The Classic Rally was held on 29 April.
VRC Round 2 and VCS Round 3 – 1972 GMHMC Classic Rally
Jeff Beaumont tells the story…
The Classic Rally was both the 2nd round of the Victorian Rally Championship and the 3rd round of the 1972 Victorian Clubman Series.
Directed by Peter Haas, the 300 mile event ran in South Gippsland and attracted a full field of 60 crews.
With Haas’ director duties, Gil Davis employed David Long as navigator. It was certainly a good choice as they went on to win the event.
The rally started at The Gurdies and was divided into two stages: Pink and Blue. The first division ran down to Foster with the first competitive west of Wistaria, followed by a short dash down Dingo Creek. Next up was Carrajung which became the centre for multiple loops, including the run up to the Morwell River Prison Farm area.
Torana crews came good in the VRC Classic Rally, taking out the top three outright placings and hence the teams prize.
Peter Janson was setting an excellent pace but lost time when the car stalled near Woorarra West. It took Janson and Mike Mitchell over 10 minutes of heavy pushing to enable them to roll start the big Monaro. This time loss handed the lead to Gil Davis who held it to the finish.
Last round winners Dixon/Jessup had a troubled run, firstly with a couple of minor navigational errors then an engine cooling issue. However, they hung on to finish in sixth place.
VCS
The leading contenders for VCS points were Bob Bird / Warwick Smith and young guns George Fury / Monty Suffern, both crews driving Cortinas. Datsun 1600s were now becoming popular, with Barrie Edmonds / Rex Muldoon and Allan Hallifax / Colin Turnbull expected to be front runners.
Allan Hallifax was quickest across to Jack’s corner.
The loop to Carrajung saw most crews miss two tricky check points, correctly located on the re-aligned Lays Road / Won Wron Road area.
Both Bird and Hallifax cleaned the next run across Blackwarry Scenic Road, before blasting north-west to Valley View.
Navigation became a little more straight forward in the Blue Division. John Munro / Rod Goode lost time winching their Ford Corsair back on to the road near the Morwell Prison Farm. Bob Coney / Garry Spence had to do the same in their Escort. Robbie Dawson’s Escort joined the scenery after crunching a big kangaroo.
Bob Bird and Allan Hallifax were putting up very impressive times, particularly against the top VRC crews such as Janson and Watson.
George Fury impressed with consistently fast times throughout the event and his partner Monty Suffern put in a solid navigational performance, earning the crew victory in the Clubman Series round as well as fourth outright.
