DAVID EVANS

“Rally Australia needs a new base to thrive”

I’ve got a few words I’d like to put to you. Let’s see if they mean anything to you. Ready? Here goes: “Car number one did not go around the elements of the chicane as shown in the Road Book at Box 18 on SS22, and, as such, a 10-second penalty was added to the stage time on SS22 for car number one.”

Stewards’ decision number seven issued during the third round of this year’s World Rally Championship, Rally Mexico.

That 10-second penalty cost Ogier four points. Going into last week’s season finale at Rally Australia, he was three points ahead of Thierry Neuville. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that stewards’ decision could have cost Ogier his season and a world title.

Am I missing something? More pertinently, aren’t Jari-matti Latvala, Neuville and, no doubt, a whole host of other drivers missing something. Something like a 10-second penalty?

Surely I wasn’t the only person to watch car after car canon off the Sherwood chicane and then wait for the stewards to sit in judgement. But they didn’t. Not a sausage, let alone a second, was added to any totals. Now, that’s probably because nobody protested the fact that they went around the chicane in a way other than that directed in the road book. I’m sure there’s an entirely worthwhile judicial process to be followed here, but at the same time rules are rules. Consistency is all we’re asking for.

Anyway, apologies for a slightly negative start to the column in a week where we celebrate the culmination of one of the best season’s rallying in the history of the sport. And it really was an absolute classic.

Question is (and I might be about to get a bit moany again…) was Coffs Harbour worthy of such a sporting contest? When we first came here in 2011, I didn’t really get the place.

It’s a small seaside town with a miniscule population by comparison with Sydney to the south and Brisbane to the north. Eight years on and I’ve grown to really quite like the place. But that perennial question of a lack of spectators remains. Such is the strength of feeling among the manufacturers that I suspect hands could be forced on this one and the fact that Australia has no workable alternative for the home of its round of the world championship won’t wash with a promoter which regularly reports countries queueing around the block to join the fun.

All that said, I still love Australia. I love the seriousness with which the locals approach a long black coffee and the green cross code. Paradoxically I love the laid back approach to public service announcements. Triple M, the Coffs coast’s finest radio station regularly reported the arrival of the World Rally Championship in town. There was then a description of how and where to watch the action, with the advice: “If you lean into the road, you’re a bloody idiot.”

Clearly, the bloke the New South Wales police are currently chatting to wasn’t listening when he arrived in the Welshs Creek test on Saturday and decided a safe distance from the cars equated to the thick edge of a cigarette paper.

A genuine, nine-carrot bloody idiot if ever we saw one.