The Alpine Rally was held on 28 November.
ARC Round 5 – 1969 LCCA Alpine Rally
Jeff Beaumont tells the story…
The final round of this year’s five heat Australian Championship would decide the 1969 Australian Rally Champion. It proved long, hard and a typical Alpine Rally for the 52 entrants.
The Alpine ended up being a most successful event for the Ford marque, with three of the top four placings.
The 1,100 km Rally started at Saturday lunchtime from the Light Car Club on Queens Road and headed off through the mountains east of Melbourne, with ten competitives from Mansfield then on towards the first break at Tallangatta.
Two Renaults were in trouble early on, with Bruce Collier’s suspension failure, followed by Peter Janson / Jeff Beaumont suffering very noisy engine bearings, resulting in the retirement for both cars.
Frank Kilfoyle was charging hard out in front in his reliable Lotus Cortina, with his first Australian Title in sight.
Tony Roberts had been recruited into the Holden Dealer Team and was doing a great job in his first run in the big V8 Monaro. However, he was unable to match the pace of the factory Lotus Cortina on the twisty roads around Omeo and Hotham Heights.
Bob Watson and Jim McAuliffe suffered gearbox issues which sidelined the third Renault ( 16TS ), allowing the other two Cortinas into the top placings, followed by the three impressive little 1500 Colts.
Their victory in the alpine made Frank Kilfoyle and Doug Rutherford the 1969 Australian Rally Champions.