Dunkerton has narrow lead in Southern Cross Rally

Halfway through the Southern Cross Gold Anniversary Rally, Ross and Lisa Dunkerton in a Datsun 1600 continue to lead the field as the event snakes its way through New South Wales towards Coffs Harbour, to coincide with the running of Kennards Hire Rally Australia.

The rally started last Tuesday in Albury, before making its way down through Gippsland and then up to Canberra, before a half-way stop in Sydney, then heading north up to Coffs Harbour this Thursday.

Darryn Snooks in his George Fury replica Datsun 710 SSS. (Photo: Paul Mollison)The brainchild of former Australian and Victorian Rally Champ Bob Watson, the rally seeks to celebrate 50 years since the inaugural running of the original Southern Cross Rally, which went on to become Australia’s premier rally event through the 60s up until 1980.   

Over that time it attracted many of the world’s best drivers including Andrew Cowan, Bjorn Waldegard, Shekhar Mehta, Rauno Aaltonnen, Roger Clark and Ari Vatanen, amongst others all competing in a variety of works team cars.
 
The current rally has attracted a field of over 30 cars in the spirit of the original event and crews of the calibre of Ross Dunkerton, ex-NSW Champion Mike Batten, long distance specialists Ian and Val Swan, ex-Alpine winner Darryn Snooks and BP re-run winner John Rawson.

Another highlight of the event is the first appearance of Darryn Snooks’ immaculate built from the ground up Datsun 710SSS (Fury / Suffern replica), as well as the Galant GTO of Steve Marron in Barry Ferguson retro Southern Cross livery.

Andrew White’s Targa Volvo 122S also has the distinction of being the only original car that actually competed in the original Crosses to be running.

At the stop over in Sydney, a dinner was held at which multiple Southern Cross winner, Andrew Cowan, spoke to the gathering via Skype from his home in Scotland.  Another highlight of this was a gathering of over 20 ex competitors, including such luminaries as Barry Ferguson, James Lang Peach, Dave Johnson and Bob Reilly, among others.

After six days of competition that has seen the field run hillclimbs and khanacrosses, as well as special forest stages, Ross and Lisa Dunkerton are managing to hold off Steve and Ben Marron in the Galant GTO, with John Rawson and Jenny Pollock doing well in their Stanza in third.  

Fourth are Darryn Snooks and Matt deVaus in the Datsun 710SSS, ahead of the Swans in their trusty 242 Volvo, with Mike Batten and Steuart Snooks pushing them hard in sixth.                      

- Paul Mollison

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