The Blue Ribbon Rally was held on 26 August.
ARC Round 2 – 1970 VSCC Blue Ribbon Rally
Jeff Beaumont tells the story…
Round two of the Australian Rally Championship moved to central Victoria where the Simpson family ( father Bob and sons Beau and Bain ) conducted the Blue Ribbon Rally on behalf of the Victorian Sporting Car Club.
In contrast to the previous round, the 500 mile Blue Ribbon was designed as a driver’s event covering roads and tracks in the forests and mountains north east of Melbourne, including Murrindindi Forest. The mid-event break was at Eildon and the Rally finally finished back at Kinglake the next morning.
Bob Watson and Jim McAuliffe continued their winning streak, with another quick and reliable performance in their efficient R8 Gordini.
Tony Roberts was again quick in the new Torana but lost time when he nosed off the road, requiring a tow out by his team mate Colin Bond. However, while this was taking place, the third team member Barry Ferguson came over the crest at speed and crashed into Bond’s Monaro. Roberts got going and recovered into third place, whilst his team mates were both eliminated on the spot! Team boss Harry Firth was not impressed.
John Keran / Peter Meyer, also in a HDT Monaro, had earlier got bogged and retired. So despite four entries, no Holdens featured in the result!
A bad batch of petrol at a country service station unfortunately caused bad running issues for a number of competitors. This included the factory Mitsubishi 1500 SS of Barry Lake and Mike Mitchell. Their team mates Bob Riley and Barry Field retired from the rally after they ran off the road and were stuck in a gully.
Privateers Robinson / Bonhomme finished in an excellent second place, and four Renaults finished in the top six places.
A full report appeared in Racing Car News.
A story also appeared in the Weekender.
Some interesting observations from Clarrie Mitchell appeared in May Unicar.