Ray's Capital Clippings will be posted here on the week of Rallysport magazine being published. They won't be posted early due to it not being fair to the publishers of Rallysport Magazine

Ray's Capital Clippings January 2005

Not much happening on the rally front, with the NatCap being cancelled due to the rain damaging the roads in the week preceding the event. This left the ACT series with only six rounds for the year, the best five counting towards the title.

This changed a few positions but left John Stilling as the Gold Cup champion for 2004. Kari Dirickx came in second ahead of Rob Nunn, giving Mitsubishi a clean sweep of the podium for Gold Cup. Gold Cup Co-driver was a dead heat between Tim Batten and David Stephens with Nick Vardos in third.

The Mazda team of Nathan Senior and Aaron Tams won Clubman from Brett Walther and myself, Andrew Buerckner being equal second in the co-driving in his first year of Navigating.

Russell Battison and Andrew Buerckner were the ACT Novice winners with Sophia Moody second and Tony Maxwell third.

The winners of the 2004 City Car Care ACT Regional Rally Series are:

Gold Cup Driver    Gold Cup Co-Driver

1 John Stilling =1 Tim Batten

2 Kari Dirickx =1 David Stephens

3 Robert Nunn 3 Nick Vardos

Clubman Driver Clubman Co-Driver

1 Nathan Senior 1 Aaron Tams

2 Brett Walther =2 Andrew Buerckner

3 Stephen Mee =2 Ray Baker

Novice Driver Novice Co-Driver

1 Russell Battisson 1 Andrew Buerckner

2 Sophia Moody 2 Anna Ritson

3 Tony Maxwell 3 John Clark

Silver Cup Driver Silver Cup Co-Driver

1 Brett Wright =1 Robert Edwards

2 Jon Waterhouse =1 Lucia Werner

3 Richard Leitis 3 Rob Mules

Rally Australia

Michael Thompson and Mick Gentleman headed to Perth for Rally Oz with the DELL Subaru and were setting some very consistent times until their demise on stage 5. Frank Brookhouse was sitting next to Ito in the Lancer and they only made it one stage further than Thompson, so Both ACT cars out on the first day.

Quite a few from Canberra headed over to Perth for Rally Oz, with Tony Maxwell and Anna Ritson actually having the use of a Porsche 911 to drive around in the forest to Road closures.

REACT Three Lakes Run

REACT Three Lakes Run was a touring road event run by the Rotary Enthusiasts of the ACT, this was their first event of this nature and with plenty of help from the rally community the event went ahead. The event was won by Russell Battison taking a break from driving his Lancer and having a run in his Jaguar XJ6. With an enthusiastic entry, an assortment of cars including an MGB GT and even Tamsey in his Subaru RX plus a couple of Mazda's thrown in for good measure (it was a REACT event after all). The event was basically decided on the 4 th and final stage with several competitors actually returning to the start of then stage to try again. Well done to all the organisers, I hope we see more of this type of event in the ACT.

BMSC forums

Well what to say, there's always heaps happening on the forums with nearly 1000 members from the rally community in Asutralia, you can always find a topic being debated, even getting replies from CAMS sometimes. One of the latest topics is about a Friday Night Specials which is regarding the evetns that will happen in the new year on Friday nights. Marc Kelly is organising some short events that we can run with roughly 60km competitive and all based around the Urriara Settlement. This is a great initiative and gives us some more events in Canberra

Coming Events

As the NatCap was cancelled Marty Holberton has offered his date for the rallysprint on the 29 th of January to run a Special stage closed to club event. The details aren't yet available but it would be great if we could run the NatCap road book and get to run in Greenhills.

Lady Drivers

This event will have been run on the 4 th of December, Should be some good stories coming out of this event, as always it's a great event to let you other half have a run in the rally car, or for those regular drivers to clean up the once a yearer's or vice versa.:)

Next Year

A few changes for next year with Brett Walther selling his Charade and taking a year off competing. Also Russell Battison has sold his Lancer and is going circuit racing.

Geoff Stewart is looking for a Co-driver, Geoff drives a very quick Celica that is capable of winning Silver Cup. I'm also looking for a cod-river for next year for events such as Rally of Canberra, Bega and Rally of Melbourne. There is an extreme shortage of co-drivers in Canberra , So all you people who are thinking about oh yeah maybe one day I will have a go, just get out there and do it. Give me a ring on 0417 057 361. There will be a co-driving course happening in Canberra in the new year with some top co-drivers helping out.

Summernats is a place where you wouldn't normally see Rally cars but this year we are hoping to put on a bit of a display, I will also be helping out with officiating and using the Charade as a course car for the grass events.

I would like to wish everyone in the rally community a Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year. Oh and lets hope Santa brings a new STI.

Ray Baker