Millen to seek third N.Z. rally title

Press, 26 February 1977, Page 56

Millen to seek third N.Z. rally title

By

JOHN FRIDD

Rod Millen, the national motor rally champion, is a late entry in this year’s Pall Mall rally championship and will be aiming this season for a unique feat—a third successive series win. In last year’s series the brilliant Auckland driver finiished in all four rounds, taking two firsts, a second and |a fourth, in his powerful { Mazda RX3 and will be hard ’to beat this year, as he has !a new Mazda Dealer Team : car for the season and is sure :to have extracted more ’ power from the rotary engine. . New Zealand’s best known i rally driver, Mike Marshall, ’has also entered the series and will drive one of the works Escort RS2OOOs that competed in last year’s Southern Cross rally in! Australia. Other top North Island’ drivers entered include Blair! Robson—-second in the Radiol

N.Z. Heatway rally last year

—-Jim Donald, Alan Mitchell, Clive Smith, Colin Taylor, Tim Gibbes and Alan Brough. A major surprise is the non-entry of the fiery Aucklander, Paul Adams, who could easily have taken last year’s series off Millen if a little more luck had gone his way—he eventually finished second, only a few points behind Millen. Other top North Islanders not competing this year include John Woolf, Trevor Tapper, Steve Millen and Ken Cleghorn. The second Mazda Dealer Team driver, Rob Gerard, of Christchurch, will spearhead the impressive South Island challenge for the national title this year, although Gerard does not know at prejsent whether he will compete in all four rounds. “There’s even 7 chance we| will go up to Wanganui fori the first round, and we’ll cer-1

i tainly be doing the two South I Island rounds, but I don’t yet

know about the last round, north of Auckland,” said Gerard yesterday. Another Christchurch driver, Mike Reid, has entered his Escort 1600 in the series and will be hard to beat in his class, and could also take some high over-all placings. His wife, Cathy, will navigate for him, making them Mie of the few husband and wife teams in the tough series. The Parkes Brothers of Nelson will be trying for honours in the 0-1300 cu cm class —traditionally dominated by Datsuns—in their M.S. Motors Escort 1300 and Bruce Reid and Noel Mudgway, both Christchurch drivers, are entered in Datsun 1200 s. Other South Island drivers entered include Carl Rabbidge and John Haszard, of Dunedin, Frank Kidd and lan Begg, of Southland, and Dick ; Rayne and Bob Robb, both | from Timaru. I Notable omissions are

three Christchurch drivers, John Sergei (Escort), Trevor Crowe (Datsun) and Geoff le Cren (Datsun). Evidence of the daunting costs involved in competing in the series this year is shown in the number of crews entered. Only 98 entries were received, 22 short of the maximum allowed, whereas last season 20 crews had to be turned down after 140 entries were received.

The first round of the Pall Mall series this year is the Wanganui event on March 26-27, which will run over 750 km of tough roads. Canterbury will host the second round, on June 18-19, then comes the third round in Otago, on July 2-3 and the last round takes place in southern Northland on September 24-25. Preparations for the Canterbury’ round are well under way.

“We have the route planned and are presently negotiating with the counties involved for road closures,” said Mr Bob Rassell, the rally manager.

The rally will start in Christchurch and the first few special stages will run along the Summit Road, then the cars will go north to the Ashley Forest for more highspeed’driving. Then the rally winds over past Motunau Beach to Cheviot, does a loop through the Leader River, around Lowry Peaks and back to Cheviot. The route then goes back through Motunau Beach to the Ashley Forest, and back to Christchurch.

The rally will be 600 km long and includes 270 km of special stages; the crews will be in action for about 15 hours. About 20 local drivers will

be invited to compete along with the national series competitors.