1979 was the year of the Repco Reliability Trial, acknowledged as the last great Round Australia Trial and arguably Australia's toughest ever motor sporting event. For me, much of the year was dedicated to competing successfully in that event. Full details of the event are documented in another blogsite here. The entire route can be viewed in detail here and the final results are shown here.
This and related stories were written by me back in 1979 and survived my various moves. They are presented here unchanged.
The story, in a sense, begins in 1977 when Wes Nalder, the Toyota Dealer in Stawell, decided to enter the Singapore Airlines Rally from London to Sydney. Wes had not been involved in rallies for quite a few years, in fact not since the 1970 Ampol Round Australia in which he entered a Corolla. So he asked my brother Noel, who was the local "authority" on rallying, to be his co-driver. I'm sure you could write a book about that event, but what is important here is that Noel and Wes did the "London-to-Sydney" and finished twentieth overall whilst convincingly winning the under 1300cc class. AAMI (effectively Toyota) in Australia gave Wes very little if any support prior to that event, but once successful, they did get involved. The finance basically came from various Victorian Toyota dealers who each gave "a little bit".
Wes and Noel at the finish of the 1977 London Sydney Marathon
Talk of the 1979 "Round Australia" began soon after the Singapore Airlines Rally and by late 1978, Stewart McLeod had formally announced that there would be a Repco Reliability Trial in August 1979. Noel and I had been competing together in the Victorian Rally Championship during 1978 and hoped that we could stay together for the "Repco". Noel discussed it with Wes and various alternative proposals were raised. If insufficient money was raised the "old Corolla" could be rebuilt and Noel and Wes would take it. If AAMI's arm could be twisted, a new car could be obtained. The alternatives were another Corolla or a Celica. The intention was to run a 1600cc engine in a Corolla. If a new Corolla was all that could be obtained, we could attempt to rebuild the "old Corolla" which Noel and I would take and put Wes and someone else in the new one. By far the most favoured alternative was a Celica, basically because of the need to have a crew of three. Noel and I firmly believed that a three man crew would be essential if the event was as difficult as McLeod was making it out to be. In the end result, the event wasn't quite that hard and three two-man crews completed the entire course, but a three man crew was certainly a great advantage.
During early 1979, discussions between Wes and AAMI lead to an agreement that a 2 litre twin cam Celica GT would be obtained from Japan and some additional funding from AAMI would be available to prepare the car further. Wes had had communication with Ove Anderson in Europe about what parts would be required from standard. Wes was also getting a moderate amount of support from various Victorian Toyota Dealers. Our plans involved having the car by May and having Gil Davis do the basic preparation in the form of seam welding, strengthening and suspension. The remainder of the preparation would be handled by Wes and his mechanics in Stawell. Also included in our plans was a survey trip by Noel and I to cover as much of the route from Broken Hill to Eucla as possible. We planned to use the old Corolla and go in the May school holidays.
Towards the end of April, it was becoming apparent that the Celica GT would not arrive in time so Wes began negotiating for a normal Celica. This we obtained in early May. Also in late April, Noel was offered the ride with Peter Brock, which he accepted after discussions with both Wes and myself. I soon had discussions with Wes and contacted Geoff Boyd in Ballarat to offer him the position. Geoff had always had my respect as an excellent navigator as well as being a level-headed competitor and strategist. He has done some driving and is always reasonably fit. Geoff accepted the position almost immediately, together with the stipulation that he never smoked inside the car!
By mid May, the car had been obtained, taken to Stawell and stripped down to a bare shell. It was trailered to Melbourne and the strengthening was done at a placed called TRJ Engineering in Dandenong which Gil had arranged. The engine had partly gone to Motor Improvements for balancing etc. and they also supplied the single Weber carburettor which was fitted to it. Despite Noel's switch of camps, we still did our Birdsville survey run in mid May. Noel had discussed it with George Shepheard who didn't seriously count us as competition and agreed that a mutual exchange of information was not only inevitable, but mutually beneficial.
The car was returned to Stawell by late May and reassembly commenced. On June 2nd, the three Celica entries met in Stawell to discuss servicing arrangements and other related matters. Even by then, the car was beginning to look like a car again! The discussion on that day seemed fruitful and we all went away happy. The plan was for three vehicles on the ground, two supplied by Brian Hilton (an SR5 and the scout car - another rally prepared by Celica) and one supplied by us, another SR5 to be crewed by Steven Baird (Wes' mechanic) and Dick Gill (who had previously serviced for me). The Hamilton crew of Peter Hurrey/David Geddes was entered by Tom Francis Motors and they would contribute a plane. It was to be flown by an experienced pilot, Rod Dyer and carry several mechanics from Hamilton. It remains a disappointment to be me that the plane was never fully utilised like the MHDT one was. However, in retrospect, it was idealistic to plan a shared servicing plan with what turned out to be three quite different level competitors, and the whole system slowly but surely broke down. Certainly by Darwin, we had little to do with each other!
Over the next month, the car neared completion. A roll cage was fitted by KG Engineering in Huntingdale, Melbourne. The fuel tank and sump-guard came from Sydney via Brian Hilton. Lights were Cibie from WL Ryans for nothing. RallyQuip gave us a good deal on seats, Billover Carrera Recliners. The engine was reassembled by the mechanics in Stawell. Suspension parts were returned from Gil and springs, shockers and struts were supplied by Pedders. Twelve Aunger alloy wheels were bought and Wes negotiated a satisfactory price for about 30 Dunlop SP44's.
Taken at Wes' home in Stawell in July.
By the first weekend in July it was time to run in the engine and this was also an opportunity of us all to get together in the car. That weekend is described in the story about Pre Repco Practice Runs. The following Friday the car was brought to Melbourne and fitted with Lumenition electronic ignition. I picked up the car from there and took it home. On the Saturday the car was tuned by Phil Nicholson at his home near my place.
On Sunday morning I left early to meet Geoff at Tooborac. He had been competing in the "Experts" Trial and I met him there about 8.00 am to go and survey the area that the "seeding" Special Stage was to use. We spent about 3 hours driving around the most likely roads familiarising ourselves with the hazards and making some notes. Our impression was one of roughness but it wasn't nearly so bad at competitive speeds three weeks later. We then drove across to Creswick and drove around that area for a bit of a look. There was no point in taking notes there because there were no real hazards - besides, Geoff knows that forest like the back of his hand. I delivered Geoff to his home in Ballarat and drove the car back to Melbourne. The car was returned to Stawell on the Monday.
The following weekend was our final practice run, also covered in the story Pre Repco Practice Runs. That was the last time I drove the car. The next weekend was spent preparing maps, food, a first-aid kit, the winch, clothes and so on. No stone could be left unturned!
Thursday was the day for the first scrutiny including the MHDT cars. Noel was down from Stawell and I went out to the showgrounds to view proceedings. Friday, Noel and I had discussions, checked our maps and compiled whatever information we had. Saturday morning was our turn for scrutiny and I met Wes at the showgrounds together with Geoff. Wes had driven down with the car that morning whilst Geoff had come down the night before and was staying with his parents at Royal Park. We passed scrutiny without drama then returned to the Parkroyal Motel where Hilton and his crew were staying. We spent the morning packing both the Celica and the SR5. Then we had discussions about the first division and who should drive which section. The afternoon was occupied by going across the road to watch Fitzroy play Hawthorn!
The car had to be in impound by 6.00 pm so we duly delivered it to the showgrounds. I took Geoff back to his parents then Wes and I went in search of tea at McDonalds! It was back to the showgrounds at 8.00 pm for the briefing. We learnt very little there except that there were an awful lot of people competing in this event and very few of them knew what they were letting themselves in for. After the briefing we collected the first division service instructions then returned to the Hamilton crew's nearby Motel room for discussions. I dealt out a few ultimatums about the plane - basically the plane was useless unless it could carry tyres, particularly across the Nullabor. I got some guarantee that they would offload a person at Ceduna and replace him with tyres, but it never worked out that way. Wes and Steven Baird stayed at my place that night and had a good night's sleep. The story really begins the next day of course. The full story of the event is told in the Repco Round Australia blogsite and our particular story is contained in comments throughout the blog. In my recollections, I have tried to include almost everything. I don't expect the reader to fully appreciate what it meant to spend about 350 hours dedicated to one goal - getting around Australia - it was no holiday! A shorter summary is provided here.
Me driving the Celica on the final stage of the Repco Round Australia
So why did we do so well - sixth outright and first private entry? Firstly, we had a good car, no, a great car, which was very well prepared. The car really gave us not a single problem which I consider to be bloody remarkable! Secondly, we prepared ourselves in many ways. We were all reasonably fit. We had all done some long distance driving. We had briefed ourselves thoroughly about the likely makeup and route of the event - we had checked all the maps very carefully! Really, the event held no surprises for us except maybe that it was a little easier than we expected. Thirdly, we had practised together in the car - we had all had a drive, a navigate and a ride in the back. Wes and I had done quite a lot of competitive speed driving and were both pretty confident with the car and each other. We had practised changing tyres, we knew how to winch, we knew how to drive the car in sand. Finally, we had a plan of how to attack things especially the critical first division. We knew our limitations - who could do which jobs at which times.
I seriously believe we had prepared better than many of the works crews. Many of them had barely tested their cars and had not practised together as a crew in their car. Peter, Noel and Matt won for the same reasons as we did well. They had practised together and tested their car to destruction (the practice car actually). Noel had thought out of plan just as we had - the event held no surprises from him either. Of course they had a massive service backup, they were looked after better than us in the breaks, and of course, their car was much quicker.
Still, we should have finished fourth. There is only one reason why we didn't - TYRES! If there was one thing I would do differently it would be to spend the extra dollars to buy half a dozen "proper" tyres like the Safari Dunlops. Others had them and didn't puncture on the Nullabor, but they cost twice as much as our tyres. But all we needed was one set to get us from Immarna to Kalgoorlie. We could have saved two hours there with the right tyres - we had the car and power to set the same times as Watson who had the right tyres.
Toyota advertisement after the event
