Rally Tasmania Notes

Rally Tasmania – one of Australia’s Premier Tarmac Rallies based at Burnie in Tasmania and this year celebrating 30 years. There were three categories – Classic for cars up to 1982, Modern for cars after 1982 and ARC

A number of SA competitors went along and returned home with great results...

Steve Glenney
Steve Glenney, co-driven by Alan Stean from Queensland, was first overall in the modern category. Great run, taking over the lead from Jim Richards who was forced to retire with steering problems.

“We entered Rally Tasmania with the support of Federal Motorsport Tyres to test their new Motorsport R-spec tyre. The tyres performed very well especially in the warm conditions experienced late on Saturday and all of Sunday. We were under immense pressure from Jim Richards and Brendon Reeves early on in the rally, who were both running softer compound tyres, but once we tuned our car to suit the tyre and the cooler conditions we were able to record consistent stage wins. A big thank you to all of our local South Australian support - S&J Automotive who prepared and tuned my Subaru WRX STi Spec-C, Mark Povey at SA Motorsport Tyres for supplying the special racing Braid wheels and fitting the Federal tyres, Australian Clutch Services with their Extreme Rally Clutch for all those faultless 6000 rpm launches on every special stage start”.

Naomi Tillett
Co-driving for Tony Quinn, Naomi and Tony were running third in their Nissan GTR until the engine let go big time on SS7.

"Started slow for us. As usual for the Tarmac its hurry up and wait. A few teething problems soon got ironed out and we were back on the pace. The longer stages really suit Tony’s driving style. We were testing the new Toyo tyres this weekend, we have been really happy with the Dunlops as they heat up quickly.

When we saw rain we were a little worried as we didn’t know what the Toyos were capable of in the wet. Savage river Has been a favourite of mine, since 2005.

Going into the service on Leg 2 we were chuffed fastest time by 15 secs which made us .01 second from Glenney our main rival. Jim was too far ahead for us to even think we could catch him. We had a relaxing morning tea, the car was running like a dream. We put our race faces on and our focus was to be the quickest through Savage. The GTR was running like a dream it was a quickest run we have done until 19km into the stage there was a shudder...then a bang... then fire clouding around the front doors. An increase of adrenaline a quick stop and we both got out the car and ran like little girls....We had no idea what had happened until the flames stopped singeing the rear bumper. We quickly went back to the car got our personal belongings, put kitty litter on the road and our triangles out, and waited for our buddy car who nearly slipped into the rear of our car, might have been the 200m of oil that the engine kindly donated without warning over the road...? When we were walking to safer, higher ground we saw piston shards on the road. Oh dear this is going to be expensive.

We sat patiently and watched the ARC cars slip and slide around the corner on our oil (they are used to being sideways). Whilst waiting for the tow truck we picked as much of our engine off the road as possible. Even the piston ring was laying on the road....ouch!

So that was our rally, and our dream of Rally Tas back to back gone, in a cloud of flames and much disappointment"

Claire Ryan
Claire Ryan was co-driving for Peter Leemhuis from Canberra in the Donut King Nissan GTR R35. They were running 10th in Modern when they had a big fast exit on SS14. The report said “a long way off the road” but no significant injuries. Claire’s big bruise can be seen on Facebook.

“Grrr! Pete Leemhuis in the GTR35 - bright pink Donut King sponsored Nissan. Rocket ship, beautiful car but hard to drive when computer says “no”. Yes, first Rally Tas. Fantastic roads, some very technical, some just a blast. Savage/Hellyer/Paloona some favourites. Very well run event. Lovely officials. And surprisingly, good weather! Until the crash, we were dicing for 10th outright modern”

Roger Paterson and Richard Geue
Russell Paterson and Richard Geue in the Sportsmed Porsche 911 RS had a good clean run finishing second in the Classic Section. Another good result for this consistent pair after a good Classic Adelaide result last year.

Graeme and Bruce Robinson
Graeme and Bruce Robinson in a Mini Clubman GT were cruising along nicely until they rolled on SS14 – not a good stage for the SA contingent.

Article by Jeremy Browne