Rally decision upsets Millen

Press, 15 October 1976, Page 17

Rally decision upsets Millen

PA Auckland. Rod Millen, of Auckland, has won the New Zealand Rally Championship for the second year in a row — and again he has missed the prize. Last season the young surveyor took the title, but the prize which he expected — assistance in getting to the R.A.C. rally in Britain — failed to appear. This season he successfuly defended his title, but the prize — $750 toward com-] peting in the Southern Cross rally in Australia — went to the runner-up. Paul Adams. A clause in the Pall Mall series conditions says that if the winner did not take the prize it would go to the next in line. but. the championship series did not end until October 3 — a week before the start of the Southern Cross.

“I didn’t believe that left enough time to prepare the car and get it to Australia,” Millen said yesterday. “I’d rather miss the rally than go into it half-cocked.” Millen asked if he could, put the money toward getting to this year’s R.A.C. in November instead, but he was told by an official of the Rally Organisers’ Association of New Zealand, a company set up to run major rallies, that this could not be done.

“I thought it was a reasonable request under the circumstances,” Millen said, this week. He has already been] offered the use of a Mazda similar to the one he used in the New Zealand champion-, ships for the R.A.C. and is now trying to arrange sponsorship to compete in the event, one of the world’s most prestigous.