Australian Rally Championship 1968 to 1988
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A History of Each Event in The Australian Rally Championship 1968 to 1988 Compiled by: Tom Snooks Completed April 2019 Compiled from: Australian Motor Racing Year Books Racing Car News 1 FOREWORD BY BOB WATSON Hailing from West Australia, Tom Snooks is Australia’s most senior rally administrator, both in terms of the status of the events he has organised and the number of them. After many years of organising the Wynns Safari off road rally, Tom switched to work with Allan Lawson to introduce the Dulux Rally In 1972, a totally new event concept that combined track racing, hill climbs and rally sections in one event. He then moved on to become the manager of the International Southern Cross Rally, bringing Total Oil sponsorship to the prestigious event. He transferred his organising skills to a troubled Targa Tasmania, refining the scoring system and helping to make Targa one of the world’s most popular and best organised tarmac rallies. He was chief administrator for the 1979 Repco Round Australia Trial, the 1995 Mobil 1 Round Australia Trial, the Playstation Round Australia event in 1998, the Red Centre to Gold Coast Trial in 2008 and the Classic Outback Trial since 2009. In short, Tom Snooks knows rallying very well. This book is a faithful and well-informed history of the Australian Rally Championship from its inception in 1968 up until the introduction of the highly technical turbocharged four-wheel drive rally cars that changed the face of rallying in the late 1980s. It is a span of 20 years which Snooks describes as the “Golden Age of Australian rallying”. Through individual descriptions of every event in that period, the reader can follow the development of normally aspirated two-wheel drive rally cars through from an unsophisticated beginning in the late 1960s to the thrilling battles waged by the factory backed highly developed Ford Escorts and Nissans that represented the pinnacle of that type of rally car. As a competitor in Tom’s Golden Era, I found the book a fascinating read and a must-have reference tool. Results, highlights, everything is there, nothing is missing. Well organised, Mr Snooks! Bob Watson Australian Rally Champion 1970 Author, Motor Sport Consultant 2 INTRODUCTION BY TOM SNOOKS Nothing recently has given me so much pleasure as putting together the history of the Australian Rally Championship 1968 to 1988, as well as the history of the Southern Cross International Rally 1966 to 1980 (yet to be published). I was present at most of the events conducted during these years. In researching and writing these two major episodes of Australian Motor Sport so many memories flooded my mind and, at times, I could clearly picture the action that I saw in those days and the faces of people involved. It was a highly enjoyable task. I must, at the outset, offer some acknowledgments of the major references I used to research the information and I concede that I have taken quite a few direct quotes, and photographs, from these sources: 1. Australian Motor Racing Yearbooks, published by Berghouse Publishing Group Pty Ltd (Sydney). I own the books covering this period. 2. Racing Car News, published monthly over many years by Max Stahl which contained so many reports on all disciplines of the sport. I am indebted to Glen McAliece (Melbourne) for the loan over an extended period of time of his collection of ‘RCNs’. 3. Some information was gathered from various websites using Google. 4. Memorabilia (press clippings, miscellaneous magazines) from the period which I have in my possession. The reason for the 21 year period 1968 to 1988 is that this was what I call ‘my era’ in which I was fortunate enough to have a close involvement with the Championship. Upon arrival in Sydney from Perth in 1970 I became involved as a competitor (navigator) from 1971 to 1977, and in those years mixed socially in Sydney with numerous other competitors. I became associated with Total Oil Australia, through the Company’s Public Relations Officer (Val McKenzie), when the company sponsored the Total Oil Southern Cross International Rally (1973 to 1978) and I was appointed as General Manager of the event by the Australian Sporting Car Club (ASCC) headed by John Keran as the Chair, and further when the company conducted the Total Oil Economy Run (1976 to 1980), of which I was the Event Coordinator. Due to the Datsun (Nissan) involvement with the Economy Run a commercial association developed between Datsun and Total Oil, and this included Total Oil sponsoring the Datsun Rally Team (1977 to 1980). I was appointed to look after the Total Oil interests in the Team and this permitted me to attend almost every ARC round in those sponsorship years. Further, I became Secretary of the CAMS National Rally Committee in 1982 and then the Chair for 1985 to 1988 – during the ‘Group G Saga’ of that period. These positions saw me attending many ARC events – at my own cost! My interest in the ARC was intense and like many people who were involved in those days can never forget the wonderful Datsun v Ford battles (Fury/Dunkerton v Carr/Bond) of the period of the Total Oil sponsorship – to me those were the ‘Golden Years’ of rallying in Australia. In writing I have produced a Summary of the year, then a report of each event – over the 21 years there were 117 events conducted. I take full responsibility for what is presented in this History of the ARC 1968 to 1988, and this responsibility includes any errors and omissions. I would be pleased to receive any constructive comment on the accuracy of the data. To those who do not get a mention they feel they should have, I apologise. I have tried to be as broad as possible in the reporting but, as always, there is limited editorial space. Tom Snooks | Melbourne | February 2019 [email protected] 3 THANK YOU! Much of the text, results and photographs contained in this History were taken from Chevron Publishing Group’s “Motor Racing” Yearbooks and Racing Car News magazines. Many of the rallying photographs in the Yearbooks during the period of this History were taken by Bill Forsyth. Tom Floyd and Ray Berghouse were the main instigators of the Yearbooks, which grew out of “Australian Motoring News”, Australia’s first successful motoring newspaper which started in 1969 (Auto Action was introduced in 1971) and was originated by Tom and the doyen of motoring journalists, Bill Tuckey. By the end of the seventies the early editions of the Yearbooks (which were produced annually) were so scarce that Tom and Ray, thankfully, took the risk of producing a two-volume Limited Edition of the 1971 to 1979 publications and the 500 print run very quickly sold. Max Stahl was the mainstay behind Racing Car News from the 1960’s to the 1980’s. ‘’RCN’’, a motorsport ‘’bible’’, covered events at international, national, state and club level – it’s publication each month was eagerly awaited by enthusiasts. These publications gave a most comprehensive coverage of all disciplines of Australian motor sport and the sport owes much to these journals and their publishers for the gratifying record that they provide us today with the history of the sport in what is now ‘’all those years ago’’. Tom Snooks April 2019 4 THE AUSTRALIAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP Australians became aware of the excitement of rallying, or trialing, with the running of the Redex Trials in 1953, 1954 and 1955. These events sparked intense interest from the media and the public, as well as from competitors (and indeed organisers). The magnetism of adventure: Crowds at the finish of the 1958 Mobilgas Round Australia Trial - from Bob Watson’s ‘In Control’ They were followed by two major Australia Trials each year in 1956, 1957 and 1958 – the Ampol Trials and the Mobilgas Trials, and then the Ampol Trial in 1964. Most of these events did not pass through West Australia. Such was the interest in the sport following these events the CAMS State Rally Championships commenced as follows: NSW 1960 Vic 1961 Qld 1963 SA 1961 WA 1959 Tas 1964 The States produced some outstanding crews and they competed against each other in such events as the BP Rally of South East Australia (started by the Melbourne-based Light Car Club of Australia in 1958 and it was a hallmark of the Australian Rally calendar until it was last run in 1973), and the Southern Cross International Rally (started by the Sydney-based Australian Sporting Car Club in 1966 and ended in 1980). Another significant event which attracted interstate crews was the Alpine Rally, Australia's oldest and longest running motorsport event having first run in 1921. It was started as a long-distance event to test the endurance of cars and over the years the event transformed into a navigational trial and then in the sixties to a full-on special stage event that saw its inclusion into the new Australian Rally Championship. 5 In the early sixties the CAMS National Rally Committee was formed and this group produced the first National Rally Code, effective as from 1 January 1967. The Australian Rally Championship was then introduced in 1968 and for a number of years was confined to New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, with the two larger states in some years each conducting two events. West Australia was added to the Championship in 1974, and Tasmania followed in 1985, thus making it a truly national championship. In the period covered by this History of the Australian Rally Championship 117 events were conducted, with 29 different winners.