1979 CAMS AUSTRALIAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP THE EVENTS The 1979 CAMS Australian Rally Championship: 1 Akademos Rally Victoria Melbourne University Car Club Fury/Suffern 2 Rally of the West West Australia West Australia Car Club Carr/Gocentas 3 Lutwyche Shopping Village Rally Queensland Brisbane Sporting Car Club Dunkerton/Beaumont 4 Bega Valley Rally New South Wales Australian Sporting Car Club Bond/Dawson-Damer 5 Endrust Forest Rally South Australia Walkerville All Car Club Portman/Runnalls FINAL POINTS 1 Ross Dunkerton WA 27 1 Jeff Beaumont Tas 27 =2 Greg Carr ACT 23 =2 Fred Gocentas ACT 23 =2 Colin Bond NSW 23 =2 John Dawson-Damer NSW 23 =4 Geoff Portman Vic 15 =4 Ross Runnalls Vic 15 =4 George Fury Vic 15 =4 Monty Suffern Vic 15 6 Dean Rainsford SA 5 6 Jerry Browne SA 5 =7 Clive Slater WA 4 =7 Graeme Pigram ACT 3 =7 Peter Gaudron ACT 3 =7 Steve Owers NSW 3 =9 Mike Batten NSW 3 =9 Yvette Polonyi Vic 2 =9 Paul Nudd NSW 2 =9 Barbara Nudd NSW 2 Manufacturers Award Not awarded due to vehicle eligibility allowing extensive modification (ie: Group G). 1979 Australian Rally Champions - Ross Dunkerton / Jeff Beaumont - Datsun Stanza This was Dunkerton’s fourth championship – 1975, 1976, 1977 (equal) 96 SUMMARY In the eleven years of the Australian Rally Championship no series had approached the 1978 season for competition and drama. Never before had four drivers commenced the final round with a chance of taking off the championship, and never before had the final result been determined by a tiebreaker. Ultimately the glory went to Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas in a Ford Escort narrowly keeping Ross Dunkerton in his Datsun Stanza from taking his fourth Australian rally title. At the beginning of the 1979 series it seemed unlikely that the drama of 1978 could be repeated. But with each passing round it became clear that 1979 was to be a virtual repeat of the year before. Once again, going into the final event the same four crews – Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas, Colin Bond/John Dawson-Damer, George Fury/Monty Suffern and Ross Dunkerton/Jeff Beaumont – stood to win the title. But this time the finale played to a different tune. Dunkerton/Beaumont, although only third in the final round, won the title – Dunkerton’s fourth (and thus beating Colin Bond’s run of three championships) and Beaumont’s third (thus equaling George Shepheard’s record). Bond was as good as ever but had to settle for second in the series, sharing this position with Carr. Fury was equal fourth with Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls, although had they not run off the road when leading in the Lutwyche Shopping Village Rally they might well have been very strong contenders for the title. Both Datsun and Ford announced at the start of the year they would each be entering two cars in the series (Stanzas and Escort RS 1800s). General Motors campaigned a Holden Gemini for Wayne Bell/George Shepheard, but after a DNF in the first round gave the game away to concentrate on the Repco Reliability Trial coming up in August of that year. Numerous leading privateers in increasingly sophisticated machinery said they would also be chasing title points. The only serious competition to the two works team was Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls, campaigning a big engine Datsun 1600, reportedly with substantial unofficial support from the factory team. The pair performed brilliantly through the year and notched up a win and a second place to finish equal fourth. Dean Rainsford/Jerry Browne ran in a new Ford Escort RS 1800 in all but the first round, but minor problems and time taken to adjust to the new car limited them to a handful of points and they finished sixth. They were followed by Clive Slater, who had a variety of navigators, in his Toyota Corolla from three contested rounds. Ed Mulligan/Chris Heaney also contested three rounds, the last two in a new Ford Escort RS 1800 but gremlins stopped them from earning championship points. The five rounds in the championship series were again shared amongst the mainland states and each were a great success. The tough series and the equally tough competition, the five rounds won by five different crews, allowed Ross Dunkerton to finally cast aside those who had said his previous titles had not truly made him the Australian Rally Champion. ROUND ONE: AKADEMOS RALLY - Victoria The 800 kilometre Akademos Rally started and finished in Sale, with a major break at Bruthen, in central Gippsland and was run through the mountains and valleys of East Gippsland. It presented a major challenge to the many top crews. Blinding rain early in the event turned the mountainous tracks into skating rinks and a pea-soup fog lay like a blanket over the ranges. Five daylight stages over 75 kilometres opened the event and by the first service top runners Bob Watson (turbo Peugeot 504) was out with fuel problems and Geoff Portman/Ross Runnalls (Datsun 1600/710 – with a 200B engine) also out with clutch failure. Greg Carr/Fred Gocentas (Ford Escort RS 1800) and Ross Dunkerton/Jeff Beaumont (Datsun Stanza) were quickest on these stages with 5 points, followed by George Fury/Monty Suffern (Stanza) on 6 and Colin Bond/John Dawson-Damer (Escort RS 1800) 7, The real competition began on the second division loop from Bruthen, while the rain continued to tumble down. This division contained a 102 kilometre stage, over which Fury was quickest, losing 8 points to Dunkerton and Carr 9. Garry Harrowfield/Noel Richards (Datsun 1600) lost 23 minutes after driving some 8 kilometres with a flat front tyre. At division’s end Fury/Suffern led on 20, then it was Carr/Dawson-Damer with 22, same as Dunkerton/Beaumont, and Bond/Dawson-Damer fourth with 29. The final division, which began with the rally evenly poised between Ford and Nissan, was over two stages, of 132 and 35 kilometres, and saw Ford’s challenge collapse. Carr had gear selection troubles, losing first gear for the long stage, and dropping 29 minutes to Fury’s 22 and arriving at the end without a reverse gear. Bond’s Escort had a brake hose come adrift and he drove the long stage without any brakes to drop 46. The fog was so thick for 70 kilometres the cars were down to near walking pace at times. The Akademos marked a great start to the 1978 series for Nissan with Fury and Dunkerton taking the first two places. Ford had to be satisfied with Carr’s third and a fifth for Bond. Mike Batten/Steve Owers (the reigning New South Wales Rally Champions) fitted in fourth between Carr and Bond, and Chris Brown/Bernie Laterink took their Datsun 1600 into sixth place. 97 George Fury/Monty Suffern start the 1979 Rally Year with a win in the Akademos Rally 1 George Fury Monty Suffern Datsun Stanza 48 pts 2 Ross Dunkerton Jeff Beaumont Datsun Stanza 52 3 Greg Carr Fred Gocentas Ford Escort RS 1800 66 4 Mike Batten Steve Owen Datsun 1600 84 5 Colin Bond John Dawson-Damer Ford Escort RS 1800 87 6 Chris Power Fred Laterink Datsun 1600 99 7 Ray Vandersee Wayne Gregson Datsun 120Y 105 8 Frank Neale Phil Dodd Mitsubishi Lancer 107 9 Chris Brown Simon Brown Datsun 180 B SSS 108 10 Garry Harrowfield Noel Richards Datsun 1600 109 ROUND TWO: RALLY OF THE WEST – Western Australia Run over the Easter period the Rally of the West started in Perth on the Friday afternoon and finished back there on Sunday afternoon. Conditions for the event ranged from blinding dust on Friday to torrential rain and consequent mud over the next two days. Publicity daylight stages were held close to Perth and then the event moved towards the overnight stop at Manjimup. The first decisive incident happened not on a stage but at a service point where Fury’s Stanza was found to have no oil pressure and despite frantic attention from the Nissan team’s mechanics it could not be fixed and the car was withdrawn from the event. At the end of the first night Carr led on 8 points from Dunkerton on 9 and Bond 10. Local crews held the remaining places in the top ten, three of them equal on 15. Dean Rainsford/Jerry Brown were having difficulty getting to grips with the new Ford Escort RS 1800 and were well down in the top placings. Saturday’s second division started with three daylight stages for spectators, with Carr being the quickest on two of them and equal fastest on the third with Bond. Longest stage of the event was over 130 kilometres. Carr arrived at the finish five minutes quicker than the time set by the organisers. Bond dropped 4, Clive Slater/Yvette Polonyi (Toyota Corolla) 7 and Rainsford 9. Dunkerton had a total brake loss with 100 kilometres to go and dropped 22. Clive Slater/Yvette Polonyi took the well-travelled Toyota Corolla to fifth place 98 Carr had a 10 minute lead over Bond but the rain was coming down heavily. Two stages later Carr went off the road and after 13 minutes of frantic winching got going again, but ended up 3 minutes behind Bond. Carr drove like a man possessed to peg back Bond, which he successfully did to win by the narrowest of margins – one point. After two rounds Ford and Nissan each had a win and a second and the driver’s championship pointscore had Carr on 13, Dunkerton on 10, Fury and Bond 9; the navigators championship was Gocentas 13, Beaumont 10, Suffern and Dawson-Damer 9.