One event which we dont hear enough about is the IndyCar Rally run by club members David Gittus and Peter Washington. This years event lived up to its reputation as being one of the best and most challenging on the rally calendar. An official event of the Gold Coast IndyCar CART series, the event is held to coincide with the Honda 300. Club members in the event included Jeff and Neridah Beable in the Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R N1 who finished fourth. Dean & Gavin Grant in their Porsche 911 GT3 finished 8^th. Other club members included, Garry Blackman and Jacqueline Gregory in the redoubtable 5 litre Healey and John Lengton & Peter Harbison in their BMW 535M (Sorry if I missed anyone!)

The event was filled with well know faces and the capacity field of 70 vehicles attracted many well known names from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. In what must be a competition first for the car, the event also attracted an entry from Brian and Suzanne Wood of Sydney in their Maserati 3200GT. The press release describing the outcome of the event is provided below.

Sydney duo George Nittis and Peter Moore have taken outright honours in the seventh running of the Strathfield Indy Rally from Sydney to Surfers Paradise.

Nittis and Moore took the win in the Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R from Dean Cook and Cameron Rae in their Porsche GT-3, and 1999 winners Greg Muller and Bruce Foote in a Porsche 911 RSC S. Whilst Nittis and Moore had both competed in the event previously, this was their first event together.

During 6 days and 2,000km of competition incorporating high speed tests at Darlington Park Raceway, Queensland Raceway, Willowbank Dragstrip and Hillclimbs at Kempsey, Grafton and Newcastle, the teams accumulated points based on their results from 17 driving tests, and also from their performance in the challenging navigation sections including a 250km night section from Esk, South West of Brisbane to the Hyatt Sanctuary Cove.

In the end Nittis and Moore took the win by only 17 points remarkably close in a total of over 7,000 points. Third was only a further 80 points behind.

Pirtek V8 Supercar driver Marcos Ambrose contested the event in an XR-8 AU II ute and put in some impressive performances in the driving tests, but was never in serious contention against the Porsche and Godzilla brigade. The tough navigation throughout the event is also a barrier to first time competitors widely regarded as the toughest navigation in any event of this type in Australia.

Top navigator for the event was Geoff Brown, partnering Peter Morley in Fords factory entered TE-50, and assisting the team to a 3^rd in class result. Brown scored 3,612 navigation points out of a possible 3,650 points, and did not miss a single checkpoint throughout the 2,000 km course.

The event finish in Cavill Avenue on Thursday attracted a huge crowd and gave the public an opportunity to inspect the field up close and chat with the tired, but satisfied drivers and navigators.