2009 ALPINE RALLY SPECIAL

- 20 pages of news and photos -

November 2009

VINTAGE PORTMANwins fifth Alpine Rally

VINTAGE PORTMANwins fifth Alpine Rally

Story and Photos by Peter Whitten

Geoff Portman admitted that he and his team had been planning to win the Alpine

Rally for two and a half years, so to cross the finish line in Lakes Entrance and secure his fifth Alpine Rally win was a momentous occasion.

Portman’s fifth win was bettered by his co-driver, Ross Runnalls, who secured his eighth Alpine success – a record that

.... having blitzed the field on the tarmac, Portman’s team changed the suspension on the Commodore in just 12 minutes ....is unlikely to ever be beaten.

The famous Alpine Rally is the most eagerly awaited event on the Australian rallying calendar. Once held in the Alpine country of north east Victoria, a ban on the use of softwood plantations (pine forests) meant that the Alpine switched locations in 2003 and is now based at Lakes Entrance, on the Victorian east coast.

2009 ALPINE RALLY SPECIAL

Only held once every two years, the Alpine usually attracts a full field of over 100 competitors, and the 2009 version was no exception, with 113 cars on the entry list.

In a first for the event, the rally began with two short stages on Friday afternoon, with the combined stage times being used to determine the

l Brad Goldsbrough (left and below) was spectacular on his way to second, while Dave Gaines (above left) was 11th in his Datsun 240K. Geoff Portman (above) won his 5th Alpine Rally.

.... having blitzed the field on the tarmac, Portman’s team changed the suspension on the Commodore in just 12 minutes ....

starting order for the rally proper, which started on Saturday morning.

Porsche 911 driver, Jeff David, was the quickest man, ahead of the out-of-retirement Coffs Harbour driver Wayne Hoy in a Datsun 1600, Geoff Portman in a Holden Commodore, and the Datsun 1600s of NSW drivers Carl Stewart and Kari Dirickx.

The event consisted of 26 stages. Seven were held on Saturday morning, seven on Saturday afternoon, with a further five on Saturday night. The event concluded with seven stages on

Sunday, for a total competitive distance of 355 kilometres.

Portman and Runnalls set up their victory in dominant fashion on the tarmac stage on Saturday night. The team knew that the 33km stage was going to be vital in the overall results, and they had planned long and hard. The crew had fitted tarmac suspension to the Commodore prior to the stage, and with tarmac tyres fitted it was obvious that Portman was going to attack.

With Hoy having retired with a loose

2009 ALPINE RALLY SPECIAL

l Jeff David (left-below) lost his victory chance with a puncture on Saturday. Steph Richards (above) and dad Mark finished 27th in an Escort, ahead of the Fords of Kim Harper (above left) and Gerald Schofield (centre).

flywheel and David having dropped back after hitting a bank and puncturing a tyre, Portman was now the first car on the road, and if he was to maintain an advantage, he needed to ensure he was first on the road for the gravel stages that followed.

With no wind, it could be where the rally was won or lost in the dusty conditions.

Having blitzed the field on the tarmac, Portman’s team changed the suspension on the Commodore in just 12 minutes, and with the car back in gravel trim, he set off into the night. Having trailed Paul Batten (Datsun 1600) and Brad Goldsbrough by the best part of a minute going into the night, the Commodore driver emerged with a

.... 2007 winners Darryn Snooks and

Matt de Vaus had a miserable event

in their Stanza and could manage no

better than 19th ....lead of over a minute and a half. It was vintage Portman.

From there the two-time Australian Champion maintained his lead to

l Jack Monkhouse and Dale Moscatt suffered a myriad of problems in their Datsun 180B SSS, eventually finishing in 9th place.

l Andrew Bell proved he’s a star of the future with a fine 5th in his Nissan Bluebird.

l Stuart Lawless and Darcy O’Connor thrill the spectators in their

Nissan FJ20-powered Ford Escort - a car built in New Zealand.

l Andrew Bell proved he’s a star of the future with a fine 5th in his Nissan Bluebird.

take an impressive one minute and 37 second victory over Goldsbrough, with a recovering David third in the Porsche. Batten had long since departed the scene after breaking the gearbox on his Datsun during the tarmac stage.

Both Goldsbrough and David (and the rest of the field) lost considerable time in the dusty night stages, something the Alpine has become renowned for. Portman admitted that it was just luck

that he ended up as car one on the road, but he ensured he took the chance with both hands.

In fourth place after a long and arduous event were brothers Ross and Scott Allan in a Nissan Bluebird, just clear of the similar car of Andrew Bell (son of Hugh) and Correne Seabrook. Bell had been fourth going into the final stage, but dropped a place to fifth after slipping off the road.

l Bruce and Julia Field drove one of the event’s most unusual rally cars, a Mercedes Benz 280 S. Bruce’s mum used to drive him to school in the car, adding to the uniqueness.

2009 ALPINE RALLY SPECIAL

Former runner-up, Kari Dirickx, was sixth in his Datsun 1600, followed by Michael Conway (Escort), Richard Galley (Datsun 260Z), Jack Monkhouse (Datsun 180B SSS) and Brian Semmens (Nissan 200SX).

The pace in this year’s Alpine was incredibly fast right from the outset, with more drivers than ever being in

with a realistic chance of victory. For many, accidents or mechanical problems ensured they were out of the running long before the finish of the event.

Wayne Bell retired the pretty Fiat Abarth 131 replica with gearbox woes, Carl Stewart crashed his Datsun 1600, Grant Heywood rolled his Datsun, then blew the diff, and many others who might

l Mike Conway and Jenny Cole (left) were the best of the Escorts in 7th, but it wasn’t such a good event for 2007 winner Darryn Snooks (above) who was 19th. Ross and Scott Allan (below) impressed in their Bluebird, taking fourth place.

2009 ALPINE RALLY SPECIAL

otherwise have been in contention were well down the leaderboard.

2007 winners Darryn Snooks and Matt de Vaus had a miserable event in their pretty Datsun Stanza and could manage no better than 19th, Jesse Robison had a couple of time-consuming offs and was 24th, and Brett Middleton had a last day ‘off’ in his Honda Civic and had to be towed back on to the road by another competitor.

But amongst the misfortune, there were some noteworthy performances. 1984 ARC winners, Dinta and Kate Officer, were 14th in their underpowered Galant; regular ARC co-driver, Matt Lee, was 21st driving his V8 Commodore; 16-year old Steph Richards guided her father, Mark, to 27th in an Escort; and Kim Harper took the honours in his friendly ongoing battle with Bob Watson. Harper’s Escort took victory over Watson’s Datsun, which expired with head gasket failure on the final day.

And then there was 83 year old Ken Harper (father of Kim), who drove a Mk1 Escort to a brilliant 65th place.

The Historic Rally Association, under the direction of Stuart Lister, Andrew Roberts and Jodi Mann, had again provided an event that the competitors will come out of the woodwork to compete in. Running a three-day event

l Peter Riseborough and Kaye Kilsby (below) were 45th in their Datsun Stanza, but Ty Hooper and Tara Mowett (above) weren’t so lucky, rolling their works replica Stanza.

l ARC runner-up, Glen Raymond, navigated for Paul Batten, and they led the event until their Datsun 1600’s gearbox failed on the tarmac stage on Saturday night.

is a monumental task, but with the help of hundreds of volunteer officials, they made it happen once again.

As competitors, officials and spectators wash the dust from their bodies, cars and cameras, all will now drift into post-Alpine depression, knowing that it’s two long years before they can once again savour the challenge that is an Alpine Rally.

2009 ALPINE RALLY SPECIAL

2009 Yokohama Alpine Rally - top 10 results1. Geoff Portman Ross Runnalls Holden Commodore 222m00s2. Brad Goldsbrough Arron Topliff Datsun 1600 223.373. Jeff David Grant Geelan Porsche 911 225.564. Ross Allan Scott Allan Nissan Bluebird 230.085. Andrew Bell Correne Seabrook Nissan Bluebird 230.216. Kari Dirickx Tim Batten Datsun 1600 230.387. Mike Conway Jenny Cole Ford Escort Mk2 232.138. Richard Galley Mark Neary Datsun 260Z 232.509. Jack Monkhouse Dale Moscatt Datsun 180B SSS 233.1710. Brian Semmens Dan Parry Nissan 200SX RV 236.24

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l Photographer John Doutch gets a close up shot of Steuart Snooks in action on Day 1.

l Wayne Bell looked the goods in the pretty Fiat Abarth 131 replica, but the gearbox let him down on the final day.

Alpine Rally Hot Shots

2009 Alpine Rally - 1st OutrightGeoff Portman / Ross RunnallsHolden Commodore

Photo by Peter Whitten

2009 Alpine Rally - 2nd OutrightBrad Goldsbrough / Arron TopliffDatsun 1600

Photo by Peter Whitten

2009 Alpine Rally - 3rd OutrightJeff David / Grant GeelanPorsche 911

Photo by Peter Whitten

2009 Alpine RallySteuart Snooks / Rob WilsonFord Escort RS2000

Photo by Peter Whitten

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Alpine Rally? Would you like to see more

reports in this format?Tell us what you think.

Click here to complete our survey

2009 ALPINE RALLY SPECIAL

The Alpine Rally is unique in that it is regarded both as an endurance event where car preparation and

durability are paramount, and also a sprint event that encourages drivers to drive as though speed was a pre-requisite, never mind the duration.

This year’s Yokohama Tyres Alpine Rally was one such event, and many crews were determined to chance their luck by going hard on the first of the event’s three days. Just how hard they wanted to go was obvious on the Friday afternoon’s prologue to determine starting positions for the remainder of the rally.

Powerful cars abounded in the rally. There were some incredibly ‘grunty’ Datsun 1600s, particularly the immaculate red Datsun P510 of Sydney’s Brad Goldsbrough, which fared so well (second outright) in New Zealand’s Otago Rally earlier this year.

Previous Alpine pacesetters Kari Dirickx, Paul Batten and Carl Stewart obviously had sufficient horsepower to make an impression on the leaderboard, as did the relatively unknown crew of Ross and Scott Allan in a Nissan Bluebird.

But it was Jeff David’s incredible Porsche 911, a car not usually recognised as a forest fighter that seemed a likely winner, given the car’s performance in earlier Alpines. Potent, strong and seemingly unburstable, everyone knew that he would be the man to beat.

Yet picking a winner was never going to be easy. Wayne Bell made his second recent

Alpine appearance in Bill Dunn’s pretty Fiat Abarth 131 and, given an ounce of luck, the former works Hyundai driver was in with a shot at victory. Last year’s winner, Darryn Snooks, was yet another Datsun driver who could be relied on for a consistently fast drive, his Datsun Stanza both fast and strong.

Ford Escorts made up a substantial number of entries in 2009, led by the “BDA-on-steroids” Mk.2 of Gerald Schofield, which was reputed to be delivering more than 300 horsepower, and the Nissan FJ20-engined Mk.2 of Stuart Lawless that was expected to be on the pace.

Mike Conway’s Mk.2 was also a contender, albeit an unusual one in that it ran a four-door body shell rather than the normal two-door version. Also expected to up the ante was Steuart Snooks in his version that showed considerable promise from the flag drop.

In Datsun 260Zs were local hotshots Jesse and Sam(antha) Robison, Queenslander Richard Galley, and Mark Millar/Dion Clayton. Yet another Nissan was to prove competitive in the hands of another Queenslander, Dave Gaines, an unlikely but supremely competitive Datsun 240K. So you can see it would have been a game person to predict a winner from that lot. And then there was the Portman Commodore.

Geoff Portman and his dedicated team had put an enormous amount of effort into bullet-proofing the early model Commodore, even going so far as conducting a mid-event

service with all the trappings in the forest just nights before the start.

Similar to a Bathurst pit stop, the shakedown proved just how serious the dual Australian Champion was. The choice of a 6-cylinder Nissan-engined Commodore was an unusual one, but Portman had previously run, unsuccessfully, a V8 Commodore, but swapped back to the six after a decision was made to concentrate on making both the car and the mechanicals reliable.

According to Portman, the six was a much nicer car to drive than the bent eight – more forgiving and a better overall practice. But during a year’s development and testing, quite a few pundits wrote off Portman’s choice, citing the car as unreliable and just too big and unwieldy.

And could it match the poise and balance, not to mention the power of the much more nimble Datsuns and Escorts?

In the end, the Commodore proved to be just the right tool to tackle the job. Yes, it was slower than many of the other cars, and yes, a dust-free run helped enormously, as did Jeff David’s time consuming puncture on day two.

But it was the bullet-proof reliability and an experienced crew that brought home the bacon and recorded the victory in what is recognised as Australia’s toughest event. Perhaps Commodores will, in future, be regarded as a serious rally car after all. It does, though, take a champion driver to drive one.

- Jeff Whitten

Red hot pace for Alpine

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