Six of the world’s top rally drivers will be in downtown Sydney at lunchtime on Father’s Day while the greats of touring car racing assemble for Eastern Creek’s Muscle Car Masters
Rally Oz’s future and touring car racing’s past on show
It’s something old, something new for Sydney motorsport fans this Sunday, Father’s Day. Out at Eastern Creek in the west of Australia’s largest city will be the now traditional Muscle Car Masters, featuring a host of legendary names and machines.
In the Pitt St Mall in the CBD will be half a dozen men billed as “superstars of gravel grand prix” – World Rally Championship drivers ahead of next week’s new Rally Australia to be staged in and around Coffs Harbour. The six in the Mall near the Corner of Market St signing autographs from noon on Sunday will be France’s seven-time world champion Sebastien Loeb (pictured) and Norway’s 2003 world champion Petter Solberg, both Citroen drivers, and four Ford stars – Finns Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala, Solberg’s brother Henning and Englishman Matthew Wilson.
The notable absentee is new French star Sebastien Ogier, who – like Loeb – has won four WRC rallies this year, including the German round a fortnight ago, and is just 25 points (the equivalent of an event win) behind his legendary countryman and teammate in the tussle for the title with four rounds remaining.
Rally Australia, the country’s first WRC event since the controversial one-off in NSW’s Northern Rivers region two years ago after almost two decades of WA hosting the round, starts with a special stage at the Coffs Harbour jetty on Thursday night. The next three days of competition, comprising almost 370km of competition, will be on roads in the Coffs, Bellingen, Clarence Valley and Nambucca Heads shires. The Coffs jetty stage will be repeated Friday and Saturday nights, while the service park is at the town’s airport.
The 27-year-old Ogier’s German victory made Citroen the most successful manufacturer in WRC history with 78 wins – one more than Ford.
The 100-car field includes 24 from overseas, but cult figure 2007 Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen withdrew his privateer Citroen entry.
The top-seeded Australian in the WRC field is 23-year-old Victorian Brendan Reeves, who is third in this year’s WRC Academy Cup for the world’s top young rally drivers. Instead of the Ford Fiesta he drives in that six-round series Reeves and his co-driver sister Rhianon Smyth will be competing at Coffs in a Subaru Impreza.
Rally Australia is also doubling as the fourth round of the Australian Rally Championship, with 43 entries, and a 27-car classic rally.
Out at the Creek the Muscle Car Masters will feature touring cars from the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s and many of the renowned drivers of those decades. Among them is 1993 and ’97 national champion Glenn Seton, who has said: “I often feel that we have lost the ‘sport’ in motorsport in the modern era. The Muscle Car Masters showcases how it used to be, when race cars had poor brakes and slid sideways through corners. That’s very appealing to me – and to the punters too.”
Other great names attending include Allan Moffat, Bob Jane, Harry Firth, John Harvey, Colin Bond, Allan Grice, John Goss, Kevin Bartlett, Fred Gibson, Jim and Steve Richards, John Bowe, Bob Morris, John French, Brian Foley, Murray Carter, Leo Geoghegan, Frank Matich, Robbie Francevic, Des West, Tony Edmondson, Garth Wigston, Peter McLeod, Garry Rogers, Charlie O'Brien, Andrew Miedecke, Bryan Thomson, Don Holland, Bob Holden, John Leffler, Graham Moore, Trevor Ashby, John Cotter, John Smith and Phil Brock.
It’s one of the best days on each year’s Australian motorsport calendar.
Just one wildcard car at Bathurst
Only the regular 28 V8 Supercars will compete at the Phillip Island 500 on September 17-18 and then 29 at the Bathurst 1000 on October 9.
There will be only one wildcard entry at Bathurst – a Kelly Brothers Holden Commodore for TV personality Grant Denyer and a co-driver being decided in a show on digital channel 7mate – following the scratching this week of a Miles Racing-entered Ford Falcon.
Miles Racing said that the entry for V8 Supercar development series drivers Chaz Mostert and Ash Walsh had been withdrawn due to “some unforeseen circumstances”.
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