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All these amazing photos are by Mitchell Winton – www.wintonphotographics.com.au

SEARCH FOR A RALLY STAR Grande Finale

And the winner is …

The grand final to the inaugural ‘Search For A Rally Star’ (SFARS) took place at Sydney’s Oran Park last Tuesday, January 25th to test 12 finalists and award one potential rally champion their ultimate dream rally prize.

Late on Tuesday afternoon and after one and a half hours of careful deliberation by the SFARS judges, Joe Chapman, from Bathurst New South Wales, was chosen as the worthy winner of the first SFARS event to be held in Australia.

“Even though we had the score system to use as a guide, we still had to focus on making the right choice” explained Frank Barker, creator and organiser of SFARS. “Knowing we had come this far, the decision had to be the correct one for SFARS, the sport of Rallying and the eventual recipient of such a special award”.

“All the finalists showed great driving talent and rally passion” Frank said. It was quite hard to narrow it down yet we managed to highlight three people, Joe (Chapman), Brenden (Thomas) and Adam (Kennedy)” Frank said. “Moreover, it was impossible to split between Adam and Brenden and we decided to award both of them the Runners Up trophy. However, Joe showed throughout the event that he was one level above the rest and once we had all agreed on him it all made sense that he was definitely ‘THE ONE’. Whilst we were wrapping up the meeting to decide the winner, it suddenly dawned upon me – that Joe’s current situation was just like mine around 18 years ago – Joe has the talent, enormous passion and potential but, until now, he has not had enough funds to advance further in the sport. We are very excited to be able to provide such an opportunity to Joe.” Frank said.

Since the announcement of Joe Chapman’s huge victory, it has turned out to be a very popular decision with the other finalists, the judges and all concerned. “Ever since I was informed that I had made it to the Search For A Rally Star finals, the whole motorsport town of Bathurst has been behind me” Joe said. “As well as having a number of local TV and radio interviews and press articles, the local radio station had been broadcasting a ‘good luck Joe’ cheerio for me every 30 minutes for the two weeks leading up to the finals. One bloke came up to me in the street and jokingly said ‘ I can’t go anywhere in this town without hearing about you mate’ ” explained Joe. “After returning home from the finals with my trophy and $45,000 rally shopping voucher, I have managed a few more interviews and my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. I think my boss (Dave Robinson of Robinson Auto Repairs) is wondering when I am going to come back down to Earth and get some work done” Joe said.

Now Joe has the great pleasure of choosing a rally car to suit his plans of competing in the 2005 NSW Rally Championship. ” It’s a dream come true” says Joe.

For the Grand Finale, which was seven weeks after the Nov/Dec heats were held, the 12 ‘wanna be’ rally star finalists arrived on the afternoon of Monday 24th January at Camden Valley Golf Resort (NSW) for initial registration and their final individual interviews. Similar to that experienced at the heats, the interviews were based on the five P’s that the SFARS judges were searching for … Each finalist’s Passion, Plans, Personality and Presentation for the sport of rally driving as well as what Publicity they had managed to achieve since they discovered that they had made it through to the top 12. This time, however, the interviews were much longer and more intense and in front of a panel of six assessors instead of one.

The next day all were up early to arrive at nearby Oran Park to show off their rally driving skills. Here they had to fight it out on the dirt tracks for the ultimate $45,000 dream rally prize, a Subaru WRX or Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 4WD Turbo Rally Car to the value of $30,000 plus a further $15,000 cash to get off the competitive start line.

In total contrast to the 42 degrees of Summer temperatures experienced at the previous assessment heats, the heavens opened up in the early morning of the Tuesday (25th Jan) and a deluge of constant heavy rain threatened the possibility of the finals proceeding. “Even though we had to keep safety for the drivers in our minds, the rain was not a concern for the cars, ” Frank Barker said. “Amongst many things, Rallying is about handling a multitude of road conditions, so we knew it would be great experience for the finalists if we could go ahead safely. We were more concerned that the Oran Park management may cancel the day due to possible track damage” Frank said.

Nonetheless, with a short delay and a couple of adjustments of which tracks would be appropriate to use, the show went on regardless of the intermittent showers that greeted the event throughout the day!

A comprehensive scoring system was used as a guide in deciding the SFARS winner. The finalists were scored on the Monday night interview and a further four practical tests held the Tuesday which included: two morning drives assessing driving skills along side rally instructors; a timed run with an experienced co-driver who read rally pace notes to each driver as they raced against the clock on the gravel circuits; and to add some variety and rally realism to the day, all finalists had to perform an exciting test known as ‘FFF’ (Fix a Flat in the Forest) which involved changing the spare wheel as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible in real rally conditions.

“As with the heats, we wanted to complete our objective of having an introduction to rallying theme and providing as much “rally relative” information and experience as possible for the entrants and finalists. The FFF change a flat tyre exercise was a great success. It is one of the many things they will inevitably have to experience in a rally and we want to prepare the contenders in all aspects of the sport” Frank said.

The finalist’s were scored out of a possible 600 points with 300 points coming from the interview and 300 points from the remaining four tests of 75 points each.

Whittled down from the initial number of entries, the 12 finalists battling it out were : Cameron Wearing (SA), heat 1 winner, Adam Kennedy (NSW), heat 2 winner, Brenden Thomas (NSW), Joe Chapman (NSW), Chris Western (QLD), Trent Dutton (QLD), Dave Donegan (VIC), Dwayne Affleck (NSW), Peter Grehan (NSW), Brad Fitzgerald (NSW). Two wild car entries were also selected for the final, these being Josh Reeve from the ACT, and South Australia’s Mettina Barrington, the only female to enter, but a regular on Jack Monkhouse’s ARC service crew.

Based in Mona Vale, Sydney, the event was created by Frank Barker who has been a long-time rally driver and enthusiast. The main objective of the SFARS event is to discover a potential rally driving star and provide an opportunity to that person to participate in rallying at a competitive level. An additional aim is to introduce and promote the sport of rallying to all those involved and inspire them to either compete, official or spectate in the future.

To determine who was fit and worthy enough to participate in the finals, 42 entrants contested the initial Search For A Rally Star assessment heats held at Oran Park on November 30th and December 1st 2004. The 42 entrants represented each state and territory in Australia. All competitors were put through a rigorous elimination process and took part in one of two heats that were held over two days. In the mornings, entrants were split into three groups and rotated each hour between driver training in the two SFARS 4WD Turbo rally cars as well as face to face assessment interviews. After a lunch break three further sessions took place where the driving in the two rally cars continued, however, it was then switched from training to assessments. In place of the morning interview a “walk around rally car presentation” was included to educate those new to the sport on the finer points of a rally car.

In the evening of the first day all heat 1 and 2 entrants attended a four-hour rally lecture which was undertaken by a number of experts in various fields. Graham Humphreys spoke about events and competitor eligibility; Bruce Garland about team and car preparation; Ben Ruggles discussed tyre technology; Brett Middleton explained the ins and outs of sponsorship; Lyndall Drake spoke about co-driving; and former Ralliart works driver Spencer Lowndes gave some tips on driving techniques. Over 100 people attended the seminar, including the entrants and their guests, and other invitees from the rallying community.

“The SFARS rally star search program is based on an ‘introduction to rallying’ theme, designed to train competitors in all aspects of the sport, train and assess their driving, and assess their suitability for the sport via their passion, plans, presentation and marketability,” Frank Barker said. “We also looked at what we called the ‘S’ factor – a STAR quality.” Driver evaluation during the two days was under taken by Mark Taylor, Ian Barratt and Darren Williams from the Sideways Action rally school, and the two Search For A Rally Star (SFARS) Galant VR4s completed over 700 trouble-free laps of the Oran Park dirt circuit over the two days. Nevertheless, temperatures soared to the mid-40s over the two days, and the engine water temperature peaked at 120 degrees on one of the rally cars!

The event was professionally filmed by Gold Marquee and presented by long time motoring personality and guru Will Hagon. The show will go to air in February or March. Two TV networks are currently showing interest in the program.

Riding on the success of the inaugural SFARS event and the momentum gained from it’s growing awareness, SFARS are planning to launch three separate events this year.

Approximate details are:

1. SFARS II – Clubman Level – Entry fee $1095

Prize – Toyota Sprinter (or equivalent) 2WD to $10,000, plus $10,000 start money – Total $20,000.

2. SFARS III – State Level – Entry fee $1895

Prize – Subaru WRX or Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 4wd turbo to $30,000 plus $20,000 start money – Total $50,000.

3. SFARS IV – ARC/National (Open) Level – Entry fee $2995

Prize – Subaru WRX or Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 4wd turbo to $50,000 plus $50,000 start money – Total $100,000.

Contact SFARS at frank@sfars.com or 0411 277 433 for more information.

The Scores

Click here to view the score summary in PDF format.


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