Cooloola QRC Rally

Glastonbury

9 October 1999

We met at the Pineapple Caltex in Gympie at 9am. There was David, Sue, Rik, Wayne (complete with BMX battle scars) and his two sons, Rex and daughter Courtney, Shannon and his friend Lionel in a Nissan Patrol who arrived later in the day. (Anymore Martin's and we could have had the Martin clan family reunion!) David's poor Brumby was loaded to the rafters with rally gear. It always amazes me how much stuff he gets in the back of that thing. I don't remember my old Brumster having that sort of load carrying capacity!

First stop was the Glastonbury show grounds where we set up camp in a nice spot complete with cows. Then it was off to set up the stage. We left Rik at the start and beaded off thru. the stage. David was looking for a "track off to the left" and went on ahead. Five minutes later David and Rex (his map reader) reappeared on another track to our right, with Rex proclaiming that his mind reading skill weren't up to scratch for the likes of this map. It turned out we were actually on the wrong track. Oops! We doubled back, hoping Rik hadn't yet assembled his TaJ-MahaI at the start. After a bit more searching and head scratching we found the track and off we went again.

We leap frogged thru the stage putting up the bunting. Sue had to negotiate with a fairly big lizard which had attached itself to a tree that was kind of crucial to our bunting. The finish spot was really nice, we couldn't have asked for better. It was out the front of a property, with huge shady gums and several Clydesdale horses in the paddock behind us. The property manager even offered us use of the shower and toilets if required and left the flood lights on to light up our control during the night, that's good old country hospitality for you! He even helped us out later by listening to the club radio and relaying messages to us when we were busy. We also had the property bound, a Jack Russell terrier called Bozo for company. We were deciding whether or not Bozo was a boy or a girl, when 'he'whizzed on my car tyre - a performance he then repeated on the 0 car! After that he was locked in the yard. The horses where getting a bit jittery from all the commotion and one huge Clydesdale decided to make a run for it until he spotted the cattle grid and pulled out the brakes at the last minute. It was like something from a cartoon - this huge Clydesdale in full flight suddenly sliding to a halt in the dust, feet going everywhere and almost sitting on the ground by the time he stopped. We had music too - compliments of a party somewhere up the road which had "been goin' since early yesterday".

The stage was a pretty good mix of everything from rubble to dust to mud, and a wash out from a recent down pour that was big enough to park a car in! There were 63 starters in the rally but only 44 reached our control and a few cars were left scattered through out the stage by the end. SS6 saw only 23 starters because this was not part of the Clubman series. Former Subaru club member Brent Armitage was competing in the Clubman series in his Gemini with navigator Peter Chatburn and Adrian Bukmanis as service crew. Apparently they had an unfortunate incident with a tree stump which ended their race early.

Sue and I had very minimal equipment between us - a borrowed light and no table but it ended up being a case of less is more (or less stuff to fall over in the rush anyway!). It was worth sitting out in the cold just to see the stars, they're so much more impressive from out there. Around 10.30 the last competitor came thru. The party up the road was now in full swing (again) and we started packing up the stage to bead back to Glastonbury for the steak burgers we'd all been dreaming about! Next we heard something on the radio about David's brumby losing a fuel pump and couldn't find out what was happening so we waited and waited and an hour later the start met the finish and we were off for those burgers. Well ... ummm..... almost.... (so sorry!) My car had a flat tyre, a slow leak which had gone unnoticed until I tried to do a U turn. This is not what the stomach world wanted to hear but it was action stations and with the help of David's trusty compressor and Rik's trolley jack, I decided to pump the tyre up again and chance it the 6km back to Glastonbury ... and food! It was midnight and the nice people from the local fire brigade had kept the food going for us. The pies were good and the coffee was free.

On the way back into Glastonbury we passed the party place, out in the middle of nowhere. As we saw the house, thru pea soup fog and freezing cold, there were about 20 people standing on the side of the road cheering, with beers in one ha nd and waving madly with the other. We decided that we didn't have the heart to tell them that the rally had actually finished an hour ago and we were just the helpers beading home! They were probably still cheering the recovery crews next morning.

Morning and my tyre was flat as, again. D'oh! We pumped it up again and later I made it to the BP Gympie West - I wonder if there is anywhere else in the world that will fix a flat tyre - on a Sunday - for 12 Bucks! Ross and Annette B and Peter MacD arrived from Gympie and everyone headed off for a day at Mt Widgee. The winners of the rally were George Sheppard and Del Garbutt in their Evo 5 Lancer. Top contenders Bruce Dummett (Car 2) and Andrew Tindal (Car 1) both exited on the same comer, finishing their race and Richard Galley (Car 8) put his car into an 'irretrievable' spot.

We were pretty short-staffed all round and it was a big effort by all. Thanks to David for organising everything. It was a really great day!

Simone Martin SC323