The Midyear was held on 15 July.
VRC Round 4 – 1972 MSCC Midyear Rally
Chris Jessup directed the Midyear Rally for the Monash Sporting Car Club and provided seriously challenging navigation around the Bendigo area for the sixty entries.
Mike Osborne made a welcome return to the sport having recovered from an earlier road accident. He navigated for Peter Janson and they went on to score a fine victory under difficult conditions.
The event started at Lancefield and straightforward navigation allowed most of the field to clean the first few sections through Redesdale. Then the difficulty began. Bob Watson / Geoff Thomas dropped back when they WD’d a control near Mandurang.
At the Bendigo division break Gil Davis and Peter Haas were leading from Janson/Osborne and Bob Bird who had recovered after bouncing his Cortina off a tree.
The second division headed north from Bendigo through the Whipstick and Kamarooka Forests where many crews missed a via point.
The two XU-1 crews were jostling for the lead as the rally headed towards Axedale for a refuel. Amongst others, Fury/Suffern and Chettle/Comerford suffered wrong directions, whilst Garry Harrowfield retired with noisy engine bearings.
First round winner John Dixon was having a disastrous night having collected a tree then suffering engine failure.
Peter Brock tried his hand at navigating but quickly swapped seats with Frank Kilfoyle. That move paid dividends and they started to match the front runners’ times. In fact they were leading the second division until late in the event as the crews had headed into the Redcastle / Whroo area and Kilf fell asleep and made a navigational blunder.
