1993 Esanda Rally of Canberra

[Daveee]

This is from the January 1994 issue of Fast Fours and Rotaries. (Whilst it still contained decent content!).
The article got a mention on the cover, as well as a small picture of Mr Ordynski in flight. The whole article took up 5 pages including pictures of Ordynski, Guest, Bates and Monster Tajima.

Thought some people might be interested seeing as ROC has just passed so here it is!


Sticks & Stones

The forests of Canberra saw fire trails transformed to rally tracks as the foothills came to life echoing the scratchings, babbles and splats of the finest turbocharged, traction-hungry rally cars in Oz.

Story & Photos by Joshua Dowling

Sixty-four competitors descended on Canberra for the 15th and final round of the 1993 Australian Rally Championship, the Esanda Rally of Canberra. The event proved rigorous. Three-hundred and thirty-eight kilometres of competitive stages claimed just under half the field – 64 teams started only 38 finished.

Ralliart driver Ed Ordynski steered his Group A Galant VR4 to victory, returning the Mitsubishi the podium in the process. Ross Dunkerton won the Esanda in ’89, ’90, and ’91 about a VR4, while Subaru interrupted with a win in ’92.

Speaking of victory, Ordynski commented, “The car ran like clockwork. We made no mistakes, had no mechanical problems.” The heavy (over 1300 kilos) war-horse Galant VR4 was built tough by Ralliart for the Asia Pacific Rally Championship. Esanda conditions were an easy ask. Ordynski’s lead contract and expanded like an elastic band with Bates winning nine Special Stages, but by the end of day two Ordynski had 1 minute and 44 seconds to spare. “There were a couple of times where I was slithering around corners using the handbrake but by that stage I had established a comfortable margin and could afford to back off a little.”

Unlike the front-running contender chasing, Ordynski chose to hit Pierces Humps hard. “I lost about a second on that jump. Neal had a better approach to it. He would have been faster than me there because I launched it while Neal kept it on the ground,” added Ordynski.

Ordynski and navigator Mark Stacey won 13 of the 22 special stages to win by a 3 minute and 6 second difference over Neal Bates and Coral Taylor; however, both had plenty to celebrate. Ordynski won Esanda but Bates’ second place outright gave him the points necessary to clinch the 1993 Australian Rally Championship title and prevented Rob Herridge, defending ’91 and ’92 ARC champ, from a Subaru trifecta.

Bates’ Toyota experienced a little more trouble than expected. After a great start on Friday making up almost half a minute on Herridge, Bates used local road knowledge to his advantage. However, he made one minor mistake and lost about 10 seconds in SS3 when he ignored navigator Taylor’s instructions and braked heavily unnecessarily. Neal misread a straight for a shorter similar section of road.

After a great day one drive, Bates hit bad luck. “On Saturday morning the left-hand-front tyre puncture on SS5 and we drove on it to the end of the stage. On SS6 we broke a strut top and drove on it until we got to the end of that stage. Then we broke a sway bar on SS7 and couldn’t fully repair it until SS10,” said Bates.

Unlike Ordynski’s spectacular approach to Pierces Humps, Bates chose not to jump. “We were there to win the championship so we weren’t taking any risks. I believe that driving over the jump was just as quick as getting airborne,” said Bates about his driving with mechanical sympathy.

Michael Guest, on the other hand, drove extremely hard all weekend to catch the tails of Ordynski’s more powerful Galant and Bates’ Celica. Guest was in the ‘groove’ to finish third outright after being seeded in 12th position in his ominous black Group N Lancer RS-E.

For Guest it was a fitting result to the season. Fresh from a win at the Premier Panel Beating Rally of NSW and a third place outright behind the Group A cars of Bates and Ordynski in the Southern Safari Rally in Tasmania, the floor-covering contractor from NSW looks set to have a positive 1994 season.

Missing from the limlight was ’91-’92 ARC Champion Rob Herridge. He and co-driver Rod Horsley had a rally they would rather forget. The car fell off its jack while trying to replace a punctured tyre and dropped to 49th place on day one. Despite regaining 4th spot on day two. On day three the car suffered radiator problems after hitting a dirt bank. Herridge managed 18th.

Blessed with clear skies but hampered with unusually hot weather the cars went off at one minute intervals on days one and three, but were separated by two minutes intervals on day two due to the extra length of the stages. Casualties came hard and fast.

Craig Stallard’s blown head gasket in SS1 ended his rally. “I was doing between six and seven grand and didn’t grab much higher than second gear. The heat, dust and winding road meant that the car wasn’t getting enough air and it cooked,” said a disappointed Stallard, whose New Zealand Rally result was more reflective of his talents.

Even more disappointed were Queenslanders Warren Carrigan and Hugh Reardon-Smith, who made the journey south only to roll their TX3 Turbo 4WD on SS2.

The second day saw morning overcast weather turn to torrential rain. The only alteration to the rally was the Kowen Forest SS9 and SS14. Rain had made an already ‘boggy’ course impassable. A new route was selected.

The Esanda also saw its fair share of privateers. A flotilla of Datsun 1600s, 260Zs, and an Escort gilled the rear of the field. Further up were to Wankel powered Mazdas. Jon Waterhouse drove his 12A bridge ported RX-7 to an incredible class win and 11th outright. Not without incident though, “We beat our nearest competitor (1600 Donohue/Stephens) by 5 minutes. We were behind car 17 (260Z Laverick/Lyons) by about 2 minutes but his engine expired on the last leg. Fortunately our engine was a little more reliable. We revved the 12A the entire distance of the rally up to 9500rpm but at a price. We went though 20 spark plugs in 338 kilometers of competitive stages, but it got us a good result,” said Waterhouse.

Unfortunately, the RX-7 consumed five Enkei rims, two of which bent on the tar stages. The Waterhouse RX-7 runs a Mazda close-ratio 5-speed with a 1:1 fifth gear and a 5.1 diff. “This doesn’t do much for the top end, but the acceleration is unbelievable,” added Waterhouse.

Also rotary powered but plagued with problems was an RX-2 sedan driven by the Geysen brothers, Jamie and Bart. “We had problems with our brand new five-speed Hollinger gearbox. It threw out five extension housing seals,” said Jamie. The service crew swapped gearbox oil six times to try and combat the problem to no avail. In addition to two blown mufflers, the Geysen’s had an ‘off’.

“Friday was good but we got caught in the corrugated tracks left by the four-wheel-drive cars. The car was thrown off the road and into a fallen tree. We damaged a lower control arm and drag link and lost half an hour before we could get to service,” added Jamie.

At the end of day three the dust laid to rest. The babble and splat of rally cars weaved their way to the finish podium. Sunday evening, the normally deserted Police Driver Training Complex came out of hibernation to the scratchings of Neal Bates’ obligatory championship-winning ‘donut’ and the pop of Orydnski’s champagne bottle.

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Karl Willett
Bah...doesn't mention my blown donk in the Trueno

Nor Rob coming close to polevolting over the finish line on a droped tailshaft

[Marty]

Originally posted by Daveee
Sixty-four competitors descended on Canberra for the 15th and final round of the 1993 Australian Rally Championship, the Esanda Rally of Canberra.

15 Rounds for the ARC ???? Is this correct?

338 Competitive!! Makes the Rallysprint series sound like Kindergarten!

[Bede]

Yep. There were different grades for events.

For example

a small event was worth X points
Something like Rally of Melbourne was 2X
RoC was 3X
and Rally Aust. was 4X

This meant that within each state, there were two or three events with ARC status, but most were only worth the minimum of points.

Someone correct me please if I am wrong...

Edit: Karl's memory is better than mine.

[Raynman]

The C5 were the lower level
C10 were the better ones in the state (eg Alpine)
I think C15 was ROC and Rally Aus a C20


You could effectively be competing for a title and not actually compete in the same event.

[beanpole]

I think you guys are after the word 'coefficient'?

What an interesting system that was......



Kev

[Paul]

Hey Karl, Last ARC event held over at Wagga was a C5 I think as Jenny and myself played 000 with Kevin Roben the CofC.

I think we had a super special through the park at Tumbarumba, it also poured down on the way back to Wagga. Yes Carbost Forest is Phat, although the transports where quite long compared to Canberra but did enjoy it though.

[AV1611]

Hi "Paul". Now I see the connection. You must be Paul Tams? If so, why not tell them all about your adventure when working on that rally? SO at TJ, where the TJ just happened to be the Hume Highway... Sorry, I couldn't resist dobbing you in!

[Paul]

Yeah Yeah Mr Smoker and do you have to bring up bad memories as well. That little incident was on the transport back to Wagga trying to chase Mike B. who was in the zero I think.

[Lyndall]

Originally posted by Paul
Yes Carbost Forest is Phat, although the transports where quite long compared to Canberra but did enjoy it though.

Hmmm, short memory Paul! Liaison distance from Wagga to the Carabost stages was approx. 60 kms, which is pretty similar to the liaison distance Sutton Road service park to Lowden/Main Tower stages last Sunday in RoC! Long liaisons are okay if the roads used in the competitive stages are worth it once you get there - which they certainly are for both the Carabost and Captains Flat stages.

Carabost = God's country. As stated on the Rally of Wagga highway billboard and posters we produced each year. Great as a blind rally (most accurate and comprehensive road book I have EVER seen - courtesy of Greg Day - and my thoughts confirmed by Possum Bourne and Rodger Freeth), and awesome as a pacenoted event.

Shame the W&DCC ran out of interested CoC's and key officials.

[Davie]

Interested Lyndall???

I'd love to organise one running from Tumba, out into north Murraguldrie, maybe not North Murraguldrie on second thought, even back into Bago and Green hills.

Just gotta fing the time to sit down and do the appropriate courses.

[Lyndall]

Originally posted by Davie
Just gotta fing the time to sit down and do the appropriate courses.

I've got a few of the Rally of Wagga road books at home, plus maybe one or two Tumut rally road books from the late '80's (the handwritten, 12 instructions to a page, variety that Ray "Dossie" Carr used to prepare) if they are of any help to you.

[Lyndall]

Originally posted by Karl Willett
I'm sure it would have been ... I've still got the hangover

IIRC, you and Greg Austin finished your pub crawl on sunrise just as all the crews were heading out to recce. The two of you sheepishly surfaced at Rally HQ about 11:30am before sauntering out to the forest to check out the pansy art of pacenoting. Returned to Rally HQ by approx. 2pm, giving you a total of about 1 hour driving the forest stages.

So how did you and Greg fare in the rally itself?

[Matt Dyne]

Lyndall/Davie,

Somewhere in my collection I've got a road book and virtually everything else you would need to do a rally in the Tumut area that I think Wayne Kenny put together about 4 years ago.

It's virtually a rally ready to go. That was the first thing suggested to me before I decided to run the Dell instead.

I'll have a sniff around and see if I can find it.

Failing that, I'm sure either WK or Adrian may have the relevant information for you.

Might be an easy start!!

MAtt

[Davie]

I'd prefer not to use Dossie's road books, long story.

I should have a heap of old road books from around Tumut, some were Dossie's, some were Phil Barton's. I think Louie Doon will still have them all stretching back to the late '80's.

I'd love to use Bago, it hasn't been used for at least 15 years, Adrian should still remember the last event that used it, Phil Barton directed, and used the old Laurel Hill prison as a base.

I'll put my head together with Marty and Dave at some stage to get the officials courses under way.