After trying to beg a routebook from Heatway Industries, they were told

“… don’t want the public near the special stages”

….fastest was Blair Robson’s V8 Falcon….

…. When asked what a Skoda was doing in an international rally, someone replied “well if you can’t sell ‘em they may as well wreck ‘em”. One driver tried this but after eight rolls and a vertical 400 feet detour, it still arrived in Wellington ( the finish)

…The Lucas alternators seemed to be the source of many lighting problems

… two damp bodies crawled into an equally damp Sprite …

… had 13 hours sleep in 96 hours and 900 miles …

Of cadging a drive through a stage behind the stage opening car (try that now!), and then …

… we disappeared down an escape road at about 65mph ….but were consoled to find many competitors had done likewise …

The drivers of motorsport past: International names like Andrew Cowan, and top locals such as Leo Leonard, Jim Richards, Robbie Franicevich, Paul Adams …..

The range of cars: Triumph PI, Citroen, Porche, Monaro, BMW, Fiat, Victor 2000, Falcon …. And of course Mini and Escort

Last but not least, the closing comments which fired imaginations and were to shape club activity for well over a decade:

Numerous cars carried club stickers so maybe this is something the club could look forward to …. Having just finished spectating for half the rally we realised that competing in this event would be a tremendous experience.

A rough estimate was made at $300 (!!) and two service crews as a minimum.

Hands up those for the next Heatway?

Thus the following year a bright-eyed & already lead-footed young Walbran was introduced to the world of rallying via the Golden Shell Rally of 1972 as part of an MGCC team of 3 cars. This magic event was superbly plotted and used many brilliant roads in the lower North Island. Stages were of marathon proportions - the longest being a 120 mile loop near Raetehi, while the fabled Gentle Annie stage was 99 miles and a number of others logged in around the 50–60 mile mark – and there were dramatic bits of road (at one point a routebook caution noted “1000 foot drop” and emphasised the point with a drawing of parachutist!

The following year the MGCC team did the big one – the fabled 1973 Heatway Rally, which covered 5072 km including nearly 3000km of special stages throughout both the South and North Islands. Co-driving again for John Arkley, this time in a ‘69 BGT, created many vivid memories … the Hakataramea fords … ice on Dansey’s Pass … passing car after car at 100mph+ on State Highway 6 all the way up the West Coast which was almost totally special stage … ice on said SH6 … the SH1 shield nailed to a tree in the very narrow, twisty, unsealed Maruia Saddle… the local who dammed a ford on the Braeburn Track and offered to tow competitors through at $20 a shot (1973 dollars!) … more ice at 100mph … the magic of dawn after driving right through the night, especially when alongside a lake or river … the sight of over a dozen sets of tail lights weaving their way through the darkness ahead of us as we descended into a valley on Gentle Annie … finding the Hillman Hunter which overtook us on the 3^rd blind brow in a row, on its side in a paddock after the 5^th one which had a 90 degree exit, not straight like the other four … spectators in the pouring rain on the East Coast (and they thought WE were mad!) .. Motu ..

They were heady times, but with other things to do (like: meet Bron, get married, build a house, start a family) rallying became relegated to the less intrusive one day events which evolved in the mid 70’s - first driving the trusty Mk 2 Jag (very exciting when hung out sideways) and then most of the time in “Joseph B” which I bought from Den Williams in 1978. The magic and challenge of the long events would have to wait till another day.

In 1985, realising that the MGB’s homologation was about to lapse (5 years after production ceases) we pointed Joseph in the direction of the Rally of New Zealand as a bit of a local farewell for the B from full international competition. With a baby (Scott) due shortly before the event, I opted out of driving. Andy Walker took the helm and put on an impressive display, showing that B’s can hang it sideways in grand style and beat lots of much newer competition, finishing 31^st out of around 70 starters.

Following this, time slipped by again. With young kids, speed events were much more family friendly in their time demands and obviously osmotic too as the boys got the bug. Targa was a severe temptation but without any gravel I never got completely motivated. Then at the beginning of this year I tripped across the plans for a Silver Fern Rally in the South Island: an event with 1500km of special stages, all of them gravel; using a name evocative of the first full special stage rally held in New Zealand; a format similar to those early rallies and using many of those iconic stages. Activation!! (Especially when I realised that at 24 my oldest son Andrew is now older than I was when I did those great early events).

This rather lengthy introduction has been an attempt to explain why, at comfortably past 50 (approaching 60 Andrew unkindly reminds me!), would get so pathetically possessed as to crawl around under a car getting covered in grot night after night till all hours for weeks on end. A second childhood perhaps?!! So we come (eventually) to the topic in hand.

Joseph had retained the bulk of its rally preparation (even if over half of it wasn’t actually attached to the car currently) so getting it out of retirement was not too much of a challenge. For those not familiar with the car, it is a 1963 MGB fitted with a 5 main bearing engine (the 3 brg original is safely preserved on the shelf) with a spec of largely factory special tuning: fairly conventional modifications to around 150BHP, original gearbox with BMC special tuning close ratio gears, limited slip diff, uprated half shafts, revised suspension rates, twin circuit brakes with adjustable front/rear bias and uprated linings, underbody shields, and lots of seam welding of the body. The only significant non-factory component change is the use of Bilstein shocks all round.

Preparation consisted of :

Overhauling the rear axle and diff; stress relieving the halfshafts, a minor refresh for the engine last overhauled 4 years ago and still nearly perfect inside apart from a casting defect discovered in no 3 cyl (=new block!) renewing all brake components – hydraulics, discs, drums, pipes – with a similar approach for the clutch fitting a complete new wiring loom as well as building a new auxiliary loom (essential these, dodgy wiring is a no 1 source of reliability problems for any old car) reinforcing the underneath of the exhaust system (not well enough it turned out!) overhauling both SU fuel pumps, renew all fuel hoses, filters etc as well as refitting all the goodies that had been lurking in various corners of the basement and garage (underbody shields, rollcage, weber, grunty camshaft, various bits of rally kit, etc).

The car had undergone a reasonably extensive structural rebuild about 4 years ago, and had a thorough suspension overhaul at the time so nothing else was needed here other than checking everything was tight.

All of which resulted in much midnight oil ... too optimistic on timelines as usual!

A couple of other “veterans” of those early events joined us as service crew: Chris Rodliffe (aka CR) who co-drove one of the other MGCC cars in both Golden Shell and 73 Heatway, and Evan Chugg who had been a special stage control marshall.

CR, well known for having driven almost every gravel road in the North Island, saw the opportunity to explore new territory and took his trusty Mk2 Escort 1600 Sport. By the end of the event, CR had received no fewer than 5 offers on the Escort from people wanting to build it into a rally car, all of which were emphatically rebuffed. Evan drew the short straw and had to pilot the rental wagon with soft suspension, a full (and I mean FULL) load of tools and spares, trailer on the back and very little ground clearance.

In the hot seat calling the instructions was Andrew. He had eyes on the drivers seat, but no funding to realise his aspirations. Besides, our kids are natural co-drivers, having been thoroughly used to being in an MGB sideways on gravel right from the day each was born.

Due to other commitments in the week leading upto the event, I towed Joseph down to Blenheim the weekend beforehand. This proved to be a very wise move, as I had perfect conditions to cross Cook Strait, unlike most of the North Island crews who got caught in conditions severe enough to close the service for a while.

There were 70 cars in all, mainly from the 1970’s with a few invited examples of newer machinery. Most popular car was the Escort, over 20 of them headed by former world champion Stig Blomqvist. Also in an Escort, his trusty old 1968 Mexico, was Andy Walker, winner or the 1990 Silver Fern and an MGCC member dating back to when I joined the club. In his support crew was another well known MGCC name, Andy Lowe. A brace of Porsches from the UK, a Mustang, and a Monaro provided a good contrast to the usual mix of cars in the NZ rally scene. At 43 years old, Joseph was the oldest car by several years, and the sole example from the BMC stable – amazingly, not a Mini in sight!

So we arrived at the start ramp on a brilliantly fine Marlborough day, and headed off for the prologue stages which would determine the seeding for the main event, cars outside of the first 20 having been numbered in entry order only. First up was Port Underwood, which winds its way around the coast east of Picton. This stage proved a different sort of challenge than expected, as the surface was severely corrugated and resulted in shaking the dreaded pull-out door latch out of action. Thus the rest of the stage was done mainly with one hand on the wheel as the right hand repeatedly grabbed at/held the door from trying to depart … rather distracting to say the least! Not a good start, I’d checked them beforehand, looked OK but obviously they’d fooled me. Still, we could have been worse off, like the 260Z which inverted self, or the Escort which buried its nose in the bank. All we had to do was tweak the catch a bit!

A couple of short sprint stages rounded out the prologue and made for an easy day, the last we were to get for a week!

The event proper started with an anticlimax, as special stage 1, Awatere Valley Rd had to be cancelled due to road closure being declined by the local council on “safety grounds”. (Wonder what they’d have made by some of the ones which came later??!!) We toured through this road instead, and then exited as planned through the Molesworth Station. With a 50km/h speed limit for 64km, and lots of corrugations, I can’t say I’d recommend it – if you want to travel an iconic gravel road in the South Island, there are much better in my view.

However, SS2 which followed was more like it, 24km’s of good roads and a lot of fun. Easing back into the groove after too many years off, we were happy with our 58^th place. Coming out of the stage, the chuff-chuff of an exhaust leak told us that the wicked little ford in Molesworth (which was so V-shaped that both ends of the car contacted at once), had tweaked the system somehow. A quick stop at Springs Junction where the local garage owner obligingly interrupted his Sunday and welded the split, and we were off to the Maruia Saddle stage.

This hadn’t changed much in 33 years, a neat little track which winds its way over the hill, a bit rough but a motorway compared with what was to come in later stages. Braeburn Track followed, much less of a track than the “saddle”, and of course the infamous ford from 1973.

The day was rounded out with some forest stages near Greymouth. Apparently these forests have been planted on riverbed dredge tailings … and it shows! Let’s just say they were not what we came along for. We elected to preserve the car, carefully picked our way through the rubble as best we could, wincing every time the bottom of the car pounded and ground its way over an unavoidable rockpile. Worse was to come later in the event. The Minis must have known something. Fortunately such stages were in the minority.

After a 6am start, we’d had a long day by the time we arrived in Greymouth around dark. A search of the town, wet & deserted, eventually turned up a pizza establishment. Long hours and arriving too late for food establishments turned out to be standard conditions for much of the event. Still, I was pleased to find I could still survive a week of 4 hrs sleep a night, thought I’d lost that ability years ago.

Day 2 started with more ex-riverbed forest stages, one downgraded to touring because of comms problems, the other having a major river crossing, wide and quite deep, right after the start. Waiting there listening to the various cars drowning in the attempt to cross the river was a bit like waiting on death row (I suppose, never tried it personally). We decided to redirect the air intake hose between the carb and the remote filter as high as possible in the engine bay – there’s been lots of rain so dust wasn’t going to be an issue, but an engine ingesting water is not a pretty sight after the next compression stroke!

Finally it was our turn. Decided not to rush it. Felt like the car was going to stall, but no! it was just dropping off the cam as the car slowed from loading up against the water in front and the loose river bed underneath. A few revs & clutch slip and it soldiered on. The waterproofing robbed from the boat toolbox did its trick; the car lurched over the boulders at the other side, clambered clear of the water and we were on our way. Only casualty was the exhaust system, flattened substantially by aforementioned boulders as the car crashed over them. No leaks, not threatening to drop off, just vibrating incessantly against the body … and down on power. Now that’s the serious bit! However, that’s the way it was to stay for the rest of the event, though we effected some improvement by replacing the worst affected bit during the layday in Dunedin after leg 3.

We left the stage, and with it the West Coast, feeling somewhat gloomy. I’m not into “bash, crash & trash”, so driving with some feeling for the car over such territory gave way 7 minutes over the 3 stages to cars we normally took time out of. However, the third stage of the day, Lyndon Rd into Lake Coleridge, was just the tonic we needed – 25km of flowing gravel road, neat corners, great scenery … and we caught and passed the car ahead! Felt pretty happy with our 50^th place ahead of a few Escorts and a couple of Porsches. Buzz, buzz … that old “driving sideways is the meaning of life” feeling was coming back.

Needless to say, this caused me to get a bit carried away on the next stage, but only a little bit! Rockwood Rd is a short steep hillclimb and descent, neat fun! Too much fun as I overshot a hard right hander straight after a gate, (couldn’t see it for the red mist) harmless enough other than the vital seconds lost in backing up. This turned out to cost us a place per second, so our 50^th could have been much better. Obviously the car was up to it even if the driver wasn’t!

Andy Walker had the gearbox fail prior to this stage; his team did a great job to get it changed only for him to find that the stage had closed a little early and he was excluded from it. He successfully argued his point later.

MacKenzie Pass was next, and while awaiting our turn to start we were hailed by the farmer in the adjacent paddock, who introduced himself as Alastair Munro, one of our customers. Those who went to the MGCC national meeting earlier this year will recall the tale of the Canterbury team breakdown en route to Wanaka, and the amazing coincidence of knocking on a farmers door to leave said sad car for safe keeping, only to be offered a replacement MG for the weekend. Yep, it was Alastair then too, seems to me that if you’re in an MG in the MacKenzie country, he will find you!

It was another enjoyable stage. Even the fords were better than many we’d had. At the end, another top up with petrol and we ere on our way. So too was CR, who with careful planning had arranged to be at this service stop so he could exit via nearby Hakakaramea Pass Rd, infamous in the 73 Heatway for the number of cars it claimed.

“There are 7 fords in Hakakaramea” said CR when we next saw him with a happy smile on his face, adding in typical understatement “…. The 4^th one got me….” !

(By this time, CR was starting to become legend amongst the other drivers & crew: “Why is your mate in the blue Escort always going the other way?” “Because he’s heading off to use a dirt road to get to the next service rather than use the main road”).

This brought us to Black Forest, the infamous stage that descends the mountains over the back of Lake Benmore. Having lost my head for heights, I wasn’t looking forward to this, but it was several times worse in reality than I had ever imagined. After bashing through yet more fords and rugged conditions in the first half of the stage, not only do you come up over a saddle to find Lake Benmore hundreds (thousands?) of stomach-wrenching feet directly (and I mean, “directly”!!) below you, but the road is very narrow with no shoulder – it just disappears over the edge. Terrifying is the word I think. On top of that it was in poor condition and we had to dodge as best we could the various rocks & ruts. Next to this, Skippers is a motorway! In the 70’s this stage was run at night, in winter. At least they couldn’t see the drops, somehow that does make it easier. The fastest cars managed to average 64 km/h, we settled for a more sedate 48, along with a few others!

By this time, one of the really good features of the event was revealing itself: The stage results were going on-line in very quick time, and back home, Matt (who should have been doing Uni work) was busy texting the results of each stage to us. As a result we had our time and placing from each special before we got to the next one!

As we headed away from Benmore towards the Lindis Pass, ominous clouds were gathering, and sure enough it started to snow, quite heavily by the time we got to the top of the Lindis. A quick blat through the Phillips Rd stage cheered us up, but then we noticed that the alternator charge rate had become intermittent. Needless to say I cursed myself for not worrying about a spare on the grounds I’d just fitted a new one (and no, it wasn’t Lucas!).

The last stage of the day was scheduled as Cardrona: up the race to the sky, then down a farm track. The implications of the latter, relative to some of the overly rugged tracks we’d seen didn’t excite me, so I wasn’t unhappy to be told the stage was cancelled due to the snow. Good point, wouldn’t have been able to see where the road went in the white-out, a bit of a worry thousands of feet up a mountain!

By this time dusk was setting in, and we were advised that a car had spun out in the snow and blocked the Crown Range. There was nothing for it but to head for the overnight at Queenstown the long way round, with wipers battling the snow and competing with the headlights to see which could drain the battery first. Solution was to follow CR, and “use” his headlights instead of ours, and to phone Bron and ask her to send the original Lucas alternator to the rescue.

We just made it into Queenstown, same problem with food, too late (thanks to going the long way round) – even in Queenstown. Exhaustion 1, rumbly tums 0.

Awoke the next morning to a light sprinkling of snow still falling. Found a flat tyre on Joseph when we arrived at parc ferme but more encouragingly also found that CR’s battery booster did the trick and started the engine (virtue of MGB battery location, as we were not allowed to open the bonnet till out of parc ferme).

The snow forced the cancellation of the day’s first stage, Nevis. Given that this was billed as a rugged road having 32 fords, we leapt for joy and after a quick but fruitless search for an alternator we headed in the general direction of Alexandra. Following the first special stage, we detoured to the town and had a shop for something to solve the alternator problem. Only available solution was a spare battery, and with time ticking past we hastily stowed it and headed for the next stage.

A little bit of pressure and the brain goes on holiday … yep, I mucked up the fuel calculation & told Evan we didn’t need any yet. Wrong! And of course I didn’t realise till we’d gone past the point of no return.

We got to the stage start, (only just made it in time) swapped the battery, left the flat one at the side of the road for CR to collect, donned helmets & harnesses and headed off into the stage …. economy running! Of course, this just had to be a brilliant road for this to happen on, boo-hoo! We made the best we could on it - after all it was even more important than ever to maximise speed through corners and in the end dropped only less than a minute to judge by the cars usually around us.

There was little touring before the next stage, Runs Rd (30km) and servicing was difficult to access in time. As we lined up for the start, we contemplated the gloomy prospect of running out in the middle of the stage. The ambulance crew helped out with 5 litres, greatly appreciated but it would probably only delay the inevitable.

Because of the time spent getting & swapping the battery, we were now last on the road and were rather surprised to hear a car coming rather quickly along the long straight access road to the stage start. We peered into the distance to see who else had struck misfortune. The distant dust cloud got gradually bigger until in the middle of it our unbelieving eyes saw a blue Escort materialise. The cavalry had arrived!! CR had somehow managed the impossible and turned up just in the nick of time. Maybe the Escort’s police-box blue colour did the trick. In best Nelsonian tradition, the marshalls obligingly looked the other way while Joseph gratefully received his much needed “fix” in the control area and we were on our way. It wasn’t to be one of our better stages but at that point we weren’t in a mood to care!

The subsequent Lake Onslow stage through the depths of Central Otago, the longest in the event at 92km, was abandoned for safety reasons due to the combination of a very slippery road from the snow and deep water next to the road near the end of the stage. We still had to tour through it though; the first half of the stage was (shall I say) not that smooth and included the inevitable fords, one of which was much more rugged than usual. As we climbed out the other side, there was no easy way round the boulders in the stream bed and the whole back of the car lifted underneath me as it crashed over them. Sitting forlornly on the other side was the Escort of Neil Gee, miles from help - not a good place to be stranded.

However, I must say that the second half of this road was heaps of fun – 45km of mudplug! Drawing on experience gained in MGCC mudplugs of times past, we gradually slithered our way through km after km. Caught up with a 4wd Escort - on the end of a tow rope - which slowed us further.

This proved to be almost critical at one point as we crawled up a long incline behind them without the benefit of any momentum at the bottom. The front tyres, having completely clogged up, severely hampered any attempt to steer. We drifted gradually to the right, off the crown of the road, gently bounced off the bank at about 2 mph and then back to the middle …. only to then continue drifting sideways in slow motion over to the left hand bank. No bounce here, instead the car lurched sideways as it fell into the ditch at the side. Oh dear! (Not my precise words oddly enough). Looked at Andrew, he looked at me, both thinking “So it ends here?!” Don’t panic!!!! All those mudplugs past paid off as Joseph somehow clawed his way out of the ditch, back onto the road and eventually made it to the top of the hill. We eventually passed the Escort & towing 4WD, which made things much easier. Found the snow and deep water, yes it was a bit dodgy but next to Black Forest it was positively benign.

When we finally finished the stage, we met up with Evan, who meanwhile had charged the spare battery with the service car’s alternator so at the next service stop is was out with the new battery (now nearly run down) and in with the old but recharged one.

Lake Onslow was to be the last “challenging” stage for a while. The Three Brothers special, near Roxburgh, which followed was more like what many of the drivers had come for, and conversation was positively buzzing at the end. At one point, I reflected on how great the B feels under these conditions, why don’t I take all corners like that? Because “like that” was on the absolute limit due to having misread the corner. Lots of fun, but what happens if you get it wrong & there’s no error margin? (Over the edge, that’s what.) This stage featured quite a number of blind brows … oh so tempting to take flat out, but I stuck to the game plan and drove to the visibility, remembering the Hunter in ‘73. Got a bit carried away just before the end in a series of downhill hairpins, tried to recover with the handbrake only to find it was jammed (that ford with the extra big boulders in its base must have got the cable). Hello Mr Fence!!!! …. Sorry Mr Fence, won’t quite be visiting you today, you were 2 inches in the wrong place. Joseph however was very grateful.

The Mahinerangi stage which followed took us east towards Dunedin. It was billed as “one of the best special stages in the world” and I have to say it certainly was pretty good. 44km, fast in parts, slow and twisty in others and even a long snow drift to plough through. Joseph was on fire! (=the driver had finally got his act together.) Took the thick end of a minute out of a group 4 Escort in front of us, and finished 45^th, all this with an exhaust pipe down to 10mm wide with an attendant power loss thanks to the repeated attention of the fords. Such a brilliant bit of road, the corners flowing whether fast or slow.

The B is such a superb car to drive under these conditions, easy to set up, drifts beautifully through the corner and goes wherever you want to point it when the power goes down. Then its good traction and wide power band with bags of torque (even with a lumpy cam) do their bit for the enjoyment package, the next corner approaches and the cycle starts again. And again. For mile upon mile on these lovely long stages.

Throughout the event, we hit the magic 100mph on numerous occasions; chickened out at 110, sometimes earlier … these speeds get quite exciting on gravel!! Even 80mph was enough in the blustery Canterbury northwester side wind we were to get a couple of days later. Said Andrew: “Don’t back off! You’re getting past it! I’ll have to drive.”

After one further special (another enjoyable one), we arrived in Dunedin. Left the car at the parc ferme, and began the process of ferrying us to our accommodation. With only one spare seat between the two service cars (the rest being chocker with tools and parts), this was always a bit of a ritual. This time CR uncharacteristically took a wrong way to the accommodation and got trapped in Dunedin’s one way system, which made for a long wait in the cool breeze and gathering dusk until he returned to collect me.

That night we happened on a student pub with a Tuesday night special and spent all of $18 between the four of us in getting a decent meal for the first time since the event started!

Wednesday in Dunedin was a scheduled lay day for the event. In addition to any necessary maintenance, our cunning plan was to check/replace the clutch as on both the two previous long rallies the clutch needed nursing by the end. Carters Car Services, owned by Otago Member Kevin Carter, allowed us the use of some workshop space and having first deposited vast quantities of mud at the local car wash we set about our list.

The engine is more-or-less on zips, much effort having been spent in at least halving every operation needed to remove it, so in next to no time it was out … and we found that the clutch plate was perfect! However, it was not a wasted effort as it made the damaged exhaust system much easier to access and repair the worst bit of it. The replacement alternator was fitted, and the faulty one repaired for good measure. Checked the brake linings (would last till tomorrow night), changed the rear tyres (our first tyre change other than the puncture unlike most of other cars which consumed a mountain of tyres) and a number of minor other things were also attended to/checked, not the least of which was trying to stem the flow of dust into the car. This turned out to be a fruitless exercise and by the time the event had finished we were quite the connoisseurs of dust. It also took a week to work out of our system.

2.30 arrived so, needing to get the car back to parc ferme by 4pm to avoid penalties, we dumped the engine back in the car and ran it onto the hoist to do the final weld in the exhaust. This is when we discovered that one sump guard mount had been ripped out of the chassis rail, so an unplanned bit of panel repair took place. We made it back in the nick of time, but at the expense of leaving off the sump guard.

This was duly attended to the next morning, with a carefully thought out detour to a carpark where everything was laid out and ready to do the job. 5 min later we were on our way (and half of that was trying to restart the engine after Joseph got the sulks and flooded).

Thursday’s stages were all brilliant, there’s no other word to describe them. However, reflecting on the last three stages the day before, I decided that a bit of restraint was required if I was to avoid the trap of winding up faster and faster until eventually falling off the road. Been there, done that, like to think that I have learnt something as I’ve got older. Accordingly I drove a bit slower (not much, just a bit). Andrew wasn’t impressed with this proposition, but then he’s still young and stupid (like I was at his age).

To be truthful, I drove a lot slower on the first two stages of the day. Yes, the roads were narrow, yes they were a bit gravely, but I’ve had all that before, yet the car felt very skittish. Then it dawned on me – we’d changed the rear tyres but hadn’t checked the pressures in the rush. Sure enough one of them was at 35 psi instead of the 24 we had been running. Sure made for exciting driving! A quick hissing tweak before the 3^rd stage, and what a difference!

However, while the 71 km Ram Rock (the day’s second stage) was not as quick for us as it should have been, it was much worse for Jimmy McRae who lost his 4^th placing after he went a bit wide one a corner early in the stage and ended up parked unhelpfully and unable to extract himself. Another casualty was Mark Parsons and Mal Clark in the TR7 V8 who had enjoyed a good run in the event until then, when the gearbox let go in the middle of the stage.

Despite “taking it easier” (= not driving any faster, in reality) we had a really good run in the 4^th stage of the day (Golden Bar Rd, from Palmerston inland to Macraes Flat) to come in 43^rd. Cars which finished the stage behind us included half a dozen Escorts (including a couple of BDAs) and two Porsches, so we hadn’t backed off too much!

Danseys Pass was next up, been looking forward to this one. Vivid memories of it in 1973 in the darkness, with ice on the road for the last hundred metres or so before the summit. A car in front of us had come to a halt and was going nowhere despite the codirver giving all trying to push (and slipping over on the ice for his troubles.) We took to the rough at the side of the road and the better weight distribution of the B saw us through. After the summit, we passed Jim Richards, over the edge in spectacular fashion. Fast forward 33 years and the conditions were just the opposite – daylight, hot (what a contrast from earlier in the week!), and we were also going in the opposite direction.

However, the road was still as good as then! And, there was someone over the edge in the same place! This time it was Alan Dippie, in his Corolla GT. All we saw was the back bumper lying on the road, forlornly overlooked by a carless crew. There was only one draw-back to Dansey’s: engine temp had climbed a bit far, in the absence of an engine fan and the slow-ish uphill road on a warm day meant not good cooling through the radiator. The electric fan cut in but the needle kept moving rather than stabilising, so I had to ease off from three-quarters of the way up to allow it to recover. Only in a straight line of course, around corners it was still all on.

CR managed to cadge a run through Danseys behind the tail car, how unexpected!

Stage 30, Tokarahi, took us from Danseys over towards Oamaru. Another brilliant one, with big smiles at the finish from the drivers and for us a satisfying 42^nd. This was also the story for the remaining two stages that day, rounding off a thoroughly enjoyable day of sideways motoring.

We had arranged to use Lawrie Steere’s MG Service Centre workshop that night to check the car over in the 45 min end of day service time. Lawrie had arranged a replacement set of comp spec brake shoes which we duly fitted, did a bit more exhaust repair (it was still vibrating on the bodywork as it had done since halfway through the first day) and quickly checked the rest of the car over. Found a small weep in a seam of our fuel tank, undoubtedly caused by the massive jolt in the ford which shot the back of the car upwards the day before. After looking at it carefully we decided to leave well alone as attempting to repair it could unravel rapidly.

Headed off to parc ferme at the local Scenic Circle Hotel near the airport, and sneaked in just ahead of penalty time. After packing up at the workshop, CR followed behind to do his ferrying trick … but being by this stage approaching 11pm and (as usual) not having eaten much all day – this is one area the event could be improved – we decided a visit to the house bar was in order while we waited. This resulted in much amusement, as we were still covered in dust from top to toe, and our faces were somewhat black with it. But the beer went down a treat!

Stayed with the Steeres that evening, sat up chatting for a while, amongst which we learned that Lawrie had managed to get his Landrover stuck in the river crossing in Lees Valley Rd – the first special next day. He then went on to encourage us with the observation that with the weather there had been, the river would be well up!

So in the morning we were not surprised to find that the Lees Valley stage had been amended, being split in two with said river crossing being now a touring stage due to flood flows damaging the river bed. Yikes! Even worse than all the zillions of others we’d already done? Must be seriously bad. And by the way … “we will tow you across”. The thought of being dragged across a very lumpy riverbed did not impress many drivers, including me. In fact I was grumpy. Very. So noting the large drops in the stage once we got going, I slowed right down lest I did something stupid in my grumpiness.

In the end, it was entirely unnecessary stress. Yep, the riverbed looked evil. Yep, the water was wide and deep – nearly at the top of the wheels. BUT … the car damn near floated, certainly I could feel hardly any weight on the wheels. (one Porsche did, & drifted downstream as far as the towrope would let it.) AND … Joseph didn’t ship any water inside! Well at least this helped narrow the dust sources – they must be above wheel height!

Despite the extra cooling of the river crossing, Joseph started getting quite warm again in the second half of Lees Valley. We had to stop several times to fire water from the drink bottle onto the radiator to aid cooling, and got caught up by the sweeper while doing so (fortunately they waited!). Jumping to pessimistic conclusions, I concluded that the head gasket must be leaking. Phoned Lawrie to bounce ideas off him. Lawrie pointed out that the infamous hot Canterbury northwester was present that day, and the way we’d been going it was right behind us. With no engine fan, there would be no air going through the radiator. Easy!

We fitted the fan back on at the service stop in Cheviot and the problem went away, allowing us to settle back into driving without distraction. Unfortunately, two stages had not gained road closure and had to be cancelled, leaving only two more specials (both being really enjoyable drives) before we departed Canterbury and headed north on the long touring stage up SH1 to Marlborough. (Almost at Kaikoura plod on prowl” came Evan’s text). By this time, we had worked our way up to 40^th overall so we were feeling pretty happy with progress.

Blind River stage was next, starting by the Lake Grassmere salt works and going up the coast a bit. Halfway along this stage as I rounded a corner I instantly recognised the rest of the stage as the road used for the national championship hillclimb earlier this year. Funny how much quicker you can go when you know what’s around the bend or over the blind hump! Nearly made up for the time I spent chatting to the start marshall without realising my start time had passed … oops!

A couple more short sprint stages of around 10km each rounded off the day in good style. The second of these was Taylor’s Pass, which had been used in the prologue so was a bit familiar. Meantime, Gary Adcock’s TR8 had a small fire under the bonnet and joined the now growing list of cars which had not completed all stages. (Under the early ‘70’s concept rules being run, such cars could collect a penalty time for stages missed/not completed and stay in the event.) “Triumphs now have a 0% finish rate, MG is 100%” observed Andrew. “Quiet!! We’re not finished yet!”

The following morning we set out from Blenheim to Nelson, with the first special of the day being an original pioneer track into Nelson. 4wd territory locals sagely advised. They were right! Fortunately the organisers had a change of heart (I suspect something to do with the overseas drivers’ feedback forum on the layday in Dunedin) and took out the worst bit of it … by converting it to a touring stage.

We finished the special and pointed the car up a very steep hill which was very rutted and rocky. At one point, the road level split into a rocky ledge on the left and a lower rip-rap surface on the right. We tried the rip-rap, only to find that the car was burying itself into the stones and going nowhere. A small manifold gasket air leak was aggravating the lumpiness of the cam, adding to the problem. We got out of the car and after surveying the situation decided the car would just fit over the ledge. Cleared any loose rocks off it, left Andrew out of the car to lessen the load and cautiously climbed the shelf at minimum speed. With the left hand side of the car buried in the shrubbery, the right hand wheels were only overhanging by a little – this was tight driving! With the firm base, traction was more controllable, though at the expense of about half the clutch plate and a lingering smell for the cars behind! It did the trick though, and we were on our way.

Outside of the special stage pressure of “lose time or wreck the car” the road was in fact a really enjoyable challenge. When we weren’t mudplugging in the past, we had English style trials over steep bumpy terrain, so this was nothing new. We got to the top of the hill, then commenced the long descent to civilisation. Great fun – try it sometime!

On reaching the end, the stage marshalls jubilantly gave us the thumbs up and applause as we passed them. Only 3 or 4 start/finish crews covered the bulk of the rally, so we got to know them pretty well by the end and they were clearly willing us to make it to the finish. Some of them kept us all entertained with all manner of wacky clothing, from witches hats to bathroom garb early one frosty morning. All part of the atmosphere of the event.

The three forest stages around Nelson were a mixed bag of conditions, from smooth and fast to dodge-the-problems. The weep in the fuel tank got worse as a result of one of the fords, but was stemmed by an epoxy repair. How it stayed on I don’t know as it seemed really reluctant to stick before it set. However, it did the job and the leak slowed to an occasional drip.

By now, with only three more special stages to go, we were right into conservation mode. By the time we’d fiddled with the petrol tank we were running a bit behind time for the next start control, so this is of course the time we chose to take a wrong turn in the touring stage. Twice. Just to prove the first time wasn’t a fluke, you understand. We made it in the nick of time (this was getting to be a habit) and headed out on a short stage which climbed steeply up a forest road and then equally steeply back down again to almost end where we started. Andy Walker noticed a bit of breeze after this stage and discovered a couple of fist-sized holes in the floor of the Escort. The rocks from the forest road had left their calling card!

By now a miraculous thing had happened. The long suffering exhaust system, still sound and leak free but an entirely different shape from that it started out with, stopped rattling and grinding against the body. Each rock attack had randomly changed the speed at which it resonated against the body. Seems the last lot of rock attack randomly put it to a shape with clearance all round!

The last stage, only 9km, contained the only significant stretch of sealed road in all the special stages, very interesting on the knobbly tyres with soft pressures set for the gravel. Especially when in a series of hairpins! Then one final yump and we were finished!

We ended up 39^th out of 70 starters, and one of only 25 to have completed every special stage – not bad for the oldest car in the field, and one from a significantly earlier era at that. That the cars remain competitive against some much newer machinery, and with far fewer problems compared with the great majority of other cars entered, is a real tribute to the strength and reliability built into the B by its design engineers.

We were also one of the few to finish the event without a scratch. Obviously I wasn’t trying hard enough! I’ll have to do it all over again next time just to make up for being such a wuss …

Click HERE for the results details.

Paul Walbran