Wayne Reed's "Club Cars" (1967-present)

Brisbane Queensland Australia Ex Pahiatua New Zealand

	1965 Anglia 105E
1965 Anglia 105E Day Breaker rally Manawatu New Zealand	1965 Anglia 105E Saddle Road Hillclimb Manawatu New Zealand
1965 Anglia 105E This was a true allround club car, used for Racing, Rallying, Hillclimbs, Autocross, Sprints etc.The Kent motor was probably the best one I have used. I have built many since to the same spec but none seemed to work as well.	1965 Anglia 105E 1600cc Xflow, A3 cam, twin 42mm carbs
	Datsun 260Z auto Brisbane Sporting Car Club Rally
1974 Mk1 Capri Originally a 2 litre V4 upgraded to a 3 litre V6. A bit of a hand full on wet grass and road tires	1954 Mk1 Consul Pretty much a standard car apart from the tape on the headlights and Dunlop SP Radial tyres
Vauxhall Cresta 3 hour club race (fell off on lap 2)
RS2000	Mini Cooper Never quite got it finished for racing
1990 Mazda Rx7 Turbo II Only raced at traffic lights	1978 Grass Track Special !600cc xflow, VW transaxle, VW front and rear suspension. A bit agricultural, but a lot of fun, used in Rallycross, Sprints, Autocross, and any other event going.
	Mk II 1600 Sport
Mk II 1600 Sport	1969 Mk2 Cortina GT Home for three weeks, and 18,000 km. Don't try sleeping in these seats!
1969 Mk2 Cortina GT Near the end and a class win.	1969 Mk2 Cortina GT '95 'Round Australia Challenge, before well "fell" off and bent it
RS2000	RS2000
RS2000 Specifications 1) Suspension: Front: World cup struts with bilstien inserts and adjustable platform springs Rear: Atlas axle with turreted Bilstien shocks, 2 only trailing arms and Panhard rod. Fitted with world cup brace. 2) Brakes: Front: Ventilated disks with 4 pot calipers Rear: Solid disks with 2 pot calipers Twincam adjustable bias pedal box 3) Steering: Quick rack 4) Drive train: Limited slip differential Hydraulic clutch. 5) Gearbox: Quaife 4 speed straight cut Rocket box 6) Engine: Grp1, 2 litre Pinto 7) Body: Forest flares Fiberglass bonnet Steel Boot lid Perspex side windows World cup cross member
RS2000	RS2000
	1974 Mk1 Escort TwinCam 1850cc T/C 180 bhp (EST)
1974 Mk1 Escort TwinCam Manfield New Zealand	1974 Mk1 Escort TwinCam This was a quick car but a bit unreliable and under developed, however the ultra light weight shell help to win a number of trophies
Club Race Manfield New Zealand Circa 1983
	RS2000
RS2000

Round Australia '95

You don't know what you missed, dirt, dust, corrugations, cold, heat, bulldust, more corrugations, fatigue, back ache, head ache and boredom.

I don't think it was all bad, bit hard to remember to much everything is still a bit of a blur. I recall being a bit nervous and overwhelmed at the start and more so at the start of the first special stage, but in true motor sport fashion the brain faded out on the "go" I think we passed three cars in this stage and hit a rock, not bad in 20kms. fortunately the stages in NSW and Victoria were good gravel roads much the same as NZ. However I still managed to "fall off" and bend the drivers side guard, breaking the drivers door window and bending the lower control arm, we were back on the road within 10 seconds but the car was a bit difficult to steer with about 200mm of toe out, I used a winch we were carrying to hold things in place and drove about 20k's to the service area, a small town in northern Victoria. The locals had never seen so much action, a garage and its facilities was offered and gratefully accepted. We had the thing fixed and back on the road within the hour. However we missed some controls so our original 6th place was now out to 37th place.

From Melbourne we headed to Adelaide with long stretches of highway touring. The special stages were again gravel roads with a few farm tracks thrown in. We were still clean sheeting the stages but because of the scoring system were unable to make up any ground we had to wait for the rest to make mistakes and come back to us. We developed a horrible vibration early on in this section, the service crew found the centre bolt on the gear box mount had come loose and the gearbox was rubbing on the sump guard, no major problem just a nuisance, anyway the problem reoccured about an hour latter, after an hour and a half I decided we had better try and tie the gearbox down before the next special. We were going through a small town (Pub and General store) and bus depot for the school buses, I wheeled the car into the depot and over a vacant pit at the same time asking a rather surprised 80 year old bloke sitting at a desk near by, if it was ok to use his pit, by the time he answered I was out of the car half way into the pit with a bit of wielding wire in hand. We had made the temporary repair and were backing off the pit before he knew what was happening.

The reason for the haste was due to the times set for the transport stages and our small fuel tank, we had to deduct the time to refuel from our running time thus pushing the average speeds up, this was ok for the longer stages but meant that we were pushing hard on the shorter distances, it turned out a bit like running Bathurst every day for 19 days, coordinating fuel stops with driver changes etc.

From Adelaide we headed for Port Augusta and onto our first special stage in the red dirt of the out back, the transport to the special was ok but some 80km of station tracks. The special was held just on dusk and appeared to be ok except for the dust we had to sit back for a while but the dust began to thin out and we were within sight of the tail lights in front, the track was narrow and winding second and third gear, then suddenly no dust I flashed the lights and went for the pass just as we reached a stretch of water, more like mud, the other car a Falcon GT slowed to let us through this was fine until we hit the mud on with the wipers/washers ok but what's happened to the lights they still seemed to be working but at about half power, the red mud had brunt onto the hot lights we may as well have been running an old VW on 6 volts instead of 4 super Oscars and two Hella's about 650 watts in all. We continued with out to much drama but I still don't know how we missed that tree.

After cleaning the lights we continued on the gravel for a while until we hit the main road to Coober Pedy. A long transport followed to the next special also in the desert. This was to be the first of the really rough stages and a long haul at over 60km's . Because we had made up some places on the road and the cars in front were reasonably quick I did not expect dust to be a problem and it wasn't but only because there wasn't any to much water and mud. We traversed the first 2ks with out problem then at "Turn hard right" we tried to follow the track around a 4wd safety vehicle only to get bogged to the door sills, the safety car was parked on the track proper, anyway they came to our help and towed us out thus freeing up the track for the rest of the field. We were back on the road (read narrow track surrounded by trees and bushes) and only 58kms to go. This was rough, in order not to get bogged we had to deviate from the defined track and pick our way around trees and holes etc. Passing many cars bogged down with the lights covered in mud. I pressed on side swiping trees and constantly asking the Co-driver "how far to go ??". Finally we finished and were astonished to find the we had lost very little time. As we left the stage we found the Cortina of Eric and Lynton (we had sort of teamed up with these blokes our service crew were looking after them) with the bonnet up they had a broken alternator bracket so we stayed on to help unfortunately we lost about an hour helping. But miles from no where in the middle of the night what could we do.

The next transport also had its drama, we were running Continental tyres $56.00 each fitted, a bargain, well you get what you pay for, we had one go out of round on the first day but put that down to hitting a rock. I suspected that we had at least one other going as we had a vibration in the back but that had been there for a couple of days and was not getting any worse. We had more than one crook tyre as the front left let go at around a 130kph, fortunately it had given about 3 seconds warning I was able to hold the car straight, but a bit scary. Onto the radio calling the service crew to find the Bridgestone truck and organise a fresh set of tyres at $160.00 each. That fixed the vibrations. Not long after we left Coober Pedy just as the sun was coming up the car developed a miss fire after much stopping and testing we found that distributor shaft was badly worn opening and closing the points pretty much at random. We drove like this for the next 700k,s or more to Alice Spring where were able to get a spare off the blokes in the other Cortina, who were by now to far in front to contact on the radio, the pay back for loosing time helping them.

The next day after a well earned rest, the last stage having taken some 28hours, we left for Kalgoorlie via Ayres rock. We had a special stage just out of Alice springs everything was now working well the road was good. I charged on passing cars and cleaning the stage. Then onto another long transport to Ayres rock, around 500ks of dead straight seal with nothing to see. Ayres rock looks like the photos, didn't see any dingo's. Refuelled and serviced the car and then on again more sealed road, past the Olger's (more big rocks) then "turn left onto gravel" Gun barrel highway. Hey this bit is a bit rough slow down to 60kph for a few k's, the road was not improving, better speed up a bit, try 80kph no better, try 120kph a bit better. I am sure the corrugations were hand cut out of rock the car is shaking and rattling I figured that it would disintegrate in 50k's. But this can't last long. Wrong this lasted for the next 800k's, I gave up driving and handed over the wheel, within 100ks one of the new Bridgestones blew out completely wrecking the tyre. By this time the road was full of cars all going at different speeds the dust was just hanging in the air. Not to bad in the daylight but as the sun went down we couldn't see a thing,like driving in thick fog. I closed my eyes and left Mike to it. We eventually arrived at the rest break and refuel, at an Aboriginal settlement, they must have sold a years supply of fuel in one night. The pumps are all enclosed in steel cages and they only sell Avgas, it seems the locals like sniffing fuel, they can get high on super but Avgas does not smell so good in fact makes then crook real quick. So to 3 hour sleep in the car again, not so easy in fixed racing seats, but by now we were to tired to care. The sleep was broken by urgent messages over the R/T "anyone seen the service crew for car #" as the night went on the messages started to come in cars broken all over the place mostly suspension failures. The service crews were also having a hard time either breaking or crashing. How were we going to survive the rest of the road. And where were our service crew?. They eventually turned up having helped a number of other cars on the way. One car had hit a camel, an XD Falcon had destroyed its rear suspension but was able to scrounge parts off one of the many burnt out wrecks that litter the road. There were to be many stories about this trip.

Half an hour out of the rest break we bottomed out on a dry creek crossing much as we had done a hundred times before BUT this time we took the exhaust system off at the extractor, we continued to drive for a while but eventually decided to remove it completely the service crew arrived as we were doing this and finished the job off, by now we were behind time, I left the driving to Mike who was making better progress than I could have, the noise from the exhaust help to hide the other noises. 300ks latter we made the next control with 6 minutes to spare. I drove the special and cleaned it again but I'm not sure how. We then drove on to Kalgoorlie and straight into an exhaust shop. $110 and 1 hour latter we had a new exhaust and the car was in Parc ferm'e. We had made it, how? I'm not sure.

Kalgoorlie- Perth an easy run. Anything would have been easy compared with the previous two days. We arrived at the first special to find that the rubber straps holding the new exhaust system had burnt through so much for the new system. We found a metal strap in the boot and secured the exhaust in place, in fact that is still hold the system in today. The special was fast forest roads I recall seeing 5500 rpm, in top gear, on the tacho a couple of times so with a tall 3.7:1 diff that equals to bloody fast for an old car in between the trees.

This was to be a good run we clean sheeted the day. Arriving in Perth without any major car problems and without loosing any points.

How do we prepare for the next section? 33 hours and 2300k's to Broome.

Leave Perth at 6am with only 40k's to the first special. We lost a couple of points trying to keep to the speed limit, radar traps every 10k's, and traffic lights. Completed the special then onto an 800k transport with about 100k's of gravel. Talk about boring except for passing road trains that will not move over and shower you with stones. Into to the 3 hour rest break, I don't recall where. Onto a 240 k transport followed by a 38k special then a 528k transport all gravel. Onto a 70k special. Dust and more dust. Then 600k's to Broome, I don't know how we made Broome I drove for maybe a hundred K,s after the last special and could not drive any further I was asleep within 30 seconds of hitting the passenger seat.

Rest day in Broome. Much needed, the service crew had to replace the valves in the land cruiser, I slept.

Broome to Darwin 27 hours, 2050 k's. 300 k transport mostly seal followed by a 20k special then a 780k transport to a rest break.Its early evening the rest break is in the local football ground all the lights are on, the local lions club is supplying food. The local rock band is suppling head banger music and half the town is out to see the cars, ideal for a quick sleep. 3 hours later we leave for 500 k's of transport to a 60k special starting just after day break.

The special seemed harmless to start with but some of the traffic on the R/T was a bit of a worry "zero visibility at" what ever the Terrarip reading was as more cars entered the stage the more frantic the radio messages, we were soon to find out why, the bulldust was so thick that we were often forced to come to a complete stop also adding to the radio messages the concern was running into another car or being run into, the dust cleared a little when we found a queue of cars waiting to cross a dry creek bed full of dust with two cars bogged, I hopped out of the car only to sink angle deep in dust. We waited for the cars to be towed out then each car would go through only after waiting a good 2 minutes for the dust to clear, The only way to drive this was to treat the dust the same way you drive through mud run into it fairly quickly then hold the revs down while the car snakes around trying to find traction. We made it ok, next we found rally cars coming back down the road I call on the radio to others to watch out for on coming traffic fortunately we were travelling very slowly because of the dust, the on coming cars say they are lost and we are on the wrong road, I check with Mike he says straight on, so on we go. We find our selves in clean air and what's more the instruction fit. We couldn't believe our luck so I pick the pace up and make a comment about the gods smiling on us. A k or two latter we are parked on a bank with the rear wheels in a ditch and the front wheels off the ground. I had braked for a small dip into a dry creek crossing when the left hand mounts for the sway bar gave way causing the car to turn hard left, and so we sat until the last car had been through and a 4wd was able to tow us off. Out with the winch and tie everything back in place and head for the service area calling the service crew to go to the nearest wrecker and find some parts. The repairs done we set out to complete the rest of the section to Darwin. This we did with no drama and at a reduced pace just in case.

Darwin to Mt Isa. A 950k transport first up, with the last 350k's on gravel. Can't be to bad, well it looked ok in the route book. The first 30 k's of gravel were ok then onto a refuel stop at Roper bar population 9, refuelled we headed out making good progress, the further we went the slower we were going down to third gear then second down to 60kph through very steep dry creek crossings and very tight winding road a couple of cars caught us and radioed that they wanted to go through, I let them, we soon found one off the road, an RX2, with the front suspension torn out, we stopped for a few minutes to see if we could help but couldn't and left our portable light with them. They were stuck there for about a day and a half before one of the locals could get the car to the nearest homestead and make temporary repairs. We finally made the rest break with only a few minutes to spare, refuelled and headed for a much needed sleep. We were woken by the service crew who had made very heavy going through the last section of the road with two punctures and many other small problems. We had to leave them to have a rest and wait for 4 hours for the garage to open up at 7 am. We headed off for the next transport I could not drive far having driven the last 11 hours so I continued to sleep, When I finally hopped behind the wheel I noticed the handling off a bit I said to Mike that we had better check the front end before the next stage.

On arriving at the stage I sat down out of the car and had a snooze, only remembering about the front end just before we were due to line up, the left front strut insert had come out, hell this is a rating six stage and we have no suspension in the front, the leg could pop out, needless to say we drove very slowly a bit of a worry but we made it ok and continued onto Mt Isa put the car in Parc ferm'e and arranged to repair the front end first thing the next day.

Mt Isa-Townsville. Out of Parc ferm'e and straight down to Beaurepaires where the service crew had just fitted a new shock to the other Cortina. What should have been a quick repair took over an hour because the spares we were carrying were not quite correct. We decided to miss the first special and head for the last stage just before Townsville some 700k's with everything in order and horror stories about the missed special, we continued on schedule only to find that about half way through the instructions were 100k's short that made a mess of the average speeds. We picked up the pace and made the time control with 3 minutes to spare only to be told that the stage was delayed an hour because of some forestry workers, so we sat and waited then news filtered through that because of the error we would have had and extra hour and a half on the transport. The special stage was real nice we made excellent time and were back to clean sheeting the time with out to much effort.

Townsville -Brisbane, the last leg. 1900ks and 28 hours and seven special stages. The transport to the first special and the special stage were very rough, we made the transport time ok but were slow on the special. I cannot recall much about the next few transports or special stages other than we were flat out trying to make the times without losing to many points but by this time we were prepared to loose some points in order to make sure that we finished. At this point we could not improve our position (2nd in class) as the other car was way in front. We headed onto the service at Mckay only to be contacted by the service crew who were on their way back to Bowen near the end of the first special stage, they had been contacted by the officials who reported that the Cortina of Eric's and Lynton needed assistance. At this stage that was all we knew, I did a quick check around the car and we headed of to cover a few more k,s. By the time we reached the rest break we had been told that Eric had been off and had damaged the rear suspension. We were not fully aware of their situation. I don't recall exactly when were heard the full story, they had hit a bank with the left rear wheel which had moved the rear axle sideways our service crew spent the best part of 4 hours trying to put everything back in place changing the axles and diff head, the car back on the road the service crew had a feed and a rest then hit the road only to find the Cortina stopped on the side of the road a few k,s south of Bowen an axle had pulled out, the housing was bent and no replacement was available, they were out. I had mixed emotions, Eric and lynton were good guys and had been going extremely well, but we were now first in class better keep the brain engaged. By this time I was hungry and very tired, unfortunate I was starting to loose my sense of humour, the pressure to finish was now extreme I drove the specials slowly loosing time on all of them, the steering was way off let go the wheel and the car would turn hard right, I had to do a wheel alignment at 7am in the freezing cold with a bit if wire as a gauge. With this problem fixed we carried on the best we could, trying to stay awake and keep the car in one piece.

We eventually arrived at the Parc Ferme in Brisbane to be greeted by some of the sponsors, wives etc. This was great but I was to tried to make small talk.

Last day. Brisbane Gold Coast, only one special stage and we had finished and won our class. We left Brisbane and headed down the main road, the noise from the diff, we had noticed the day before, seemed to be getting worse, would it hold up ?. This was a bit like the last lap of a race all the new noises and the nerves. The special stage, named "The Fat Lady Sings", was only 2k,s long and was held in a disused quarry, we were given the off, lots of people watching, don't want to go to slow, but !. through the first bit Ok then over cooked it on a left hander and nearly hit a pile of gravel, the nerves were to much, slowed down, Mike was also having nerve problems, he had lost the plot completely just follow the wheel track from the other cars. Finished, now what, regroup and head for the finish line, lots of banter on the R/T, everyone was relieved to have made it. Onto the finish line, huge crowd, and a roaring reception for all competitors. Follow the instructions to the Parc Ferme. We had finished and won our class, but what do we do now. It is hard to describe now I felt at this point. We had come a long way and had been flat out for 19 days now it was over.

Wayne Reed

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