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!