Huon Rally

The 4th round of the Tasmanian Rally series took place in the Huon Forests, approxiametly 70 km south of Hobart. This was the venue for the last few ARC rounds to be held in Tasmania so in modern terms at least, it is Tasmania's spiritual home for gravel rallying. The Shiftlock crew was to be represented again by myself and Tim in the Charade, Nick and Helen, who was returning after her Hellyer absence, and Anthony was navigating for Liam Coyle who was driving the WRX previously owned by David Waldon, who we have heard about before. Service would be ably provided by Shaun and Cam again.

The Shiftlock clan had differing opinions on the best way to handle travel arrangements. The rest of the crew decided to get up early and head down the morning of the rally. Not being a complete mental I decided to head down the night before and stay at the Kermandie Hotel which was situated a 2 minute drive from the start line. This was where the adventure started for me, Kermandie Hotel draws an interesting clientele on a friday evening so I guess I looked very much like an outsider when I entered given the looks I was receiving. On collecting my room keyI was warned that karaoke goes quite late and advised breakfast would be served from 7. Perfect. The room was quite decent for the price (read: cheap!) but my dream of a peaceful nights sleep soon evaporated as my "lullaby" of increasingly inebriated young women warbled their way through the latest hits on the karaoke machine. Maybe driving down in the morning wasn't as silly as it seemed! After dropping the car off at the start line the dramas continued as I found that all the hotel staff had decided to have a lie in, leaving me to fix my own breakfast in the hotel kitchen. However you don't read this to hear about my travel adventures, you want to hear about rallying!

Following Hellyer's example we were again presented with a waterfront start, although the heavy fog, limiting visibility to about 100 metres, meant the spectacle wasn't quite as impressive. The Charade had developed a misfire when cold and given temperature was barely above freezing when we coughed away from the start line I was a little apprehensive. Thankfully once up to temperature the car didn't miss a beat. The Charade used to spend most of its life in Dover therefore basically drove itself to the first stage, Daniel Willson (former owner) joked it could probably do the entire rally without any driver assistance! Throughout the first stage the car felt very "oversteery" (won't find THAT one in the Oxford dictionary) probably due to the fact we had worn tyres on the rear and near new ones on the front. The stage was quite rough with some wince inducing hits and I felt like we were going at a snails pace. I wasn't happy with our progress however as we pulled up to the finish of Stage one we were followed by plumes of smoke from the wheels so I must have been pushing harder than I thought. Timmy at least seemed fairly pleased despite the lack of balance in the car.

Onwards to stage 2 we were warned of snow and ice which was quite exciting. We expected to see some white stuff heaped at the side of the road, it was a shock to come over a crest to be confronted with.....

This section was just hilarious fun, the Charade felt like it had a box full of neutrals, each gearchange was accompanied by more wheelspin, only 4th and 5th offered any meaningful forward progress. I just tried to keep reasonable momentum without doing anything silly as didn't want to hit a patch of ice and end the rally early. Thankfully we had wheel tracks from the leading cars to follow, it wouldn't have been pleasant having to find your own line. The following in-car video from Shane Russell shows just how fast it can all go wrong, he was able to continue until gearbox failure ended his day.


This video shows the majority of the stage from Mark Kyle's Datsun 1600. You can tell from navigator Glenn's reaction that none of were quite expecting conditions that extreme.


Tim and I made it through unscathed and as it turns out equal 3rd outright fastest, beaten by Craig Brooks and Shane Russell and dead heating with Aaron Reader. This result is probably the one I am proudest of all year and we headed to the first service point buzzing from the excitement of snow rallying.

SS3 was very rough at the start and a cautious approach lost us some time but only a few seconds and we started SS4 full of confidence. Unfortunately the old saying "pride coming before a fall" was about to bite hard. We were on a very fast section of road that curved right through a logging section before the next call which was a left hander. We were well into 4th gear but the surface was reasonably dry so I felt confident that I could brake fairly late for the left. While the main line was dry the road edges were still wet and I had drifted too far left so when I hit the brakes the rear of the car snapped sideways. Even at this point all is well, there is usually a few times per rally that the car is very out of shape and so far the car, possibly by good luck more than good management, had always ended up back in a straight line and off we go at full speed. This time the slide continued and we nosed into the bank, it was a soft hit but nudged the car up onto two wheels, I tried to turn the steering wheel so the wheels natural rotation would put us back on all four but wasn't fast enough and we rolled onto the roof. It was a fairly slow roll, but still a bit of an impact that cracked the windscreen. Timmy was already trying to get out while I was trying to figure out where it all went so wrong. In his rush he seemed to forget the world was inverted so collapsed in a heap on the roof, taking the navigation equipment with him. They say a picture tells a thousand words so here is the aftermath.


The recovery crew was made up of rally drivers who had "been there done that" so to speak, having sympathetic and understanding people around you is a massive help in such a situation and they soon had the charade righted and fired up again. After an all clear from scrutineer Andrew Lamont we strapped back in and made our way to service. The car drove fine as despite going upside down hadn't really sustained any major knocks, once back at service we were checked over by the medics. To be honest I was a bit shaken and wasn't feeling very well, I couldn't remember my name for a moment to write it on the medical form, but we got the all clear and set about making the car driveable for the afternoon stages. The main worry was the cracked windscreen which was taped up which restricted my vision but wasn't a major issue.

Driving to SS5 the last place I really wanted to be was behind the wheel but I knew it was very important for me to get back on the horse. The good thing about driving is you only have to go as fast as you want to, I have to say the first few slides weren't very enjoyable though. About halfway through SS6 the rhythm started to come back and I started to have some fun again. The last service brought the bad news that Liam had retired with a broken gearbox, as had Shane Russell. This added to the mechanical dramas of Sam Kirkland in his Mazda and Brad Gunn who only managed a couple of hundred metres before his Charade's insatiable appetite for driveshafts struck again. Wanting to get to the finish a cautious run through the rough SS7 (a repeat of SS3) brought us to the start line of SS8 which was a second run through the snow. Standing by the car I was suddenly struck by an enormous sense of deja vu that I couldn't place. I realised that I was standing in almost the exact same spot that I had officiated at the Subaru Safari ARC round back in 2005. Back then watching Australia's best I never would have dreamed that I would be driving the same road 3 years later. I had got a bit of confidence back so decided to have a bit of a push, especially since we had had such a good run on this stage first time around. This confidence lasted until the first patch of ice that we hit too fast and had another very large moment, my first thought was "oh shit not again" but we came out ok of this one and drove with a bit more reserve for the rest of the stage. Despite another couple of big hits through the suspension the performed superbly and then it was sideways through the last corner and across the finish line with the brakes smoking again. After such an eventful day the rally just seemed to fly by with hardly time to draw breath.

With so much happening I didn't get a chance to talk to Nick much throughout the day to keep track of his progress. He and I were extremely close in the morning with him pipping me by a few seconds on all but SS2. Unfortunately his great run ended with a puncture in the afternoon meaning he dropped a lot of time. It was still a great result for both of us to finish though with he and Helen 5th outright and Tim and I 6th. Despite getting to the finish I didn't find it the most enjoyable rally, even discounting the crash. The stages were very challenging and obviously provided a highlight with the snow but the roughness in places I really didn't enjoy as I don't like the feeling that the car is being damaged, even though they are built to take it. The Huon Rally was very memorable for one competitor though, as Craig Brooks wrapped up his first Tasmanian Rally Series title with one round to spare which is a fantastic effort after many years of being very close. Of course many many thanks must go to the organisers of the rally, all the officials and support crew and our awesome service crew that don't miss a beat.

The next round to be held was the Auspine Rally in North Eastern Tasmania and from all reports it would be the most challenging of the lot. Full report will hopefully be along soon (along with some great video footage!)
Bye for now
Scotty on behalf of the Shiftlock Crew.