London Classic Marathon Rally Part 2

Posted on 22nd Jul 2014

In part two of Chris Palmer undertaking the gruelling Sydney to London Classic Marathon Rally in his beloved 1967 Mustang, he went from the beautiful Barossa to the final day of racing in Australia.

If you haven’t already, read part 1 here.

April 17: Day 6 and it was out of Barossa in the morning and travelling to Port Augusta. There were some very fast stages with a lot of big dips and jumps. There were a few small crashes and the guys overtook their first car – a very fast 4-cylinder Volvo. They made it back, to control the car overheating. The end result was no front indicators, watts link bent, RRS front nut striped and too much camber on the wheel. Mind you, they looked like all the others in the car park that night. A couple of local Mustang members helped them during the night. Kevin arranged a thermostat and another couple organised a pub to go to for tea.

April 18: Day 7 involved a round trip, leaving Port Augusta, through the Bunyeroo Gorge, Moralana Gorge, Kanyaka and back for the night at Port Augusta. One big day! They completed the first 40km stage and found at the end of this stage the shockie towers were about to punch through the top and hit the engine. The days of Windex and tyre shine were over! Before they could head back into Port Augusta, which was about 250kms away, they had to change the back brake pads in the F250 and fix a puncture on the trailer. Then they were off again. Team Palmer came into a little town called Hawkin and Philpott was hungry! As they were pulling up they noticed a workshop open called "Chris's Garage". Chris went over to see if they could do repairson the Mustang. The guy said ``no problems’’. They just have to do it ourselves. They had everything they needed to fabricate new support panels up under the towers. They had to weld in the right portapower to push strut towers back off the engine, then they made up a cross brace. The owner went to tea and left the guys to it. Good job by Philpott and the crew! It was 10.20pm by the time they got back to their accommodation, ready for a 6am start the next day.

April 19: Out of Port Augusta on Day 8, checking out the great Nullabor then ending the day at Border Village.

April 20: On day 9, the guys travelled to dusty Kalgoorlie. They had a very long day with another early start. They had what Chris regarded as ``a stupid time change of 45 minutes backwards’’ and Chris told a couple of the older blokes the wrong time to set their alarms so they called them the time geniuses! The first long stage there were big mounds of rocks and ruts and they ended up pulling the bonnet pins out and wrecking the other strut. They were heading to Perth and Chris had a good mate of his, Rusty, going into Sydney to pick up some new struts from RRS who were going in specially to open up for the guys. Then Rusty was planning to fly over with the parts. The poor old Mustang was taking a beating on the rally roads.

April 21: By day 10, they were able to leave Kalgoorlie and travel up through Lake Goonagarrie to finish at York.The guys had to miss some stages so they could fix the car ready for the European leg using the new struts flown in by Rusty. They carried out the repairs in another well-equipped workshop lined up by one of Jason White’s mates, Simon Seppi. whose mate was away but still let them use his workshop. It was a fantastic offer and greatly appreciated by them. The car was ready to go on the plane today and looking and running better than ever. Philpott has done another huge amount of work.

April 22: Day 11 was the final day of racing in Australia. It saw the guys finish up in Perth for a tiny break and then Chris and Philpott headed to Turkey to kick the European stage off on day 15 (April 26) leaving Ron and Paul in Australia for a bit of R&R. Better roads and foreign countries were what the boys were looking forward to ahead