Enviro-nazis tried to stop Rally Australia

[Road_Warrior]

http://www.carpoint.com.au/news/2009...hallenge-16454

Riot squad and dogs on hand as rally set to roar
What surely was the last legal threat to the revival of Rally Australia next week in NSW's Northern Rivers area has been cleared, with the Federal Court in Sydney yesterday rejecting an application for an injunction to block the event running in the Tweed and Kyogle shires.

There are still threats of protests from environmental groups and the NSW police will have both riot and dog squads on hand, but these threats rarely amount to much when the crunch comes.

The Federal Court's Justice Stone found Tweed shire councilor Katie Milne's injunction application to be "without merit".

While we haven't seen the paperwork, we believe the thrust of the application was that the NSW government's approval of the event was unconstitutional and raising environmental and ecological issues. The way the NSW government approval was gained certainly was crafty -- getting Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley to demand legislative sanction for the event, and none-too-subtly pointing out that the rally would not go ahead without such assurance.

The Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper reported this week that "thousands of protesters are expected to descend on the rally", which we doubt.

The No Rally group and 7th Generation have said they will stage peaceful protests, while a spokesman for Peacebus, Graeme Dunstan, reportedly -- in the Gold Coast Bulletin -- has threatened to light fires along the route so that drivers cannot see where they are going.

And indigenous group the Githabul nation is reported to have said "the rally will not go ahead" and that protesters will be bussed in from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Rally Australia organising committee chairman Garry Connelly said after Justice Stone's decision: "We have always complied with all laws and have spent a lot of time and effort to achieve the highest environmental standards."

Rally Australia board chairman Alan Evans described Ms Milne's injunction application as "misconceived" and "an annoyance".

Said Evans: "The federal and state government environmental authorities have looked at all of this. If these people (objectors) had any confidence at all in their position they would have placed it before a judge months ago... Instead they have waited until the teams are on their way and thousands of people have made personal and financial commitments that cannot be undone before they launch their court proceedings.

"We are fully committed to running an environmentally responsible rally for the benefit of the people of the region and the sport."


Pretty well hidden from public view
For almost two decades until 2006 Rally Oz ran in Western Australia, in and around Perth.

It was widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, run rallies in the world championship. The WA conditions were different to anything else in the WA, especially the ball bearing-like stones on the roads.

But from the very early days there were calls/moves for the event to be run on Australia's coast -- primarily to improve the national television audience, to bring it closer to the national bases of competing manufacturers, and to make it easier for those manufacturers to entertain corporate guests. Well now, at last, Rally Oz is on the east coast.

But is it going to work?

Firstly, we applaud -- again -- the notion of taking such a major motorsport event to an outlying area, in the same way as V8 Supercars this year took its show to Townsville, has gone to Darwin for years now, and includes Tasmania on its national calendar. But is Rally Oz going to work in the Northern Rivers, quite a distance from a capital city (Brisbane, across the border) and much, much further from Sydney and Melbourne -- and Canberra, a much smaller capital but a rallying stronghold. Our radar tells us that the revival of Rally Oz has not captured the imagination of the national, and particularly the east coast, sporting public... Probably, particularly because we're approaching football finals time.

And this Rally Oz is only going to be held every two years, rotating on the WRC calendar with New Zealand, whose round, incidentally, is to move back to Auckland in future.

While there will be some media activity next week in Sydney to try to create interest in the new Rally Oz, to date there has been little, indeed from our distant vantage point, next to no mainstream media exposure for it.

While it may make the evening TV news bulletins in the "big smoke" once the event is underway (Thursday September 3, until Sunday, September 6) there is no guarantee of that. Certainly TV news directors will be wanting to see spectacular footage from the Northern Rivers to warrant running anything on the rally.


As a contest it's a mega international event
The big plus with the revival of Rally Australia is that it brings to our shores the man who it could be argued is the best driver on earth today, France's five-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, and his now great rival, Finn Mikko Hirvonen.

On simple statistics, Loeb is the greatest driver in WRC history and, with Michael Schumacher retired from Formula One, has a record that compares more than favorably with the likes of Spain's dual F1 world champion Fernando Alonso or NASCAR's champion of the past three years, Jimmie Johnson.

So good is Loeb that he could switch to F1 in a flash if he wanted.

He has made it clear that his priority is to continue in rallying with Citroen, although just this week he has raised the prospect of racing in one or several grands prix next year when the schedules don't clash.

"Rather than constantly asking myself the question, 'What could I do in F1? I might as well give it a go. At least then I would be sure."

Loeb is one helluva driver -- and a magnetic personality. Yet, after winning the first rounds of this year's World Rally Championship, he now finds himself headed by Ford star Hirvonen -- 68 points to 65, with just two rounds remaining after Oz.

Either Loeb is going to become a six-time world champion or Hirvonen is going to join the list of Finnish rally greats.

Hirvonen has won three of the past four rounds and his Ford teammate and countryman Jari-Matti Latvala the other. In terms of a head-to-head motorsport battle it doesn't get any better than this tussle between Loeb and Hirvonen.

And this pair are just two of 27 international entries, along with 18 from Australia. The 45 cars, comprising seven brands, will have drivers representing 16 countries. So truly a major international event.

The great pity is that Australia's top rally driver, ex-factory Subaru driver Chris Atkinson, will be absent -- unable to land a drive in these difficult economic times.

Also missing is Australia's top young prospect Brendan Reeves, who is about to turn 21 but has been wearing a neck brace since a huge crash just 5km from the finish of the final round of the Australian Rally Championship in South Australia. Reeves co-driving sister, Rhiannon Smyth, is still nursing two broken legs.

Reeves had been the favorite among six young Asia-Pacific drivers, including three other Australians (Eli Evans, Glen Raymond and Nathan Quinn), to win a Pirelli-sponsored WRC drive and development program next year that, by some estimates, could be worth as much as $1 million.

There has been some good news on Australian representation in the new Rally Oz, however. Three-times Australian champion and three-times Asia-Pacific champion Cody Crocker will get to drive courtesy of Tasmanian rallying benefactor, Les Walkden.

Crocker and his regular co-driver Ben Atkinson, brother of Chris, will drive the Impreza that former touring car ace Tony Longhurst used in this year's Targa Tasmania. The Group N (production) car has been converted from tarmac to gravel specification and Crocker said it would have the differential and engine mapping settings from his Asian Impreza.

Crocker will test the WRX STi at a Rally Australia shakedown on Monday, with the event proper starting with a super special stage in the streets of Murwillumbah on Thursday night, followed by 35 special stages over three days comprising 340km of competition.

"It is important to have the best possible Australian representation at our round of the WRC, and Cody is the perfect man to have behind the wheel," Walkden said.

The contingent from the Australian championship is headed by reigning -- and now triple -- champions, husband and wife Simon and Sue Evans, in a privateer Mitsubishi Evolution Lancer and four-time national champions Neal Bates and Coral Taylor in a Super 2000 Toyota Corolla specially cleared to run in this WRC round.

The Bates entry has renewed Toyota support for this event, and a second similar S2000 Corolla from the Bates workshop will be driven by Queenslander Stewart Reid.

Greenie : DIAF.