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FT 01 MAY 93 / Motoring: The rally that suddenly stopped being fun -
Attitudes and events that have soured the London-Sydney race
By JOHN GRIFFITHS
At 35,000 feet, on board a chartered Ilyushin 84 over the still snow-clad
wilderness which vaguely defines the borders of Uzbekistan, Iran and eastern
Turkey, the Australians were holding an impromptu auction of 16 bread rolls.
They went for an average of more than Dollars 150 each. But what had begun
as an auction became a general collection among the 102 surviving crews of
the Lombard London to Sydney car marathon who were, thanks to the diplomatic
row over the renewed Iranian fatwah on author Salman Rushdie, flying not
driving down the old Silk Road to Tashkent, our cars following in two
behemoth Antonov air freighters.
When the marathon reaches Eucla, the most remote of the Australian outback
towns on its route, the money will be handed over to its school.
'We'd heard there was a catering strike at the airport and that there would
be no food on board. So we just grabbed the rolls at the cafe,' said
competitor Graeme Furness, managing director of a Sydney car dealership. 'We
were going to raise money for Ginger's children. But when we found out they
were 22 and 26, we thought it might be more appropriate to raise funds for
the kids of Eucla instead'.
'Ginger' was Brian Ginger, the co-driver of a Holden Munaro from Victoria.
Brian, a company director who would have been 46 next month, died when the
rally car collided head on with a bus on Tuesday. The accident happened 7
kilometres from the end of a spectacular special stage that he and driver
Norman Framstad, an accountant from Victoria, had just completed in the Bolu
mountains of northern Turkey.
The precise cause of the crash remains unknown. But the death has cast a
shadow over the event as we prepare in Delhi for the next five-day leg
through the Himalayas and around India. It seems less important whether New
Zealander Graham Lorimer's Ford Escort can reclaim his lead from
Porsche-mounted Francis Tuthill; whether veteran British rally stars Andrew
Cowan and Roger Clark can climb back into the top 10 by Sydney - and
certainly whether Neville Marriner and me in our Unipart-backed 'Save the
Chidren Fund' Lotus Cortina can continue our steady climb through the field
from 96th to 58th.
Framstad has made it clear that at the time of the accident their car was
travelling at normal highway speed. Nevertheless, the accident has focused
attention on the fact that a sizeable minority of competitors have, some of
them frequently, exceeded the limits of what is acceptable in terms of
aggressive driving on the public highway.
It is the one misfortune so far of an event which otherwise has seen nearly
120 competitors' and officials' cars passing through 10 countries in 11
days. It has been a triumph of logistical organisation by Nick Brittan and
his 20-strong team of administrators.
We have crossed problematical borders, such as Romania's, sometimes through
crowds of refugees, in a matter of minutes. We have passed lines of trucks
nearly a mile long for whom the same process will take days. And even the
competitors were overawed as we watched an entire field of rally cars
disappear inside the Antonovs.
Paradoxically, while the organisers may soon read the riot act to the
rally's miscreants, the police forces and the inhabitants of some of the
countries we have passed through must share some of the blame for the
reckless driving.
It is difficult not to respond when crowds line their own streets making
clear signs for competitors to go faster, even though, under the rules,
these are non-competitive road sections where all normal highway rules must
be obeyed. It is even more difficult when - as we have found across all the
old eastern bloc countries - police at every junction are holding back other
traffic and goading the competitors on.
Brittan points out that the average speeds set for road sections lie well
within each country's relevant speed limits. The marathon's regulations also
provide progressively stiffer penalties - including expulsion - for
competitors who attract police complaints. But for the indulgent attitude of
some police forces, several drivers might be facing that penalty.
How, for example, do you excuse one car travelling so fast through a minor,
dusty Turkish town that it goes into a backwards spin to avoid a mother
crossing the road with her infant? And what did the Skoda driver think, when
his car, with his wife and small children aboard, was forced off the road by
another competitor in a small town in Slovakia?
The race resumes today. As we have prepared to set out for the Himalayas
there has been growing discussion about our behaviour on the road. What is
acceptable in countries where, generally, local standards of driving are
themselves normally appalling. Even the offenders have begun to realise that
Sydney remains 7,000 miles of driving away.
In all other respects, the marathon is living up to competitors' hopes. Even
though we are required to use cars of the same vintage as the original
London to Sydney marathon of 25 years ago, it is certainly no joy ride.
Cars and drivers are being tested to the limit. We are racing against the
clock over high mountain passes with appalling drops - euphemistically
described as 'fresh air corners' in the route notes - or on gravel tracks
snaking through the wilderness.
All these stages, 46 in all, take place on roads closed to public vehicles.
They are fast, exhilarating and undeniably dangerous. In Australia some will
be as long as 100 miles. And they lie at the heart of the competition for
the majority of the 106 crews which set out from London for this 11,500 mile
odyssey.
Countries:-
GBZ United Kingdom, EC.
AUZ Australia.
Industries:-
P7948 Racing, Including Track Operation.
Types:-
NEWS General News.
The Financial Times
London Page XVIII