AMSAG 2023 Wagga Car Wreckers Rosewood Rally
September 9, 2023
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A relatively small field of 36 cars lined up for the 2023 Wagga Car Wreckers Rosewood Rally, jointly organised by the Australian Motor Sport Action Group and the Wagga and District Car Club. It was Round 4 of the 2023 AMSAG Southern Cross Rally Series
Weather looked like being a problem, with snow predicted across the region on the day (Rosewood might be under 500 metres but there's a lot of high country around there) and there was a lot of rain on the day before. The decision to proceed with the event had to be made on the morning. As it turned out, the weather on the day was quite pleasant and most of the roads had dried out enough for fast driving with little or no dust. Most of the roads, that is - there was still a lot of mud around which caused drivers some difficulty (one competitor had electrical wiring inside a front guard damaged by the load of mud) and at the service break the job of scraping mud from under cars was added to refuelling and tyre changes.
There are always hard luck stories at any rally and sympathy must go out to three crews. Jodi and Brody Mill didn't get to start (blown motor), John Fraser and Tommi Flegl didn't even make it to the first spectator point (or the photographer) before the clutch failed in their EVO and Campbell Waller and Mark Weatherstone came out of the first stage with a broken leaf spring in their Corolla. As leaf springs are considered to be almost indestructible (Australia's two best-selling vehicles have leaf springs) this can only be classed as "one of those things". Despite the disappointment, all will be back in the game as soon as things are fixed.
The boggy conditions contributed to the low number of finishers (22 out of 36 starters) but the reasons were varied and sometimes annoyingly trivial (eg failed throttle action). There must be some sympathy for the first-timer crew at the tail of the field who managed to get lost on one of the transport stages and accumulate enough late time to rule them out as a finisher. As I suffered exactly the same problem once and my navigator and I were far from novices at the time, all I can say is "It can happen to anyone".
Outright winners were Mal and Reagan Hurley in their Subaru WRX, Brad and Hunter Goldsbrough took a certain journalist and photographer on a nostalgia trip by talking second place in a Datsun 1600, with Brian and Chandlah Hunt taking out third in a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 3.
AMSAG always runs good events and ably assisted Wade Ryan and his friends from the Wagga and District Car Club to put on one that nobody could complain about. Rosewood has been a fixture on the AMSAG calendar for a long time, and everyone is planning to be back next year.
Click to see some of the action
A report on the rally appeared in the Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga
Information about this and other events can be found at https://www.amsag.com.au
