Background to this Site

Background to this Site

From a young primary school age in Ballarat, I could not avoid becoming aware of the BP as I went to school with the children of BP competitors and key officials Jack Ellis, Ian Home, Len Fulton and Peter Valentine, and Mal McPherson lived around the corner from home.  As someone who, from that young age, liked speed and reading maps, it was inevitable where I was going to head when I got a little older.

My first rally was in late 1973, so I never I had the opportunity to compete in a BP.  I did manage to get to Chadstone and join the throng at the conclusion of the final BP in 1973 though. I certainly sought every opportunity to compete in longer distance events, and in time enjoyed the challenge of organising longer events. In directing some “Old BPs” I got a kick out of replicating some of the more notorious sections that DKT was so proud of. To do that I gradually procured route instructions from every one of the 16 BPs, and plotted the routes on trusty Broadbent’s. I loved the lyricism of navigating by Broadbent’s locality names instead of clinical grid references, and the idea of roaming across the countryside "at speeds used by a reasonable man determined to reach home by nightfall, according to DKT", under a wide range of conditions in pretty basic vehicles.

Along the way I picked up results, media reports and other BP documents, thanks to those acknowledged here. Covid 19 provided the time to compile something a little more comprehensive than Don Ellis’s very tantalising “A History of the BP Rally” with its great samples of BP documents and insights into the man behind the BP, Donald Thomson.

Ross Runnalls