BP Rally of South Eastern Australia: 1970

1970 Win for the new HDT in a wet but “Best Yet” BP

Frank Kilfoyle, a three times BP winner took over the Director reins from Tony Theiler, with Pryce and Hoinville still on board as assistants. The course headed north and west after an absence of three years. Although wet and a real points stripper the event was well appreciated by crews.

More use was made of survey maps allowing for more technical navigation.

Harry Firth had taken up the role of managing the new Holden Dealer team, which had early success with Tony Roberts and Mike Osborne in a Torana as convincing winners and Colin Bond and Brian Hope moving up from the little Colt Fastback to a 350 Monaro finishing third. Bond and Roberts had won the most recent Bathurst 500 sharing a 350 Monaro.

Four NSW, five SA, two Tasmanian and 21 Victorian crews started the Trial Stage from Kerang at 3 am Thursday 14 May on the first of nine Divisions, ending with an overnight break at Bendigo (depart 10 am), followed by Sea Lake (depart 3.30 pm), overnight at Mildura (depart 9.20 am Friday), Nhill (depart 5.30 pm), Mt Gambier (depart 12.30 am Saturday), Hamilton (depart 10 am), St Arnaud (depart 5.15 pm), into Ballarat before midnight for a sleep (depart 10.30 am Sunday), to BP South Melbourne (depart 2 pm to Chadstone).

The first Division went well until Kamarooka forest on the outskirts of Bendigo, except for the fancied Watson/McAuliffe combination who lost 27. Lunn/Forsyth led at Bendigo down one point to Collier/Haas on two. They swapped positions at Sea Lake, then dropped off the leader board through the Kulkyne forest beside the Murray River. Roberts/Osborne hit the front at Mildura down 29, not to be headed, out in front of Bond/Hope on 73. The Raak Plain and Galah took points off most, but repairs to the Torana at Nhill narrowed the lead.

Watson/McAuliffe fought their way back from their early troubles to overtake McLeod/Lock into third at Hamilton, and then into second at Ballarat after Bond had to stop and repair broken steering using their winch.

Sunday saw an unusually easy run to the finish, with little change to positions.

Holden with first and third won the Manufacturers Award, but narrowly from Datsun.

32 crews started and 26 finished.

Details:

General Supplementary Regulations

No Final Supplementary Regulations

No Entry List

No Master Schedule

Assembly Stage and Trial Stage Route Instructions

Route map (These files are large and may be slow to download)

Comprehensive Results section by section

Final results