National rally title on the line
Local father and son team of Keith and Alex Morling of Bunyip took a much-needed victory in the classic category of the Snowy River Sprint, the penultimate round of the 2018 AASA Australian Tarmac Rally Championship.
Outright contenders Andrew Richmond and Chris Thompson in their 2017 Lotus Exige 350S found themselves, not far from the start, parked in a farmer’s paddock and out of the event.
It would be the 600horse power American muscle cars who would dominate the first stages, sending a warning shot across the bow of the other competitors.
The 2016 V-10 Dodge Viper ACR, crewed by John Ireland and Janet Binns, set the early pace with a one second lead over the 2015 Shelby GT Mustang, piloted by Craig Dean and Mary Hughes.
At the end of day one their huge horse power, combined with the demanding roads, was causing tyre dilemmas for all the muscle cars.
The tyre problems however, were felt throughout the field.
In the hotly contested classic competition, Keith and Alex Morling in their 1976 Ford Escort held a narrow lead over second placed Mark Clair and Lee Harper in a 1974 Porsche 911 RS.
Special stage 14, the first for Sunday morning, was wet and slippery.
The Viper, having exhausted all its tyres on Saturday, withdrew from the event.
In another sign of things to come, championship leader Danny Traverso didn’t have a set of soft compound tyres for the wet conditions.
With a masterful display of driving, Craig Dean wrestled his Mustang to third outright on special stage 14 and then second on stage 15.
Mick Harding however, was now nibbling into his lead but with the roads drying, the event would come down to the last couple of stages; that was until stage 16. A couple of kilometres in, the Mustang broke its tail shaft and was out.
After two days and almost 300 kms of competitive stages, it would be the Canberra crew of Mick Harding and codriver Adam Kudra in their Subaru WRX who would prevail, taking a well-earned win from second placed Danny Traverso and Jason Page. Third went to Guy Lilleyman in another Evo. In the classic competition Keith and Alex Morling’s Escort never faltered, leading home Mark Clair’s Porsche with the 1972 Torana crewed by Sam Livesley and Liam Dunn coming in third.
The Bunyip crew lead the AASA Australian Tarmac Rally Championship (classics) coming into the final round of the series, the Great Tarmac Rally (GTR) to be held at Marysville on October 13 and 14.
With double points on offer at the final round, the Morlings need a top three finish to secure the championship title.
The embedded reporters for the Australian Tarmac Rally Championship are Mark and Lacy Biggs of Drouin, driving a Subaru WRX in the SuperSport category.
A win over the weekend leapfrogged them from third to lead the championship coming in to the final round.
With a competitive field already lined up to contest the SuperSport category at GTR, they will need to balance their journalistic duties with a tilt at an Australian Rally title