Some rallying reflections (with pics & You Tube video), WRC, PWRC, APRC, ARC

In the Australian Rally Championship, rules were changed at the start of this season to allow the car number stickers to be changed to a new style. The car on the left is flying through the air in the 2006 Rally of Melbourne and shows the old style door sticker (car 16, in this case).


As you might be able to guess, I like getting shots of rally cars jumping and at speed, your timing has to be pretty good to get the best shot.





Now it is possible in the Australian Championship to have the type of car number sticker like the rally photo above or the WRC style car number as seen in the example here of Petter Solberg flying at Rally Australia 2006. The WRC has had these type of car numbers for a while. While the Subaru World Rally Team doesn't run big ads on their cars, they do have the 5 Subaru stars and the big yellow swirl. If the car number was the old style, most of the yellow swirl on the front door would be hidden.








But the biggest advantage for most teams other than Subaru is that the smaller numbers allow more space for advertising. Another theory with the smaller number is that the larger numbers spent a lot of time under mud and dust anyway so they might as well replace them with smaller numbers and allow more advertising if they keep the car clean.


Here's a pic (left) of the late & great Colin McRae in action in the 2005 Rally Australia illustrating my point perfectly. Unfortunately earlier this year, Colin was killed in a helicopter crash but he was one of world rallying's superstars and this particular event was typical McRae. He was driving for the unfashionable and under-resourced Skoda team and he drove like a demon. Unlike some other stars who had issues (Seb Loeb crashed into a tree, Marcus Gronholm had a mechanical failure and Petter Solberg hit a kangaroo at warp factor 5), Colin stayed on the road and out of trouble while still being quick and was heading towards a podium finish. On the final day he had some gearbox and clutch issues and his team did some work on it at the final service but they didn't get it done in time and Colin was out.


And then last year, Colin didn't have a regular WRC drive but got a gig after Seb Loeb went mountain biking and broke his arm. Colin competed in the rally prior to Australia where his team make some bad tyre choices and he suffered a mechanical failure. The team decided that despite Colin's experience in Australia and his special drive in the Skoda the year before, he didn't get the drive last year in Australia. Xevi Pons (when did he change from Xavier to Xevi, by the way?) got the ride instead to my disappointment but to be fair to Xevi, he did come fourth in the event.



Digressioning slightly but on a similar theme, there is one thing that most of the various "Insert Name here" Subaru Rally Teams that is pretty constant. The cars are painted in what I called "World Rally Car Blue" with the yellow swirl and stars. So you can tell pretty easy that the car is part of the official Subaru factory team, despite the fact that there are many WRX's in rallying at WRC, National, State and Club level rallying. The photo on the left of car 61 was at the 2005 Rally Australia with multiple Australian and APRC winner Cody Crocker piloting his Subaru Rally Team Australia entry for the last time. That was a sad moment in Australian rallying when SRTA pulled out.



Another example of the same colour scheme was the Toshi Arai Subaru Rally Team Japan version (pictured here in the 2005 Rally Australia also). Toshi usually is right at the top of the PWRC but with Petter Solberg and Australian Chris Atkinson on the WRC stage, Toshi is seemingly stuck in PWRC or APRC.Speaking of the APRC, I heard the other day via The Dogbox that the APRC will be split into two divisions for people who aren't doing the entire APRC championship.











For the last two seasons, Cody Crocker (another Aussie rally star doing the J-O-B overseas) has dominated the APRC but not everyone might want to do the whole APRC so there will be an Pacific Cup and an Asia cup in addition to the entire championship. The Pacific Cup would consist of rallies in Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia. The Asia Cup would consist of events in Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and China. It will be good to see more APRC cars in Australia for the Rally of Canberra as well.








So in theory if there was no clash between the WRC and the APRC (one could hope!) and someone like Chris Atkinson (photos - jumping in 2006, cornering in 2005) wanted more seat time (and Subaru wanted more testing time), he could do either part of the APRC in addition to the WRC.Imagine an APRC with people like Chris Atkinson, Cody Crocker, Simon Evans (it would be good to see Simon go overseas for an event or two!) Toshi Arai and possibly the most enthusiastic person I've seen at a rally, Ryo Funaki, thrown into the mix. Maybe it is time to forget about PWRC and promote the various regional championships like the APRC.





I'll always remember Ryo's angle parking effort on the finishing ramp at the 2006 Rally Australia (photo left). By the time he arrived as car 82, most of the spectators had left but I hung around as long as possible as it was the last Rally Australia in Perth (stupid Western Australian Government!).


Now the idea is to stop at the top of the ramp and the MC talks to the driver or the navigator and then they drive off. But not Mr Funaki! He went over the top of the ramp and angle parked it. So instead of reversing the car, the MC went to the car halfway down the ramp! Classic stuff!








Preparing this article I went over some of my pics and it brought back memories of the two Rally Australia events I went to. Then there are shots like this one where I wanted to show cars coming and going from the service park like this Petter Solberg pic (left). Note the motorcycle cop in the background. I don't think that I noticed him in the background but imagine the cop pulling Petter over and asking something like "who do you think you are, Petter Solberg?" and Petter saying in his accent "well actually, I am." I hope that the SWRT have a better year next year. Chris is coming along nicely but SWRT will want to see some results from him and Petter has had a couple of frustrating years and you can see his frustration. I'm going to miss the WRX WRC shape. I don't want the car to look like a Focus or a C4!



The Sunday morning during Rally Australia last year was really short (as usual) and I'd be only able to see one complete pass and then maybe the top few WRC cars before going back to Perth for the podium and presentation. I decided to have a sleep in and then head to the service park. I got a good range of shots like Petter (above) and some damage to Chris Atkinson's car (left) and some car washing shots as well. It also allowed me to get some repeat shots of cars at low speed without having to move far! Plus it shows the barely photographed transports.







It is sad that it left Perth and won't be held next year either. Hopefully, 2009 might be the year. Next year I might go to New Zealand and kill two birds with the one stone. I haven't been overseas before and during my Indy/Rally Australia trip last year, it was actually quicker to fly from Brisbane to New Zealand than my trip from Brisbane to Perth. However, the Perth/WA trip was a good one. I'd like to spend a few weeks in Kiwiland and I've heard that the NZ round of the WRC is a special one.







But do they have any water splashes like this one at Perth last year? Here's 2006 Rally Australia winner Mikko Hirvonen (top) and a PWRC car (left and bottom) going through a water splash. It was a favourite spot of mine except that for the WRC guys it got super crowded and you had to get there a lot earlier. When the WRC guys leave, so do a lot of the spectators and then I'm free to move around to another spot to get different angles. All of these water splash shots were taken at the same place albeit from different angles.







I love this shot of one of the Argentinean PWRC cars sideways (left) in the water splash and being totally surrounded by water. Once the top WRC crews went by, it was good to see some cars attacking the water with gusto. The section of the stage was really interesting, actually. The section was based on a large hill. At the top was the infamous Bunnings Jumps which is where the Rally Australia jumping shots were taken. It was a massive walk up the hill but so worth it. I've put in a You Tube video (see below) from a very wet 1996 that shows the section perfectly.














So I'd go up there first in the morning while I had the energy and stay up there for the first pass through. Then when the stage was repeated, I'd be at the bottom of the hill at the water splash. From the bottom of the hill at the water splash, you could see the jumps and then there would be a couple of corners and then through the water splash and then immediately go through a boggy left hander and the mud would fly. And because the event was the last one in Perth, I thought I'd get some different angles of the cars but also I got some shots of the cars with the Perth advertising banners in the background. You can see the mud flying here at the left hander with Aussie John Murray Junior driving with his window open. At the top of the hill prior to this shot, Murray Junior did the biggest jump that I saw at Bunnings that day. I jokingly thought at the time that he'd have to call Air Traffic Control for permission to land.





Speaking of Australia, congratulations to Simon & Sue Evans who won the Australian Drivers and Co-Driver championships for the second year in a row. The team (Toyota Racing Development) won the Manufacturer championship again.


Using their Group N (P) car from 2006 (pictured here at the 2006 Rally of South Australia), Simon and Sue dominated the 2007 Australian Rally Championship. They won all 6 rallies and won all 12 heats. An outstanding effort by the crew and the TRD team. It is believed that next year, Simon will be driving a S2000 car so it will be interesting to see how he goes there. I hope that the Ford team sort out their dramas and it would be good to see Mitsubishi back as well. And will anyone else join Toyota and Ford with S2000 cars?





Going through some photos brings back from great memories from the event and rallying in general in such a short time of me going to events. It is only just over 2 years since I went to my first event and since then I've been a spectator, photographer, navigator, starter and other official jobs. There may be one more event that I am going to this year (Rally de Femmes in December) and then there will be a break before 2008 and everything starts again.



So while I never had official photographer accreditation like the lady struggling to stay out of the water in 2005 (left), I am quite happy with my shots nonetheless. You can see more shots on my website here. If you enjoyed reading this article and seeing the pics as much as I enjoyed putting it together, please comment!