Valley of the Giants

What a glorious day to be in the forests of Tasmania’s south west, that is of course unless you happen to be David Waldon, Craig Brooks or Craig Sault. The latest round of the Tasmanian Rally Series was held in the spectacular Styx Valley area, home of the Mount Field National Park and the Valley of the Giants. Crisp and clear and with a decent field of cars we set off into the first stage which was 22km’s of fast open forest roads. We past a triple caution corner, which Brooksy had crashed on only a few weeks before so everyone would take it nice and easy and headed for an interesting twisty bit of road over a small creek.

The first car came through but then nothing for quite some time. Finally, sometime later, after all the competitors and the sweep car had come through we headed back out of the stage the way we came. When we got up to that triple caution corner we slowed and came around to see a very bent Subaru WRX with Waldo and Ross standing by the car. They were both fine and showed us the in-car footage of the accident which Waldo said suggested it was a car breakage rather than driver error. As I am just a humble snapper and he is one of my best customers who am I to disagree with him.

This left Brooksy in a winning position until the very last stage of the day when a fuel line broke putting him out of the rally, passing the lead to the Stonemen brothers in their Mitsubishi EVO who took their first ever outright win. You have also got to feel sorry for Craig Sault who went off 100 yards from the finish, got bogged and lost 3 minutes getting back on the road. So with one round left there is only 8 points separating David Waldon and Craig Brooks at the top of the Tas Rally Series but Waldo and his crew certainly have their work cut out for them to have the car ready in time.