Classics and Ari Vatanen and More...

The 2014 Australian Rally Championship is now underway down under with Brendan Reeves taking the National Capital Rally win this past weekend in his Mazda 2.  In a case of "this sounds like a bigger accomplishment than it is" there were only 17 national class entries in the event and 10 of them DNF'd.  Not that Reeves isn't a fantastic driver, he is, its just that national class entries seem to be as limited there as they are here in the States.

More interesting to me at least, is the always quality "classic" stage rally vehicles that come out to these ARC events.  For the Nat. Cap. Rally we have an old Mini, your typical gathering of Datsuns and Fords and, for one stage at least, Ari Vatanen behind the wheel of an epic looking Audi.  The classic class win was taken by the Toyota Celica #70 of Neal Bates.  Enjoy.

National Capital Rally...

40 Year Old Datsun 240Z Takes 2WD Win at Prescott Rally 2013

40 year old rally cars are rare.  40 year old rally cars that can still win are even more rare.

That didn't prevent Brian Scott and his codriver Michel Hoche-Mong from bringing out a 240Z with Pikes Peak experience in addition to Stage Rally history and taking home the 2WD win at the 26th running of the Prescott Rally in Arizona.

Finishing in 3rd overall out of 20 entries the red and black Z showed that RWD can still be competitive with modern vehicles when piloted well--particularly in the dry terrain of the West.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the Porsche 911 handled by Jason Lightner and Brian Johnson who finished 12th overall after numerous issues and grabbed 2nd place in NASA's 2WD National Championship.

Prescott Rally Homepage...

2nd Round of Australian Rally Championship--and its Nissans!

The 2013 Quit Forest Rally was this past weekend and once again a number of new and classic Nissans/Datsuns attended.  In fact the only three classic class vehicles to show were all Datsuns.  Jack Monkhouse performed well in his Silvia finishing 6th but unfortunately Will Orders and his Silvia didn't finish either day one or two and received no points.  There was also a cool 370Z of Nicholas Box competing which ended up in a ton of photos (some of which are below).  The photos I've seen so far are just of the top class so none of 180B, 1200 Coupe or 180SX that appeared in some of the other classes...Hopefully I can track some down and get them up...

Australian Rally Championship...

Australian Rally Championship Begins...

One of the other big events this weekend is the beginning of the Australian Rally Championship. For 2013 the ARC is returning its top level of competitors to 2WD vehicles.  No longer is the field dominated by only Subarus and Mitsubishis.  The mix of marquees is fantastic as is the varied age of the vehicles.

Today's Power Stage began the event with brief sprint and a little Mazda took the win and the first points of the season.  The series also is getting its videos up quick, has live tracking (yet to figure that out yet, may be my browser--IE at the moment), and live scoring. The video below is clear, well put together and I LOVE the terrain.  Oh, and since its on the other side of the world?  Its already day two of the event and they've started the main stages while I'm getting ready for bed...

Cool Little Datsun Truck Racing in Africa...

Proving that all is not dead in the world of Nissan/Datsun offroad racing is this little beauty.

Piloted by Alex Horsey in Kenya the Datsun pickup finished 4th in a strong field of 31 competitors in the first round of the Kenya National Rally Championship at the 2013 KCB Kajiado Rally.  This Datsun is some 30 plus years old but still runs near the front of the pack against much newer and AWD competition.

The Kick Energy Datsun runs in Group N and I guess is 4WD though I'm not sure I'd trust some 30+ year old CV joints.  Oh...and check out that wing!!  Looks like it was taken off a late model Mistsubishi Evo! You can see the conditions and much of the field during the race in the below video as well.  These look like some blisteringly fast roads!