2017 John Giddings Memorial Rally of Orange

2017 John Giddings Memorial Rally of Orange
Canobolas Forest
Saturday, September 16, 2017

As in previous years, this rally was going be tightly confined into one forest, with most of the stages being run more than once during the day. One small problem with running everything in the one forest was that without driving long distances around the forest it was difficult to get to more than the designated spectator points for anyone wanting to see and photograph the action. This wasn't really a hardship because the spectator points were well chosen.

This year the rally was based at the Towac Park racecourse which provided all the space and facilities required but was much closer to the Canobolas Forest areas where the rally took place than the Orange Showground used in prior years. As this is my web site I'm allowed a little self-indulgence and nostalgia. Here is my second rally car (and second Cortina GT) in action in a special stage in the Towac Park infield in 1973.

Apart from the very high number of official non-finishers (only 15 cars were classed as finishers out of 32 starters) I'm not going to say much about the event. It was well run (as are all AMSAG events), there was good spectator access, nobody had any need to complain about the instructions or organisation (although there are always complaints because that is a part of the game) and the weather was perfect (it had snowed two days before which caused some nervous twitches, but that had gone away by starting time). I'll let the pictures do the talking.

See the final results here.




Service park and drivers' briefing. The 1934 Plymouth was a sentimental favourite (with Falcon and Commodore suspension parts and brakes and Ford Boss V8 engine, but still a '34 Plymouth of course). Unfortunately it wasn't classed as a finisher but while it was running it was good to watch and hear. As I once had a Lexus IS200 I was a bit disappointed that the car here that looked like one was running as a Toyota.