“Cojones And A Death Wish” or; What It Takes To Be A Rally Racer
Miles Junior and I slalomed between the bollards at somewhere between 70 and 80 kilometres per hour, and he shouted, “We’re not going to make it.”
I was holding desperately onto the grab handle above the passenger side door, what competitors at Tonker Park call “The Jesus Handle”.
We did make it, though, and afterwards I felt that Miles and I had a deep connection, as if we had what was a life-or-death experience together. But I soon learned it was a regular race day for the five-year veteran of the Whitsunday Sporting Car Club.
On a Two-Day Race Meet ahead of their official competition, The North Queensland Khanacross, the collection of dirt rally racers met on the dry patch of land close to the Whitsunday Coast Airport.
My experience in the passenger seat of Miles’s $100-something dollar, kick-about Holden wagon on the midday of a blistering Saturday was just par for the course for the twenty odd racers and spectators — a few of whom have been meeting at the club for its entire twenty-five-year history.
Last weekend — and many before it — these passionate amateur dirt rally racers camped out at Tonker Park, driving from across the state, with many on Saturday coming from Mackay and Proserpine, Queensland.
At around 9.45am, Club President Mark Horder took the day’s racers for their “look-lap” ahead of the club day.
There were two circuits on Saturday: the inside, which started with a straight, sharp right turn, and then into a circle, rounded twice, before heading back along the sharp turn and the straight to finish.
And the outside: a rugged, bollard and barrier flanked series of twists and a small hill and straights that led back to the start.
Two cars race each circuit at a time, completing them in roughly 1 minute 30 seconds each.
There are tyres packed closely to trees and lining some of the more drift-inclined turns, but the “worst that could happen is you’d roll, or spin out,” Mark said.
I asked Mark what makes a good rally racer.
“Cojones and a death wish,” he laughed.
The rally faithful raced roughly two laps each before a break- some of the drivers as young as 15, having taken part in the club’s Idrive program, which teaches them the safety that comes alongside the fun of racing.
Mark said that the Tonker Park dirt, which flew up in enormous plumes on the dry day, was eroding slowly from years of use, and that the club will need to purchase gravel to top it back up.
“It’s getting lower and lower,” he said.
Most of the vehicles were old second or even third hand vehicles, and they were usually tinkered on by the competitors, who were self-proclaimed “car people”.
“It’s a bit slippery out there,” they said of the course, even though many of them were equipped with rally tires.
After the first few sets of time trials, a large truck sprayed water over the course to stop the grit and the dirt clouds, and in turn the deterioration of the course.
During that small sabbatical Mark said, “when are you putting on the helmet?”
It seemed rude to not have a go.
Mark, along with a few of the other old hands at the club decided I would head out with Miles Junior, a British expatriate who had joined in years past after bringing his son out to have a go before he himself fell in love with the sport.
I asked why Miles’s car didn’t have any side mirrors, noting that almost all the other cars still did — there was no tactical, aerodynamic reason to be missing them.
“Why are you so caught up on that? Have you looked at the rest of his car?” Mark said.
The wagon was gouged, with long scratches up its side and dents that were more like punctures, and it had driven 370,000 kilometres.
“They’re not hits, they’re kisses,” Miles said.
He strapped me into my helmet and I jumped in the passenger seat. To lessen the fear response that was building, I noted the attache fire extinguisher fastened to the passenger side floor.
“So I’m in charge of putting out the fires,” I said, hoping Miles would sense my joking, faux confident tone.
“If there’s a fire, we run like hell,” he said.
At our fastest, we travelled at around 100 kilometres an hour on the straight, and when we crisscrossed through the starting bollards, as I said, we were at about 80.
Had the race been an official one, Miles and I would have been docked around 10 seconds on our time.
Just before our best obstacle course impression, we had mounted a tiny plateau, breaching between barricades on either side. The whip of wind as we passed them told of how close we really were, and at points the thought occured: I’m in the passenger seat. If he crashes, he’s not going to pull the car towards his side.
The car had no roll cage — it cost him $100 dollars after all — and it was somewhere well north of the point where you’re saying, gee, that car’s on its last legs. That quick burst between those barricades onto the straight, where Miles had deftly and technically ripped the steering wheel side to side fast enough to give it whiplash, were where I think the problem had lain.
If we had hit the bollards, we would have been ok. They weren’t sturdy things, but all the same it was a microcosm of Miles’ high velocity approach to an already high velocity sport. I learned afterwards that his car was the most “well loved” because of his propencity for audacious driving.
We finished our quickest circuit in 1:21 seconds, a bit faster than his previous on the day. Perhaps it was a bit of bravado and showing off — or what Mark would call “Cojones”.
High octane sports like rally racing may not be everyone’s cup of tea, they’re certainly not going to be mine, but for the 100-member strong Whitsunday Sporting Car Club, there’s no better feeling than scorching around the course at Tonker Park.
Whenever I do something like I did that day in Proserpine, I make a note not to tell my mother beforehand, and I wonder if Miles or any of the other racers do the same.
A condensed version of this article appeared in the publication Whitsunday Life newspaper, where I worked as a full-time journalist.
