Driver: Tim Trad
Navigator: Lee Goldring
The car: 1972 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am
SUMMARY – 2015
Australia Classic rally
The Australia Classic 2015 rally was held in Tropical North Queensland on the weekend of 20-21 June 2015. Out of the 59 cars entered a few have dropped out due to mechanical issues – some were swapped for the teams’ daily driver vehicles while some had to give up altogether.
Day one took in the region around Cairns, with an early start for the first of two 300-plus kilometre days. Port Douglas to Palm Cove along the Captain Cook Highway… is absolutely stunning! Sunday, the second day delivered the biggest surprise to the sunny city visitors: rain. Organiser Zoltan Vandulek said, that not only was it wet, but the whole area was blanketed in fog for the first half of the day.
“For all the hardtop cars this was no problem, but there were many roadsters among the group. As soon as we left the fog really hit, and it was thick so we were meant to be doing 80-100km/h but couldn’t see jack! It was quite scary but exciting!At the end of Sunday I expected some people would have been angry and despondent about the weather, but everybody was having a great time and really enjoyed the opportunity, and that was nice to see – people enjoying themselves.”
Sunday late afternoon the Hilton Cairns hosted the Awards Gala dinner where competitors, marshals, sponsors and their guests all got together celebrating and watching the fantastic event summary video fresh out of the oven. Cars #2 (Andrew Chand & Luke Olholm), #24 (Dan McKelvey & Craig Pullen) and #32 (Daniel Luxton & Jane O’Neill) scored 2 challenge wins each – although these results had to be adjusted for the draws where the older car gets to take the trophy.
Dan and Jane in the 1970 Ford Mustang (car #32) didn’t just win two 1/100 challenges but also scored third overall with just 1,740 penalty points! To put this into perspective, the previous rally was won with a score of 1,772 which means that even the bronze team this year did a better score than the winners last time.
NEWS FROM 2015
