10,100-MILE AUSTRALIAN CAR TRIAL WAS THRILLING BUT TOUGH

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28701, 26 September 1958, Page 11

10,100-MILE AUSTRALIAN CAR TRIAL WAS THRILLING BUT TOUGH

i Specialty written for “The Press” by BARBARA BAIGENT, one of the two New Zealand women competitors in this year’s 10,100-mile Mobilgas car trial in Australia.} TT could not be said that the world’s most rugged car trial is everyone’s idea of fun but there are not many things left nowadays offering the thrill, comradeship, exhilaration and challenge that were present in this year’s 10.100-mile roundAustralia car trial. Early mornings “got” me most. A sleepy crew reluctantly stirring to the light; the false dawn, then that chill just before sunrise with the new day demanding another 500 miles on the clock on .roads that . disguised who knew what. The occasional light in the distance suggesting other competitors, sleepy, too, but all with the same objective—to get to the next control on time. Lonely Roads

Strange how two-minute spacing could mean that one could drive all day and all night without ever seeing a competitor. But after about a third of the journey had been traversed, cars and crews began to wear. By the end more than half had fallen by the wayside. Getting home again was much harder than driving in the trial as a competitor. Three days are required in a train to cross the vast area of the Nullabar Plain across the Australian Bight. Trial drivers did it, in flood conditions with hundreds of stretches of water half a mile long and of unknown depths, in a day and , a night. A week after the trial finished, some cars were still not back in Melbourne. It is a long almost right round the world’s circumference. Running Repairs

There were many mechanical failures on the trial and many miracles wrought by clever hands. Two cars exchanged parts, making one mobile so it could tow the other and this was done by firelight. The driver of the press unit, Ray Fleming, from Melbourne. gave his Landrover a valve grind on the side of the road with assistants who held torches and did not know a spanner from a screwdriver. Cars were towed for hundreds of miles; cars were wrecked; cars

were left where they stood because it would cost too much to transport them home. Men were hurt and one, whom I had known a little, died in my arms. It was tough and cruel and no place for crews without the perfect mental and physical adjustment essential to meet the demands of such a trial. Little Sleep Eighteen days and nights we drove. There were nine sleep breaks allowed. These had stipulated hours, but only those crews on time could take the full rest periods. Strange how the body

adjusted itself to lack of sleep I have calculated we averhged two hours’ sleep iq every 24 for 19 days in a row. ' The top drivers were magnificent and one can count Alma McMillan, of New Zealand, as one of them. The winners drove the course with a loss of only 10 points—which means they were only 10 minutes out in their timing. _ • « • From Perth to Brisbane, by waj of Darwin, .the roads held everything. It was like driving on the moon—thousands of acres ol nothing in that red and yellow clay which became dust at the slightest provocation. No grass, nc fences, no houses. Through water feet deep, mud churned up by 60 cars; desert with its choking sand, red dust that penetrates men and motors, over miles of boulders, any one of which could remove the motor of your car; in sand up to the axles and tracking in ruts that did not fit; through a lake where a cloudburst caused nine and a half inches of rain tr fall and through ice and snow and tropical heat laced with mosquitoes. * Why did everyone do it? Because, I think, of the challenge. Because the sense of exploration is hot yet dead and because of the comradeship in a grand adventure. Expensive

Prizes? If you won it was worth several thousand pounds, but you did not think about that. The cost was fabulous. Petrol alone, which most people seem to think is supplied by Mobilgas, averages £lOO a car. and repairs in the backblocks were exorbitant. One man paid £lO for 10 minutes' welding and the driver did the job himself.

Living—when you had time for the luxury of, a bed—was dear, and after the first flurry of sandwiches, we went without. Was it worth it? Just ask us all again next year!