On the afternoon of the 18^th February Andrew Gordon and I embarked on the Spirit of Tasmania for our third attempt at Rally Tasmania. This is a three day tarmac rally based in Burnie and covers many of the great roads around the northwest of Tasmania. Some of the roads used are the same as those in the ultimate tarmac rally- Targa Tasmania, and because of this many of the cars entered including us use this rally as a shakedown for the big race (held in late April this year).

We arrived on Thursday morning in our shiny Avus Blue BMW E30 325i raring to go.  After spending all of Thursday and most of Friday checking in, doing all the paper work, scrutineering, calibrating rally computers, and some last minute reconnaissance, Rally Tas was underway on Friday afternoon… but not for long.

We had left Burnie and followed other competitors in convoy to the start of the first stage when tragedy struck. A Holden XU1 driven by John Beasley and navigated by Henry Lawson had come off the road in a big way colliding with a tree a little over 1km into the stage. The crash killed Henry the Navigator and injured John. As a result the rest of the day was cancelled and we were all sent home to appreciate the finer things in life…such as life.  The next day the rally continued although very somber. As a mark of respect to Henry, entrants placed a black cross over their left head light.

Saturday included the infamous stages Hellyer Gorge and Savage River in the mornings and their reverses in the afternoon. Our only rivals in J1 class (Early Modern, 2WD, naturally aspirated, 2500cc or under) were Phil Showers and his navigator Aneeta Abzatz in his almost identical 325i as ours. These two cars were incredibly close competition with each other with only 1 second difference on three stages on Saturday. By the end of Saturday we were leading Phil & Aneeta by 22 seconds.

Sunday was another action packed day including a hill climb as well as Hellyer Gorge and it’s reverse again because….its such a good road! Getting another go at this great road was really good for competitors such as ourselves who left a little in reserve over some of the blind corners on crests the day before. This time we hit them flat out!

Michael Stillwell and his navigator Malcolm Cuthbert came unstuck on a tricky left  hander on ‘Highclere Reverse’ after  a crest doing some damage to their BMW 3.0 CSL retiring them from the race. Thankfully in this ‘off’ only light panel and ego damage was sustained.

The highlight of the Rally though was a BMW M3R driven by two locals Kent Watts and Brendan Spurr winning the competition outright by a massive 33 seconds over nearest rivals Tony Quinn (Porsche 911 4WD Turbo) and 37 seconds in front of the supposedly unbeatable Jim Richards (Porsche 911 GT2). Unfortunately they are ineligible for Targa due to the amount of modifications done to the car but they said they would be back for Rally Tas next year. Well Done.

Our car ran faultlessly and apart from a small 50 second penalty caused by not leaving a time control properly on Saturday (Phil and Aneeta received a 1m05sec penalty for the same reason) I don’t think we could have done it much faster. I have to say Andrew drove brilliantly all weekend without putting a wheel out of place. This is very good for peace of mind after seeing a fellow navigator get killed. It was a good wake up for us as well as the rest of the competitors just how dangerous this rally business really is. For anyone thinking of navigating out there- make sure you know who you are strapped in beside. Statistically, most impacts happen on the navigator’s side of the car because drivers are more comfortable going around right hand corners (in right hand drive vehicles) therefore they go faster.

Other interesting information taken from the results page is car #53 driven by Kevin O’Daly. This is their supposed ‘new’ Targa Tas vehicle, (a 3 litre Porsche 944 S2). Last year they entered a 944 turbo. They beat us by 2 minutes in Targa last year to take out the Early Modern standard category. If these rally results are anything to go by, Targa Tas 2004 should be very interesting.…