If you equate winter in Ballarat and enjoy a brisk walk around Lake Wendouree or Victoria park walking track in dense fog (read fifty metre visibility), trees dripping moisture, and a temperature of two or three degrees, then you also have the ideal conditions for a car rally. Victoria Park was a buzz; at 90kph along slippery roads into a wall of fog, fifty metres ahead, was interesting to say the least.

This was the setting of the Winter Classic right from the start and the rest of the rally did not disappoint. I can not think of a better way to spend a winter’s weekend than driving 1350kms around beautiful Western Victoria on driver’s roads over three days and getting a chance to fang it occasionally on the odd closed road or driving test.

The rally started Friday night with scrutineering for most locals at Foster Brother’s Tyre Power in Skipton Street, followed by registration at Central Square and for some of us, a meal at Eureka Bistro, accompanied by the first of many bottles of red consumed over the next three days, followed by the briefing at the Ballarat Light Car Club clubrooms at the Airport, just to get us all in the mood.

The rally starts each day with breakfast for all competitors at Blythewood Grange with the mandatory briefing and issuing of road books for that day. After a mammoth breakfast and as much plotting of the route as time will allow, we were off to the Victoria Park and the fog, for a bit of a fang to wake us up for the day ahead.

Victoria Park was used for years for road racing pre and post war. I can just remember (because I’m only a young fella) going to watch the motor- bike racing, before it was declared too dangerous as trees kept getting in the way. It’s a fabulous area for confined road racing, with many twisty and convoluted roads circling and intersecting through about one hundred acres of parkland, with all the roads lined with trees. You could race around it all day and never go the same way twice. Which is what happens: the director sets a different route each day, so navigation is important. Because of Cams restriction on maximum speeds on closed roads in touring events, the route is broken up with a chicane of hay bales and two stop/go garages, in which it is mandatory to completely come to halt and await a signal to proceed. This is a bit of fun and doesn’t detract from the stage, as it combines a bit of motorkhana skills and improves the safety aspect.

This certainly gets the blood up at eight o’clock in the morning and the beauty of it is you know you are going to have another go the next day. After Vic Park each morning we headed off on a navigation section, called Touring Sections to morning tea and generally a driving test. A

Touring rally is merely an excuse to travel around the countryside pretending to rally so that you can get to various eating spots. Morning tea and lunch was provided each day by various church organizations, kindergartens etc in various halls and was, as you would expect, good country style fare. We ate extremely well and had fun (?) - sometimes not, when the navigator had to find fifteen UMR’s, (Unmapped Roads), on a map twenty eight tears old, and with only two roads marked on the whole area, which was no bigger than a postage stamp and all in a very short time. This is when one needs to keep ones cool; I can tell you the windows were open. You dare not follow anyone because you can bet your life they are lost too, unless it’s Matt De Vaus, and even then you can’t keep up because Peter Riseborough is driving that STI, at the legal speed limit of course, but the bloody thing’s painted white and disappears in the fog.

I lie, we were never that close to them, and the navigation was quite good. The scoring for navigation also was in "rank" order, so even if you fell off the map you couldn’t get any more than 43 points so you were not necessarily OBD (out the back door), before you started or finished or whatever. A fairer system any way and a lot more encouraging for first timers or dick head navigators like me. The only reason I did it was because Stephen said he’d pay for all the drinks so how could I refuse.

The navigation to these various places was in the main not too difficult but at the same time assumptions were not the way to a clean sheet.

Throughout the three days we visited Camperdown, Meredith, Balan, Beaufort, Ararat, Stawell and a road just out of Haddon, so many times up and down that the residents must have felt sorry for the people who were having the birthday party and all these visitors spent three days looking for the house. I think the Ballarat Light Car club will get a bill for the road maintenance.

On the competition side we did five driving tests per day, which started, as I have mentioned, with Vic Park, and included motorkhana's at various airports, and parking lots, (not a reverse gear in the whole lot), the bus park at Ballarat being a favourite which we did twice, and the traffic school tight and twisty mini roads twice as well and One Tree Hill at Ararat, unfortunately this was very wet, but it’s still a great blast up the hill. (It’s on for real in December each year, contact the BLCC, if you're interested in a great weekend). And Devil’s Kitchen, just south of Scarsdale, a great bit of road with gravel, water, stop and go’s, the lot.

The special stages were excellent and well planned to take full advantage of the confines of Cams restrictions on these events.

The rally is very social, with all competitors meeting in the bar of the Chapel each evening for drinks, (yes, this is a very religious event, we even get served at the altar, food that is), followed by a meal and those ubiquitous bottles of red and a lot of good company.

The final evening is a bit more formal and a very enjoyable affair, with presentations and prize giving of course. The results are listed elsewhere in this Newsletter, so I needn’t tell you that we didn’t win, otherwise I would mention it, but a very nice touch was to award each of the competing crews who have completed all five of the Winter Classic Rallies held, of which Stephen and I were one.

I can only say that the rally is going from strength to strength and this was the best held so far. The director tells me, confidentially, that even more special stages are planned for next year, so if you have entered in the past, I think you would find it worth a re-visit. And I was only joking about two degrees and the fog, it was really four degrees and pea soup, but who cares anyway just bring the wife’s car with the heater that works and feel sorry for the poor officials, who I must say did a great job.

Stephen and I drove the works Mr Brakes ute, mainly because I won’t let him drive my car, (only joking) - he loves the ute. We found out during the course of the rally, this being a trivial type question, that it weighs 1820kg. It has been relegated back to works ute never to be "Rally-gated" again, 1820kg indeed, that takes a lot of "going" and a lot "stopping" so considering that, it and he did quite a good job.

See you all at the HRA South Eastern Classic another great rally, and a good one to start, if you’re interested give me a call.