Walkerville All Cars Club - Robertstown Car Rally 2003

"Walkerville All Cars Club"

"Robertstown to Dakar Rally"

"2003"

On Saturday 19th July 2003, the Annual Walkerville All Cars Club Inc. held Round 3 of the South Australian Rally Championship in the Robertstown area.

The Event was proudly sponsored by "Dakar Rack Systems", with stage sponsors as listed below"

MGA Insurance Brokers	Saratoga Distribution
The Railway Hotel - Freeling	Carburettor Sales and Service
Autosport	Contact Communications
Pulse Automotive	Datsport
Gilbert's Transport Service's	Revolution Racegear

Entry List

The event commenced at 12 noon, with 32 cars leaving Rally Headquarters at the Robertstown Oval for competition through a 9 competitive stage course, during daylight, set out by the organisers for the Drivers and Navigators negotiate.

A photo was taken at the start of every car at the Control prior to leaving.

Some photos of the cars in action were taken within Special Stage 7 (Inspiration Point) near the Quarry area.

After the daylight session, the cars returned to the oval and were attended to by their Service Crew/s to check them for any faults and make any adjustments that may have been required.

Car 1 - Sam Brand's car being checked by his Service Crew

Car 4 - Brandon Elliott's car waiting to go out on the Night Stages

Car 5 - David MacDonough's car waiting to go out on the night stages after it had been serviced

At 6pm they left for another 4 stages, which was run during the night.

There were some minor incidents throughout the event by the way of cars running off the track and being unable to continue and others which had some type of vehicle failure.

Provisional Results were posted at 10pm for Drivers & Navigators to see how they went and in particular for the spectators, how their favourite driver was able to drive during the event.

Overall, according to the Organisers, the event ran smoothly and was very successful.

Final Results

Below is a copy of a Press Release issued by the Club after the Event:

The 2003 Robertstown to DAKAR Rally, Round 3 of the SA Rally Championship held on Saturday 19th July in the Robertstown and Point Pass area was a huge success with 25 of the 32 starters finishing the event. With perfect weather, the crews were treated to some of the best high speed rally roads in the state set against the background of picturesque rolling green hills.

Sam Brand and Tim Batten, seeded at Car 1 in a Subaru WRX STi won the event by around one and a half minutes from veterans Dave McDonough and Lyndon Wilson in their Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VI. Though finishing the event with only 2 wheel drive, Brand managed to hold off a strong challenge from McDonough.

The much anticipated challenge from young gun Jack Monkhouse in the ageing Mitsubishi Galant VR4 failed to materialize after a disastrous crash on only the first stage of the rally. The car took air on a crest at approximately 120kph, landed heavily in to the face of the following dip then bounced off the road and in to the mallee trees. Monkhouse was uninjured and co-driver Mike Dale sustained only minor injuries.

The World's End creek crossing provided much action with many crews taking the watersplash flat out. With one vehicle spending time on 2 wheels and several others taking water on board, photographers had a field day with many spectacular action shots taken.

Round 4 of the State Championship, the Coopers Rally of SA to be held in the Tanunda / Mt Crawford area on August 8-10 is only two and a half weeks away and will have many crews working feverishly to prepare their cars in time.

See you next year!

For more information about the Car Rally, go to the Walkerville All Cars Club Web Site.

Action Photos

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Last modified: September 14, 2005

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