Southern Cross Daily Reports
Day 6. (Friday 18th November, Coffs Harbour)
Today we headed north to Lower Bucca for a closed road stage, one of the WRC sections it was around 3 km’s long with some fast sections and some humps here and there. We did this section twice, our second run was six seconds quicker than the first. We were faster than Rod & Karen Piggott in the first run but they beat us by one second in the second run. This was in affect the end of the rally.
We then headed back to Coffs for a blast around the Rally Australia Super Special stage but this was not timed and did not count towards the end result. No spectators to laugh at us, we did go over a hump to fast and landed a bit hard which did not do our exhaust much good and so the Dolly is making even more noise. I think we must have looked pretty tame compared to the WRC cars but a great thrill to be part of.
I found out too late that the section was being filmed and did not have enough time to set up a camera in front of the big TV screen. It was always going to happen, we lost a camera of the front of the Dolly during the Lower Bucca stage. The Dolly is still going but it has a long brake peddle, a noisy exhaust, and it is feeling a bit tired as is the driver and navigator.
The Dolly waiting for a run at a closed road section
Geoff and Jon got through the day without problem. Yesterday at the car show Geoff managed to get his Fiats bonnet signed by Jari-Matti Latvala
Geoff’ s bonnet signed by Jari-Matti Latvala
Rod and Karen had a good day without problems.
Results after day 6 see the result unchanged Mark Pickering/Dave Boddy driving a Datsun 240Zwon from GeoffThomas/Jon Dickson in their Fiat 131 with Alan Cummine/Geoffrey Boyd driving a Peugeot 504 in third place. Jim Pope/Peter Liston in their Dolomite finished forth and Rod & Karen Piggott driving their Peugeot 404 were fifth.
Jim Pope