Justin Friedrichs and Matt Monto had a successful weekend at the recent Scouts Rally SA in their classic Datsun 1600 after more recent good results. The pair claimed the top position in the Scouts SA Intro Rally, as well as first Classic car in the recent Roberststown Rally and first in the Second Valley Intro Rally.
The Scouts Rally SA is an annual Australian Rally Championship event, located in South Australia’s Mount Crawford. It is the also the final round of the S.A. Rally Championship.
The inclusion of this category allows rally machines of the yesteryear, like Friedrichs’ 1970 Datsun, a chance to directly compete with modern and highly modified 4 wheel drive turbo charged vehicles without the aid of reconnaissance or pace notes.
Friedrichs was driving at a very competitive pace from the get go, managing to take a 30 second lead on the first stage and maintaining consistently fast times on the remaining stages. This resulted in him taking the overall win, podium honours and most importantly, thrilling the cheering crowds for his aggressive sideways driving style.
Mount Crawford is notoriously hard on cars, according to Friedrichs: “At the end of the first 20 kilometre stage we spotted at least four cars stricken. We too are lucky for the car to have survived this event due to a blown tyre and a subsequent excursion at the end of the fourth stage.”
He notes “driving hard without pace notes, with no experience of the roads is fraught with danger, but the blown tyre was just unlucky - we were on track.”
Friedrichs added, “This year went extremely well. Taking out first and managing to even keep in front of rivals using pacenotes was very pleasing”.
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