1979 North Central Rally

The North Central  was held on 28 July. Jeff Beaumont tells the story:

Victorian Clubman Series Round 5 – 1979 CCC North Central Rally

Thirty eight Clubman entries were received for the North Central Rally, run by the Castlemaine Car Club. Starting in Bendigo, the rally ran west to Wehla, where a central control and service park was located.

The Director was John Wilkinson, who billed the event as “mainly route charted and generally a driver’s blast“. It turned out not to be the case, particularly in the first challenging Division.

The first navigation section contained six tricky vias, with a route chart from the last via point to the finish control. Quite a number of crews suffered considerable points losses, thus inflicting early losses.

The leaders were starting to emerge, with the final placegetters in formation at the half way break. The remainder of the event was relatively straight forward and mostly route charted, with Lee / Robets and Cartan / Trevillian handling the navigation without issues.

In third place were Chris Randall and Ray Scott who now opened up a handy lead in this year’s series. The rally wound up with a transport back to Bendigo for a barbeque at the Light Car Club rooms.

Entry List

Route Instructions

Cartan & Trevillian 2nd O/R Pic: Brian (Sonny) Robson
David Cartan & Andrew Trevillian 2nd O/R Pic: Brian (Sonny) Robson
Barry Farnell & John Hardiman Pic: Brian (Sonny) Robson
Barry Farnell & John Hardiman 6th O/R Pic: Brian (Sonny) Robson

Results

PlaceDriverNavigatorCarPoints
1Greg LeeAllen RobertsDatsun 160026
2David CartanAndrew TrevillianMazda RX329
3Chris RandallRay ScottDatsun 160032
4Russell OpieGary GourlayDatsun 160037
5Andrew KrugerAlex McKenzieDatsun 180B39
6Barry FarnellJohn HardimanLancer40

Full results

Photo Gallery

Brian (Sonny) Robson was an icon of rallying and rally photography, in and around Central Victoria and further afield. Unfortunately not a great deal remains of Sonny’s prolific work. These pictures were scanned from photo proof sheets and have undergone photo restoration in order to preserve these important artifacts of Victorian rally history. Check out Sonny’s photos of the ’79 North Central here.