|
Team Talk
Tips of one of the most popular WRC events,
Rally Australia
Letter from SWRT
18 November 2005
|
 |
Rally Australia is one of the most popular events on the FIA World Rally Championship calendar. Renowned for its distinctive, dusty red roads, beautiful scenery and crowds of enthusiastic supporters the event has been voted 'Rally of the Year' by World Rally teams three times in 2000, 1999 and 1995.
|
 |
|
The rally is one of Western Australia's premier sports events and has been hosted in Perth for the last 18 years. Over 2,000 volunteers helped to organise this year's event and over 4,500 sporting officials have been involved since its inception. Several 'second generation' officials are now used - officials whose parents were involved at the very beginning!
The Gloucester Park Superspecial took 40,320 man hours to construct. The 2.35km figure-of-eight track was constructed in an arena normally used for horse-trotting, a sport that originated in Perth.
14,000 square metres of basecourse gravel material was used for the surface of the Superspecial. The track also featured the Qantas jump, the top of which stood three metres off the ground. On Leg two, the Subaru duo of Atkinson and Solberg both hit the jump in fifth gear at a speed of 125kph. Most of the WRC class cars flew in excess of 40 metres through the air. Subaru co-driver Phil Mills described the course as the hardest Superspecial on the calendar.
Including spectators, officials, media, teams and contractors, more than 46,000 people were expected to attend the 2005 Rally Australia. Organisers estimate that in 2004 more than 52 million people watched the coverage on television.
The 2005 event was local boy Glenn Macneall's 13th Rally Australia. Born in Albany WA on 4 August 1972, he first competed in 1993 in a Daihatsu Charade with Leigh Hynes and hasn't missed a round since. Glenn teamed up with Chris Atkinson for the 2004 rally, guiding him to 5th position in a Group N car, the highest finish by a Group N entrant in the history of the event. This year the duo went one better to finish fourth.
|
 |
2006
2005
