Welcome to the website of the Brindabella Motor Sport Club - Rallying In The ACT
The BMSC is based in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. However, residence is not a prerequisite for membership - our members reside in all parts of the country. Although our members participate in many disciplines of motorsport, we are chiefly a rally oriented club and conduct several special stage rallys each year. Our members can be found at events of all levels across the country, from small club events, right up to the WRC (World Rally Championship).
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June 29th the only place to be will be Batemans Bay as the Kumho Rally of the Bay returns bigger than ever.
A single seeded field of Classics, NSW State, ACT series, NSW Clubman and, in a brand new opportunity, Schedule R cars will take on what we believe are some of the best rallying roads in NSW .... and they will be followed for part of the day by the Introductory Rally field ... an opportunity for people to "come and try" for 4 stages without needing too much expensive preparation or high level licences.
A ceremonial start along the waterfront street in town will provide an excellent opportunity to show off your sponsors and your vehicles before driving away under the arch for a day of adventure.
The fillable entry form (and the others) can be completed using adobe reader and then saved and emailed to the event secretary ... making everybodies life easier we hope.
So get those entries rolling in ... and of course we are also looking for officials (just like every event) ...
I know it's a bit early, but just letting you know that the May club meeting will be held at:
Capital Steering and Suspension
3/75 Wollongong St
Fyshwick
It will start a little earlier than usual, at 7:00pm on the 7th of May.
Peter, a long-time supporter of the Club and of the sport, has kindly opened up his workshop and will be doing a presentation on wheel alignments and suspension settings, both for race/rally cars and general road cars.
It will be a fun evening! Make sure you come along!
Apologies for today's site downtime. It appears that we were "flavour of the minute" this morning, with search engine Bots scurrying all over the place. Unfortunately, this led to unusually high server loads, so the host took action - to our detriment.
Anyway, all is good now. Keep producing Bot-worthy discussions! :)
I had the pleasure of being invited to a party at Freddie's just after moving to Canberra in 1974. By that time, he was already one of the highly-respected co-drivers, with a very impressive list of results. These included winning the Alpine with Grahame Elliot in 1971, and just missing out on winning Bega with Peter Lang in '74, by one point. This was a guy who operated at the sharp end of serious competition, was able to tell a good story, yet was never pretentious. You had to sit around and listen to others to learn just how good Freddie was in the left hand seat.
Freddie was not scared by scary cars. He navigated for Bruce Hodgson in the Phase 4 GTHO in the '73 Alpine, and for Ed Mulligan in the L34 Torana at Bega in '75 and '76. There were scurrilous stories that, far from being overwhelmed by these beasts (the cars, not the drivers!), Freddie was known to beat his drivers about the head with his route instructions if he felt they were not trying hard enough!
1975 saw Freddie sitting beside Andrew Cowan in the works Lancer, winning the Southern Cross, and backing up a year later for another win. At the same time he was making his mark in Castrols, and formed his famously successful partnership with Greg Carr in the Escort. Amongst many outstanding results with Greg, this led to Freddie being second-placed co-driver in the ARC in both '78 and '79.
In 1979, Greg and Freddie went "seriously international", competing in the RAC Rally in the UK. This was the era when the RAC was still a worthwhile event: running for several days the length and breadth of the UK, daytime and night, gravel and bitumen, with the cream of world rallying competitors.
During the 1980s it was getting harder to keep in touch with Freddie. He had spread his wings to the Asia-Pacific championship, and by the 1990s he was frequently competing in WRC events in works or semi-works cars and with more top-line drivers: Dunkerton, Shinozuka, Taguchi, etc. In 2000 he found his way to the Middle East, competing in Qatar and Bahrain.
The classic rally mob make a bit of a fuss about the "golden years" of rallying. Freddie was not only a star of those golden years, but went on to higher levels of competition, and with a great deal of success. He was a very important person to have in a team, because of what he contributed to the team as a whole. Most importantly of all, he was a good bloke.
Back in the golden years (i.e. pre-1980), Spokes magazine was privileged to have a number of witty contributors. One of them decided to rewrite the famous poem "Desiderata" - the one that starts "Go placidly among the noise and haste ...." The rewrite was advice to co-drivers, essentially encouraging them to keep their heads when all about them was turning to chaos. The final line was rewritten as:
In order to assist you with your recovery from a chocolate-fuelled long weekend, why not come to the BMSC's April Club Meeting? Yep, it's the first Tuesday of the month already. Kinda snuck up on you, didn't it?
The Hellenic Club in Woden is an ideal venue to ease you into another month. Come along for an evening of rally-related hilarity, education and relaxation.
Gotta be better than eating another chocolate egg, doesn't it?
Brindabella Motor Sport Club
