Standing inches away from a screaming rally car

Well talk about a rally of contrasts. We would have 34c & sunny on one stage and then thunder storms & torrential rain on the next. The Coffs Coast rally turned out to be a real car breaker but one that gave Eli Evans & Chris Murphy their maiden ARC round win. Eli pushed hard all weekend and it was a well deserved victory.

Star of the rally was British rally champ Guy Wilks in the awesome Honda Civic Type R. He was so quick and ran as high as 2nd place. Considering the treacherous conditions and the fact he was in only a 2wd car he was amazing. He sure pushed a lot of the other drivers along as they were determined not to be beaten by a pom in a 2wd! Unfortunately his great run ended midway through day 2 with a big rollover but hopefully he will be back next year.

Local young gun Nathan Quinn finished in second place overall and clinched the New South Wales rally championship as well. I remember shooting a NSW round last year and spent a hour being told by Nathans dad how good he was so maybe it wasn't just a proud dad talking and the kid could have some talent. With WRC driver Chris Atkinson's brother Ben as co-driver he drove really well.

The rally was not only a car breaker but I broke my ultra wide angle lens as well. I was using it on a remote camera, at ground level very close to the inside of a fast sweeping bend. The cars were passing about 45cm away and covering it in dust but the shots were great. The stupid thing is it survived that fine but some how I must have knocked sitting in the back seat of our car! I only noticed it when I tried to take some shots of my mate Ryan driving alongside in a nice new EVO X that Mitsubishi had lent him to try. So the moral of that story is its much more dangerous sitting in the back seat of a passenger car driving along the Pacific Highway than standing inches away from a screaming rally car throwing rocks and dust in the air!

I'd rather be standing on the wrong side of the danger tapes and keep on eating dust!

Sprayed me and with dust and rocks

Well its been a while since the last update so I thought I should pull my finger out and use it for some typing. I've been keeping busy doing a bit for Mercedes Benz, commercial shots, real estate stuff as well as some nice portrait sessions but its good to be back in the gravel. This weekend is the last round for the 2008 Australian rally championship. We are all at the Coffs Coast Rally in northern New South Wales. It's my local round compared to all the others as it's just a quick 2 hour drive up the Pacific Hwy from home.

Neil Bates & Coral Taylor in their Toyota S2000 are unbackable favourites to win the championship as they only need to finish in the top 16 in leg 1 to clinch it. Its been a while between drinks for Neil & Coral and it will be good to see then win. Other drivers to keep an eye out for are British rally champion Guy Wilks back in the Honda Type R, Dowell in his Evo, Eli Evans in his Subaru and his big brother Simon in the other Toyota S2000.

Speaking of Simon, today was shakedown and after some heavy rain yesterday the stage was not too bad dust wise but the temp started to rise 30c and it started to dry out. I was shooting the cars coming around a fast sweeping corner from down low on the outside of the corner. I do like to be able to see under the cars in a shot. All of the cars came around fairly tight but not Simon. He obviously saw me, drifted out wide and sprayed me and with dust and rocks. You certainly know who your friends are! It was not a bad shot though.