. A number of other drivers attended two rounds.

By the end of 1980 thought was being given to the fact that with only five rounds in the championship the results of all round must be taken into account for the final score and a poor result cannot be dropped, and there be the need to start in all rounds. This requirement, taken with the traditional points score system of 9, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 for the top six place- getters effectively ruled out any worthwhile participation in the championship by privateers, although many did compete in their ‘home state’ round (which is often a round of the state championship). Added to this was the steeply spiraling cost of rallying in events strung out across the nation and participating in the series was a deterrent to all but the wealthiest privateer.

ROUND ONE: RALLY OF THE WEST – Western Australia

Dust, dust, dust and more dust was the story of the Rally of the West. So much dust that the overall length of the event was shortened after the late runners had dropped hours behind schedule. Despite the terrible dusty conditions the competition was intense amongst the top runners.

The Datsun Stanzas and Ford Escorts took up battle from where it had been left off at the end of the 1979 series when each marque won two events each. In the period 1977 to 1979 Ford had taken off seven events to Datsun’s six, but the championship titles has mostly gone Datsun’s way.

Datsun entered George Fury/Monty Suffern and Ross Dunkerton/Jeff Beaumont (both in Stanzas) and Ford entered Colin Bond/John Dawson-Damer and Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas, in Escort RS 1800s. Tony Masling/Brian Hope were in a works replica Stanza were one of the few others from the Eastern States.

Local top competitors included Clive Slater/Barbara Stubbs (Toyota Corolla), Danny Bignell/Rod van der Straaten (Datsun 120Y), Bob Nicoli/Peter Macneal (Datsun 1600) and Frank Johnson/Steve Vanderbyl (Mazda RX4).

Since its inception in 1973 the West Australian round was conducted over two nights but this year it was changed to a prologue on the Friday and a single day of competition on Saturday afternoon and night. Daylight spectator stages were conducted near Perth and then the field moved to the competitive stages south of the city.

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Bond, with the dust free run at the front of the field, was setting a scorching pace, and with Fury was making it a two horse race with the rest dropping back or out of contention with a variety of problems. Carr was amongst the first to strike problems when the distributor drive broke but after a 45 minute delay he continue only then to be out with a blown head gasket. He was soon joined by Bignell who hit a roadside obstruction.

At the first break Bond was 18 seconds ahead of Fury, with Dunkerton some seven minutes away in third place, with his Stanza having timing chain adjuster problems, which had been encountered prior to the event. Nicoli was fourth, ahead of Slater and Masling, and filled the top sixth place.

Tony Masling/ Brian Hope took their Datsun Stanza to fourth place

After the break Fury started taking time off Bond on most stages and took the lead, whilst Dunkerton retired with the adjuster problem. Nicoli took over third place but he too shortly was out with clutch failure with his Datsun 1600. As a result Slater moved to third, Masling to fourth and Flood fifth with Johnson sixth.

These positions were maintained until the next break when the organisers found that the tail-enders had yet to finish the first division because the field had become so strung out due to the heavy dust. As a result the organisers decided to end the event with a long transport to the finish.

1 George Fury Monty Suffern Datsun Stanza 271.22 2 Colin Bond John Dawson-Damer Ford Escort RS 1800 275.54 3 Clive Slater Barbara Stubbs Toyota Corolla 292.14 4 Tony Masling Brian Hope Datsun Stanza 307.47 5 Peter Flood ?. Robinson Holden Gemini 311.32 6 Frank Johnson Steve Vanderbyl Mazda RX4 321.55

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ROUND TWO: LUTWYCH SHOPPING VILLAGE RALLY - Queensland

In a stark difference to the very dusty conditions of the first round of the series this second round was run in heavy rain and mud, such that the event too was curtailed.

After a long night battling the rain and mud George Fury/Monty Suffern (Datsun Stanza) scored a narrow win from Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas (Ford Escort RS 1800) – 236:54 to 238:19 - with Ross Dunkerton/Jeff Beaumont (Datsun Stanza) being in third with 239:36.

The rally attracted a strong field. As well as Fury, Carr and Dunkerton, there were Colin Bond/John Dawson-Damer (Ford Escort RS 1800), Wayne Bell/Dave Boddy (Holden Gemini turbo), Barry Ferguson/Steve Owers (Holden Gemini twin cam), Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls (Datsun Stanza), Tony Masling/Brian Hope (Datsun Stanza), Ed Mulligan/Chris Heaney (Ford Escort RS 1800) and Clive Slater/Barbara Stubbs (Toyota Corolla). Locals included Murray Coote/Brian Marsden (Ford Escort RS 2000), Rod Browning/Bruce Fullerton (Holden Gemini) and Ray Vandersee/Ian Young (Datsun 120Y).

The event was run to its usual format over the Saturday afternoon and night, being based at Nambour, north of Brisbane. Overcast skies and drizzling rain greeted competitors as they headed north from the Brisbane start for the opening stages in the pine forests near Beerburrum, Carr took an immediate lead, followed by Fury and Bond, with Dunkerton dropping back as the result of an off-road excursion. A tricky corner onto a bridge caught almost the entire field in some way or other with two cars ending up in the creek bed. On this first division Portman was outed with a blown head gasket and Masling also outed with damaged engine bearings.

At Nambour at the end of the first division Carr had a slim nine second lead over Fury, with Dunkerton, Bond and Bell all within the next two minutes. Then followed Slater, Mulligan, Coote, Vandersee and Ferguson.

Fury then started to take time off Carr, who began to suffer from the first signs of gearbox problems which were to eventually cost him first place. They led to the replacement of a selector mechanism, without loss of time, but shortly after the unit failed again and despite a quick change Carr lost seven minutes on a transport section to drop to fourth place. He then took a string of fastest times to the end of the division to put himself back into leadership contention.

The attrition rate throughout the night was high and only one third of the original 62 starters were left at the end of the event. At the end of the second division the results were Fury, Dunkerton, Carr, Bond, Bell, Mulligan, Slater, Ferguson, Coote and Vandersee.

Heavy rain fell again at the start of the final division and Carr continued his fightback to take second from Dunkerton. Then, after a few stages, the organisers brought the event to an end when the roads became impassable.

Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas in the Ford Escort RS 1800, like all competitors, found the wet conditions

1 George Fury Monty Suffern Datsun Stanza 236.54 2 Greg Carr Fred Gocentas Ford Escort RS 1800 238.19 3 Ross Dunkerton Jeff Beaumont Datsun Stanza 238.36 4 Colin Bond John Dawson-Damer Ford Escort RS 1800 244.22 5 Wayne Bell Dave Boddy Holden Gemini 248.12 6 Ed Mulligan Chris Heaney Ford Escort RS 1800 250.22 106

ROUND THREE: AKADEMOS RALLY - Victoria

The Akademos Rally was one of those events that could have been won by any of several crews and most of the place- getters could consider themselves lucky to have finished where they did at the end of the rally.

Conducted in the mountainous forests of Gippsland the event provided yet another win for Datsun with Ross Dunkerton/Jeff Beaumont (Datsun Stanza) taking off first place, followed by Colin Bond/John Dawson-Damer (Ford Escort RS 1800) and Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas (RS 1800), while Barry Ferguson/Steve Owers provided the Holden Gemini team with its best ever championship result, finishing fourth. Privateers Chris Brown/Paul Patterson took off fifth place in their Datsun 180 SSS and Hugh Bell/Damian O’Reilly brought their Datsun 1600 home sixth.

The Escorts of Carr and Bond struck trouble in the early daylight stages allowing Dunkerton to move to second behind Fury. At the end of the first division Fury held a 14 seconds lead over Carr but being fastest in the stages after the break gave him a substantial lead and it looked for a while that he would make it three events in a row, thus wrapping up the championship. However, a timing chain tensioner let him down and he and Suffern retired.

Carr took the lead but had a puncture and drove on the flat causing some damage to the differential which was checked at the next service. However, Carr eventually limped out of the forest after driving on one wheel for some 60 kilometres and the subsequent change of differential cost him over 40 minutes and while he took fastest times on many following stages the deficit to a higher placing than third was too large to overcome.

Bond too had a major problem, running off the road following Carr’s dust and he had to winch back, costing valuable time. Then Dunkerton ran out of fuel but he and Beaumont were able to push the Stanza over the crest in the road and virtually cruise six kilometres downhill to near the finish where spectators helped to push the car over the last few hundreds of metres to the flying finish line. Such was his lead over the Fords that he won by some 8 minutes.

The Holden Geminis had mixed fortune with Ferguson driving quietly but efficiently while others had problems and he and Owers were rewarded with fourth place. Bell and Boddy on the other hand had a flat tyre and rear brake failure early in the event, while later in the night turbo problems cost them more time. They finish in eighth place.

Wayne Bell/George Shepheard in the Holden Gemini TC

Bob Watson/Phil Rainer had their turbo Peugeot 504 up to fifth place at one stage towards the end of the first division but then retired with alternator problems.

Although Fury/Suffern had seen the 1980 championship title come within their grasp only to disappear again, their retirement helped to keep the championship alive and with two rounds to go it still looked as if the crown could go to any of the four top crews from the Datsun and Ford camps.

1 Ross Dunkerton Jeff Beaumont Datsun Stanza 48.47 2 Colin Bond John Dawson-Damer Ford Escort RS 1800 56.49 3 Greg Carr Fred Gocentas Ford Escort RS 1800 62.43 4 Barry Ferguson Steve Owers Holden Gemini 66.42 5 Chris Brown Paul Patterson Datsun 180 B SSS 67.53 6 Hugh Bell Damian O’Reilly Datsun 1600 71.16

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ROUND FOUR: BEGA VALLEY RALLY – New South Wales

Only two minutes and a few seconds separated the top three crews at the end of the Bega Valley Rally. George Fury/Monty Suffern (Datsun Stanza) pipped Colin Bond/John Dawson-Damer (Ford Escort RS 1800) by 37 seconds, with another 36 seconds to third placed Ross Dunkerton/Jeff Beaumont (Datsun Stanza). An 11 minute gap was then to Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls (Datsun Stanza), then almost more than half an hour to Barry Ferguson/Steve Owers (twin cam Holden Gemini) in fifth place, and another eight minutes to sixth placed Peter Nelson/Graham Moule (Datsun 1600).

The three daylight stages on shire roads close to Bega opened proceedings on the first day, followed by a run to the Victorian border and to Bombala before returning to Bega early Sunday morning. After the daylight stages Fury had a slender lead from Bond and Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas (Ford Escort RS 1800), who were locked together, and Dunkerton and then a few seconds to Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls (having his first run in a works Stanza).

Into the early night stages Carr took the lead and, as in 1979, he dropped out, this time with alternator trouble and he dropped some 15 minutes to the other leaders, putting Fury back in front well ahead of Bond, then Dunkerton, Wayne Bell/Dave Boddy (turbo Holden Gemini) and Portman. But by the division break at Bombala Dunkerton took the lead, 10 seconds ahead of Fury, with Bond well back in third, ahead of Bell and Portman. Missing were Carr (fan belt jumped out and pulled the timing belt with it), and Clive Slater/Barbara Stubbs (Toyota Corolla) with a blown clutch.

The final stages of the night saw Fury take time off Dunkerton to regain the lead but other leading positions remained unchanged at the end of division.

The second night (Sunday) included daylight stages north of Bega as the field headed to Narooma. Bond was trying very hard and he took a minute off Fury and more off Dunkerton. These stages saw the demise of Ed Mulligan/Chris Heaney (Ford Escort RS 1800) with a leaking water pump housing, and Tony Masling/Brian Hope (Datsun Stanza) when the car broke an axle.

Ed Mulligan/Chris Heaney

At the mealbreak at Narooma Bond had slipped into second place 19 seconds ahead of Dunkerton, who had run into rear brake problems. Bell didn’t make the break, stuck in a creek crossing with an engine that wouldn’t restart. Numerous incidents saw the top ten change which allowed Ferguson and Nelson to move up into the leading group.

On the run back to Bega Bond tried hard but Fury had too big a lead to overcome unless something went wrong. 37 seconds separated them at the end.

With one round to go in the series, Fury/Suffern led the championship with 27 points to Bond and Dawson-Damer on 21.

1 George Fury Monty Suffern Datsun Stanza 6:19:43 2 Colin Bond John Dawson-Damer Ford Escort RS 1800 6:20:20 3 Ross Dunkerton Jeff Beaumont Datsun Stanza 6:20:56 4 Geoff Portman Ross Runnalls Datsun Stanza 6:31:25 5 Barry Ferguson Steve Owers Holden Gemini 7:08:52 6 Peter Nelson Graham Moule Datsun 1600 7:16:47

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ROUND FIVE: DONLEE RALLY – South Australia

With the withdrawal of the Endrust Rally from the championship, the South Australian contribution to the series was the Donlee Rally, based at Broken Hill. As a result of Bond’s fighting second place at the Bega Valley Rally both the Ford and Datsun teams were obliged to make a full scale effort for the event. Datsun’s task was to finally wrap up the series by having Fury finish no worse than third. Ford’s task was to win with Bond and hope that Fury finished well down the field, or preferably not at all!!

40 entries were received. Datsun again provided a Stanza for Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls and Ford provided some encouragement for Ian Hill and his newly acquired Ford Escort RS 2000, navigated by Anne Heaney. The Ford camp was joined by /Jeff Small and his RS 2000

The event was conducted in two long divisions, each starting and finishing in Broken Hill. Tactics for the rally soon became obvious, with Fury, who would normally be debating the lead, going very steadily and was consistently fifth fastest on the stages. Carr, Bond, Dunkerton and Portman were vying furiously for the top placings. Bond had to win and the two Datsun drivers were obviously under order to make sure he didn’t.

At the first break, Carr led by just 14 seconds from Portman with Bond third, four seconds to the good of Dunkerton. Clive Slater/Barbara Stubbs (Toyota Corolla) came next then Hill. The service crews were working frantically to overcome some of the damage caused by the very rough stages. Carr had bent steering arms replaced.

The nature of the event changed dramatically on the following stages. Both Carr and Dunkerton retired, the former with gearbox failure and the latter with damaged cam timing gear. Slater’s gearbox packed it in and Hill missed a route check. The results of all this was that Portman was in the lead with Fury third and looking good for the series title. Under the circumstances Bond had little choice but to keep plugging away in the hope that Fury might strike some problem. Fury did. He damaged both sides of the rear of the Stanza against trees, bending an axle and housing in the process. At the next service break the service team replaced the entire rear end in under 13 minutes to have him safely on his way.

George Fury/Monty Suffern

By the end of the first division Portman had built up a buffer of seven minutes over Bond with Fury a further two minutes down. Some of the retirements had let in the lower graded drivers with Barry Burns/David Mile (Datsun 1600) moving into fourth, Brenton Udy/Mike Ball (Renault R12) into fifth and Atkinson to sixth.

The second division seemed to be unnecessary with the top placings sorted out! Portman, with a dust free run at the front of the field, continued to take fastest times and pulled steadily away from Bond, while the ever cautious Fury remained doggedly in third place. The rally was now a procession with Portman going slower and slower to make sure of his win, his second in a championship event, which he did with 5:53:47, almost seven minutes ahead of Bond on 6:01:07, a little more than four minutes ahead of third placed Fury. There was a gap of more than 30 minutes to the fourth place.

Datsun had won every event in the series although this was not the first time this had been done by a manufacturer, with the Holden Torana XU1 winning all rounds in 1973. Bond finished the year with four consecutive second placings and was second in the series, seemingly joining Frank Kilfoyle and Barry Ferguson in a select group of leading drivers famous always as being the runner up – although Bond won the championship in 1971, 1972 and 1974!

It was the second championship for Fury and Suffern, having tied with Dunkerton/Beaumont in 1977.

1 Geoff Portman Ross Runnalls Datsun Stanza 5:53:47 2 Colin Bond John Dawson-Damer Ford Escort RS 1800 6:01:07 3 George Fury Monty Suffern Datsun Stanza 6:05:29 4 Barry Burns David Milne Datsun 1600 6:36:45 5 Brenton Udy Mike Ball Renault R12 6:42:29 6 John Atkinson Jeff Small Ford Escort RS 2000 6:44:16

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