Rally drivers killed

Press, 31 May 1982, Page 28

Rally drivers killed

NZPABroken Bow, ■ Oklahoma A top Auckland rally driver, John Wolfe, and his co-driver, Grrant Whittaker, also from Auckland, were killed yesterday when their modified Peugeot 504 rally car collided head-on with a four-wheel drive vehicle during a road rally on a mountainous logging road, a race spokesman said.

Three rally workers in the four-wheel-drive . vehicle were taken to hospital from the remote scene in the Kiamichi mountains of south-eastern Oklahoma.

Wolfe, aged 26, and Whittaker, died when their racing car was involved in the collision on a commercial forest road near the Glover River in McCurtain County. They were in the first car allowed on the road in the Sports Car Club of Americasanctioned “Chisum Trail” rally, said an event co-chair-man, John Grimshaw.

The race was cancelled after the accident. Mr Grimshaw said that before the New Zealanders were given the go-ahead to use the road it had been checked for any remaining traffic and was being monitored by rally workers.

He said he could not account for the presence of the vehicle on the road: “We’re not sure how they got on the course,” he said. Wolfe finished second to another New Zealander, Steve Millen, on the American Sports Car Club rally circuit last season.