Please discuss here all your remarks and pose your questions about all racing series, except Formula One. Both technical and other questions about GP2, Touring cars, IRL, LMS, ...
Here is a ~40 year old doco following the 'Heatway Rally', which pitted the 'works' Ford Escort of Hannu Mikkola/Jim Porter
against the best rally competition down-under.. Mikkola expressed surprise at the competitive speed shown..
.. by Holden Dealer Team rally ace Colin Bond in the GTR XU1 Torana.. ..& reckoned they'd go alright in Europe..
Ed Hilary on being 1st to top Mt Everest,
(& 1st to do a surface traverse across Antarctica,
in good Kiwi style - riding a Massey Ferguson farm
tractor - with a few extemporised mod's to hack the task).
The 'John Player Motorsport Yearbook 1974' P.298 - has the following passage relevant to this topic..
"...undoubtedly the year's biggest motoring event, from the public's view at least, is the Heatway Rally.
Like Australia's Southern Cross Rally (won for the 3rd time in 1973 by Andrew Cowan), the Heatway is the
country's one chance of ranging its best local drivers against the top internationals.
But with Hannu Mikkola & Jim Porter entered for the 1973 event, there was little doubt about the outcome.
Or so it seemed.
Australian Colin Bond, driving a Holden Torana XU1 with co-driver George Shepheard, was quicker than
Mikkola on a number of the ice stages, & it was only after Bond had gone off the road & dropped to 27th
on the 1st night that the Finn was able to relax "& drive at 95%".
After the event, in which the Australian worked through the field to a final 4th place, Mikkola made himself
very popular with the local press by saying that if Bond went to Europe he could quickly get up among the top 5."
"Well, we knocked the bastard off!"
Ed Hilary on being 1st to top Mt Everest,
(& 1st to do a surface traverse across Antarctica,
in good Kiwi style - riding a Massey Ferguson farm
tractor - with a few extemporised mod's to hack the task).
