The highly rated Dunlop Otago Classic Rally has again attracted a sizable number of entries from Australia, with 12 Aussies included in the 50 car field.
The event combines a round of the New Zealand Rally Championship, the Classic Rally and a third category for ‘extreme cars. In all the event will start 100 crews.
Based at Dunedin, on the Southern Island of New Zealand, the rally offers superb driving conditions over a distance of 640 kilometres, of which 260 (40%) will be competitive, including one gem , the ‘Big Berwick’ of 51 kilometres. Four other stages are each around 30 kilometres long so the classic cars will get a good workout.
Heading the Aussies is Snooks Motorsport Team driver Darryn Snooks, in the Datsun Stanza, which he drove to 8th place in the same event in 2007, two places behind Geoff Portman in the second of the team’s Stanzas. Snooks, won the legendary Australian Alpine Rally, conducted over a similar distance as the Otago Classic, in southern Victoria, last November.
He has a new navigator for this event, Daniel Willson, of Tasmania. Daniel, aged 24, has contested some 50 events ranging from club to state to national to international in his relatively short career which started in 2002 and has featured well in events conducted in Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
Placed 10th in last year’s Otago event was Michael Boaden and Helen Cheers and they have returned in their Ford Escort for another crack at the event. Hailing from Taree in New South Wales they are a formidable team, and are multiple New South Wales State Rally Champions.
Also making a return is Richard Opie, from Tamworth in New South Wales, driving a Datsun Stanza, which he drove to 20th outright in last year’s event.
A list of the Australians tackling the event is:
CAR NO
| | | |
| | SNOOKS
| Darryn
| WILLSON
| Daniel
| Datsun Stanza
|
| | BOADEN
| Michael
| CHEERS
| Helen
| Ford Escort
|
| | KEACH
| Jason
| McMILLAN
| Peter
| Ford Escort Mk 1
|
| | CALLINAN
| Keith
| CALLINAN
| Mary-Anne
| Ford Escort
|
| | WHITTENBURY
| Neville
| RUDHAM
| David
| Datsun 180B
|
| | VAN DINTER
| Greg
| LONG
| Greg
| Nissan Bluebird Turbo
|
| | POOLE
| Greg
| MARTIN
| Warick
| Ford Escort
|
| | KAYESS
| David
| KAYESS
| Peter
| Datsun 1600
|
| | LIDDLE
| Fats
| LIVINGSTON
| Robin
| Datsun Sunny
|
| | OPIE
| Richard
| BAKER
| Kam
| Datsun Stanza
|
| | KELLY
| Al
| KELLY
| Erin
| Ford Escort
|
| | MASON
| Philip
| FITZGERALD
| Greg
| Toyota Starlet
|
Of interest to followers of the World Rally Championship in the 80s will be that Michele Mouton, of France, undoubtedly the rally world’s greatest women driver who finished second in the 1982 World Rally Championship is competing in the Classic category.
She will be driving a Ford Escort RS1800 in the rally, with navigator Fabrizia Pons, and she has allocated the number one starting position. Not one of the male drivers have dared to question this allocation!!
