Australian Classic Rally Cairns 2012.
 

The boys "Up North" have been keeping busy with their Cobras...and a number of them took part in the inaugural "Australian Classic Rally".
Looks like they had a ball...

600 klms over a few days...Not high speed racing...but rather keeping to a strict schedule, and having the skill to drive to a stop watch.

Looks like an excellent event, and will probably have more Cobras and GT40s on the starting grid next year.

Andrew Chand was the overall winner ....
( Driving a VERY nice Black and Yellow Cobra),

and Cobra Forum regular Tom Casey ( Tomcat Racing ) was 4th.

Congrats to the boys, and a couple of links to show you some of the action.

Australia Classic 2012 Cairns magyar felirattal - YouTube

Australia Classic

Cheers,
Warren.

Hi Warren,

Thanks for the congrats.
We had an awesome time, the event was very professionally organised using world class European timing monitors from chronomoto. In fact the organiser flew the timing equipment and 4 timing technicians over from Chronomoto to man the timing devices.
For those interested in joining us next year, here is a quick outline of what we did in the Australia Classic Rally this year.
The event started with a welcome reception on Friday night when we were given a roadbook, shirts, hats, vehicle number decals and a few other goodies.
Day 1 kicked off at 8am with a car display and the cars left the Pier Car park in one minute intervals at 9am. We drove to Gordonvale, up the Gillies Range into Yungaburra then lunch at Mungalli. From there we drove through Malanda, down the Palmerston Range to Babinda and back to Cairns. Along the way we had to carefully read the roadbook and stop for 5 precision timed short courses. At dinner on Saturday night we were pleased to accept hour glass trophies for winning 2 of the 5 precision timed courses. Also stoked to be leading after the first day which added a little pressure heading into Sunday.
Day 2 we left the Pier Car park at 9am, drove along the Cairns Esplanade then onto Palm Cove, Oak Beach and Port Douglas followed by a spirited run up the Rex Range to Julatten for lunch. Next stage took us to Mareeba, Jaques Coffee, Kuranda then back down the Kuranda range to Cairns. Again stopping for 5 precision timed courses along the way.
As you can tell we covered quite a few kilometers along spectacular scenery including the Coastal stretch to Port Douglas.
Organiser Zoltan Vandulek received a standing ovation by every competitor at the awards presentation on Sunday night. Navigator Luke Olholm my stepson and I were stoked to win outright along with 2 of the precision timed courses. The win grants us free entry into next years Rally.
Organisers are expecting over 100 competitor next year and given the response to the inaugural event, this number is probably going to be conservative.
This year pre 1982 replicas were able to compete for the event win. Next year there will be two classes, pre 1983 and Exotic Super cars. Only vehicles built pre 1983 will be able to win the Rally outright. The Super car class will cover the same stages and timing courses, but results will only count towards bragging rights. Unfortunately this means I will not be able to defend the Australia Classic title in my 1998 AC replica.
Never the less we will be back to enjoy the spectacular scenery, fantastically presented vehicles and catch up with new friends we made this year.

Below is a picture of myself and Tom Casey who finished fourth, narrowly missing third place by 17 points with equates to 17 / 100th of a second. Less than the time it takes to blink an eye. Interestingly we won the event by 18 points so I have to confess the win was more luck than skill.

http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...ra_Rally_7.jpg

Cheers

Andrew

Well done Andrew and Tom. That run up the Rex is a beauty!

Sounds good, would love to know when next years is on, as I have plenty of Family that way.
Pity it wasnt advertised a little more.

Hi, just got back home from 2 weeks away, 1 week in cairns doing the precision rally, fantastic event very well run and 1 week in townsville cruising and doing the townsville 400.

The inaugeral australia classic precision rally wasent advertised outside of nth qld i dont think but this will grow into a huge event purely because of the money they invested and the effort they put in to make it a success. the unprompted standing ovation that zoltan recieved at the award night was a testimony to that. They are going to market this rally internationlly and i didnt meet one person who particapated that wont be back next year.

The entry fee cost was $550 and it ran at a huge loss with only 33 cars entered.

In future years there will be some beautiful and exotic machinery trailored in for this event.

The date probably wont change, around the end of june and innisfail to cairns to port douglas and the atherton tableland travelling up and down those 4 ranges, the parmiston the gillies, kuranda and the rex is probably the best cobra motoring country in australia. 600klms in 2 days with 13 timetrials timed down to the 1/100th of a second spread along the course, arriving and leaving the checkpoints exactly on your timed minute certainly kept my navigator and myself on our toes and we enjoyed every inch of it.

The organizers sent an invitation email to drb cars who forwarded it on to wazza at qld cobra club who forwarded it on to qld members and i forwarded it on to andrew and others, thats how we found out.

Its good to see Nth Qld getting a quality motoring event to participate in and not just another car show, its been long overdue.

Congratulations Andrew on your win and i feel proud to have participated in the inaugeral event and came 4th, it certainly wasent easy, i won about $600 worth of prizes for winning one of the timetrials exactly to the 1/100 of a second, which is a zero, by rolling downhill in neutral through the timebeam,a complete fluke.

Boxhead i know you have driven over from Alice to Nth Qld before in your cobra, if your interested ill keep you posted, ill be back next year.:LOL::LOL:

Cheers Tom, very interested.
I have joined there facebook page so also hoping that will keep me in the loop.

And I agree that the tablelands is some of the nicest driving around.