The Midwestern Trial was held on May 17.
VCS Round 4 – 1975 LCCA Midwestern Trial
The 200 km Midwestern Trial was directed by Howard Wakeling and Ian Reid.
Starting at Beaufort, the rally was run in wet and muddy conditions entirely in the Mt Cole and Ben Major area.
The muddy, steep inclines created problems for most of the 40 crews and winching became a popular and necessary activity.
Doug Irish and Ian Elis began the event in impressive form, dropping ten minutes less than the next place getter in the first division. Clearly they had the championship in sight.
At the half way point back at Beaufort, after 100 competitive kilometres, Irish / Ellis had already opened up a handy lead, which they held to the finish, from Mike Heny ’s Honda Civic.
The second division was generally a little drier over fast plantation roads. Heny’s good performance came to an end when he rolled his Wards Motors Honda at a tee junction. Then Bob Phillips / Ross Runnalls lost their electrics, extinguishing their lights.
Jean Reid, teamed with Hugh McMenamin and suffered the fate of many cars, getting the Corolla stuck behind others in the mud.
Sichlau / Allan rolled their Fiat out of the event on McGee’s corner.
Colin Wood / Ian Swan were having a good run in their Datsun 1600 in second place, until they had a major thermostat leak at the start of the very last section. They struggled through the last competitive stage, filling up the cooling system on several occasions and dropping to third place. However this elevated the little Colt Fastback of Brent Fletcher / Chris Maniatakis into second place.
Of the 40 starters, 30 crews made it to the finish, where Kilf’s Kitchen provided plenty of suitable refreshments.
