If you left the car in the shed, here’s what you missed
The Marysville Stages on 7 May was the biggest rally since the last report with VRC, VCRS and the Camcrusher Regularity Rally all starting from Gallipoli Park on another cold, wet day.
Whilst the VRC probably had the worst of the weather, they did it all in daylight whereas the VCRS and Camcrusher had night running in some pretty thick fog. The fog led to the cancellation of one stage which unfortunately reduced the competitive distance of both events by 11km and the Camcrusher from an originally advised 90km to just 63.4km.
VICTORIAN CHAMPIONSHIP
In the VRC we had 29 members running and Adrian Stratford/Kain Manning blitzed the field to win by 6 minutes. Luke Sytema/Tracey Dewhurst came 3rd and Andrew Daniell co-drove Kevin Millard to 6th place. Next members home were Ian Martin who chauffeured our president Steve Young to 9th outright.
Adrian and Kain currently lead the Victorian championship with Luke and Tracey second. With Adrian and Kain now changing to a new car mid season, you can be sure that will add to the immense pressure that Luke and Tracey are putting on them. Some great driving being done by those top 2 HRA crews.
VICTORIAN CLUB RALLY SERIES
In the VCRS event 29 members started with Ben and Cathy Hayes coming home 3rd but they were nominated as Pakenham Auto Club. Next were Matt deVaus/Tim Shepherd in Joel’s Stanza in 4th place. David Lawrance came 9th as a NCCA member and Geoff Hale/Jenny Pollock had the golf back out in the forest to come home in 10th place. Michael Trucano/Heli Thaw (as NECC) were 12th with Alan Upton/Mark Laidlay less than a minute behind them in 13th.
REGULARITY RALLY
The third part of the event was the Camcrusher Regularity Rally which also suffered with the fog. Of the 12 crews entered all but 1 crew were HRA members and all but 1 of those were in Standard Car Class vehicles. Stage 2 proved to be the downfall of most crews when all but 3 arrived early after a strangely slow average speed was set for a rather short and relatively straight stage. With the 5 seconds per second early penalty some large looking penalties were received. The finish control was also a problem for 4 crews who reported to the “service in” control mistaking it for the finish control and so missing 1 major control in the results.
The final scores saw Michael O’Brien/Scott Liggins take 1st place with a fair gap to Peter and Matthew Canals in 2nd place. Priscilla Lewis /Kylie Turner in Keith Lewis’ potent Datsun 1600 came in 3rd. James Pickard/Jetson Cairns were 5th and Rob Cranston/Martin Warneke came 6th after they failed to record the only information board on the event. Rob and Chris Sanderson withdrew with crew illness and Craig Chenoweth/Richard Smyth failed to finish.
Following Marysville was the Moonlight Meander, VCRS round 4 and the Dan Murphy Memorial Trial Regularity rally last weekend. A report on that later in June.
Next up then is the Nissan Nightmoves on 18th June.
Peter Canals
Page banner: Luke Sytema and Tracey Dewhurst at the Marysville Stages
Historic Rally Association 