COOLOOLA CLASSIC RALLY

14 March 1998

Not having to set up tents, we were last to arrive at Kandanga. Several cars and a troop of kids were waiting. The kids piled into the bus and we followed the convoy up into the hills to set up the stage.

The Subaru 4WD club is certainly in high standing these days with Queensland rally organisers. We were given the responsibility of performing a double start for Special Stages 1 and 2. Our chief flaggie, Rikki, got the cars underway on SS1 but about 15 min later they were back to start from the same place on SS2.

We were stop control for SS1 with Trent and Arnold phoning us the times. There were a couple of hiccups and we had to resort to CB a couple of times. All wen well with only three cars coming to grief on our stage.

Dave had given us a VHF radio to install in Rex the OKA (making our collection of frequencies complete). Due to the mountainous nature of the local terrain, we were then placed on top of a small hill to act as relay for the rally radio network. We had a quiet afternoon sitting reading books, passing on the odd message and watching the rest of the club go through setting up for SS10, the last one for the night.

We had just finished tea and waiting for some far-off stages to finish when Peter at rally headquarters asked us what kind of vehicle we had. He got excited when we told him we had an OKA and gave us directions where we would be able to climb a REALL Y BIG hill and have really good radio reception. So we set off and soon came to the REALLY BIG hill, selected low range and climbed up. Naturally we found a local with his kids in an old MY Suba already sitting there as spectators. Anyone else would have been surprised.

SS10 finally got underway and all went well until a Daihatsu left the road about 700 metres from the finish, slid sideways down a steep slope and wedged between two trees, injuring his co-driver in the process. Luckily it wasn't too bad and the co-driver managed to limp to the finish on foot where he was met by an ambulance.

All this necessitated a lot of radio work between our finish, being manned by John P and Arnold, us on top of our REALLY BIG hill and rally headquarters.

After the sweep came through we followed him towards the end and on a steep and slippery downslope we came across the Daihatsu and driver waiting for help. We decided to give him a hand but to turn Rex around and pull forwards I had to reverse about 500 metres up the hill and around two corners, then reverse back down again. Chains were attached to the two vehicles and the Daihatsu slowly came out scraping alongside a tree as it came.

Both front wheels were flat, bent and not parallel, the front pushed in about a foot from hitting the tree, all panels were mangled or at least bent and several fluids were spilling out from underneath. So naturally, being a rally driver, he got in, started up and drove offl!

We then handed back the radio to David who took off to close down the stage and catch up with the rest of our members who were off to the camp site at Imbil. We made our way home and had a good sleep-in on Sunday.

Clint & Charleen Lovell SC009