Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/142338
alltorque Images this page courtesy of Hal Moloney "In 1979 ... only 13 of the original 167 entrants' cars crossed the finish line after 20,000 gruelling kilometres." Clockwise from above: 1954 Redex Trial competitor passing rival cars near Goomeri in Queensland; Ken Miller, Harry Cape and Terry Wheatley's Holden at Eucla on the 1955 Redex Trial; Bill MacLachlan, Terry Byrne and Jack Murray at the start of the 1956 Ampol Trial; Australian rally and race car driver Cody Crocker. end of the race – and the beginning of rallying in Australia as a major sporting drawcard. In the mid-1950s, two big oil companies, Mobil and Ampol, got in on the idea. By 1956, they were running rival round-Australia trials that were relentlessly hard on both cars and drivers. Oil companies' entry into the Australian rally scene started a tango for the control of the rights required to run a round-Australia event. The upshot was that both lost, as rival events pulled competitors and fans in disparate directions. Fans dropped away, and both Mobil and Ampol withdrew their sponsorship from rally events in 1958. From 1964, Ampol tried again, running round-Australia rallies until 1970. Then all went quiet until Repco gave rallying a go in 1979, staging an event so tough that only 13 of the original 167 entrants' cars crossed the finish line after 20,000 gruelling kilometres. By 1988, the international scene had brought fresh life to rallying in Australia, thanks to the hard work of some keen folk in Western Australia, who introduced Rally Australia, initially to the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship and as part of the World Rally Championship the following year. That lasted until 2006. Meanwhile, other rallies were revving their engines Down Under. One was Targa Tasmania, a tarmacbased rally that kicked off on the Apple Isle in 1992. In 1995, to celebrate its centenary in Australia, Mobil supported the Red Centre to Gold Coast Trial, which essentially became the PlayStation rally in 1998. Rally Australia returned to New South Wales from the west in early September 2009, with sponsors that included automobile parts supplier Repco and Rally New Zealand, which hosts it every second year. These days, rallying is a fixture of Australian motorsport, with a full calendar of events that includes major races such as the National Capital Rally, East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship, the Quit Forest Rally and more. And like their predecessors in the Redex Trial, these drivers will be going hard and fast in cars not dissimilar to the Fords, Citroens, Toyotas and Volkswagens you might drive to work. The difference is that a good rally car will set you back around $1 million, not including spares; it will be able to hit 100 kilometres per hour in under three seconds and power-slide around bush corners on narrow gravel tracks at 200 clicks per hour-plus. After 60 years of racing, nothing's changed in one respect: it's just as much fun. For more fantastic historic Australian motorsport images, visit www. aussieroadracing.homestead.com. 27