Sunday 13th November saw James RS having another early start to the day to make his way up to Ballarat in Western Victoria to the Ballarat Light Car Club (BLCC) premises for the start of the 2016 Begonia Rally. The Begonia was to be the last round of the Victorian Rally Championship and also round Three of the Victorian Pace Note events for the year. The entry list promised great expectations for the Type 49 Racing and Ford Escort fan with no fewer than five Escorts (all Mk 2’s and three coupes and two four doors) being entered from the team of two Grant Walker BDG powered RS 1800 coupes through to Neil Schey’s N/A Cosworth YB powered coupe to Mike Conways four door and the Fjord Four sponsored four door of Rohan Teagle. Arriving at Rally headquarters at about 7.45Am we were greeted by the heart-warming sight of Escorts in Parc Ferme and the Grant Walker RS 1800 coupe to be driven in the event by Grant himself being backed off the trailer and being gotten ready for the event. A quick scrutiny of the Parc Ferme saw all five Escorts front and present and a few brief words were exchanged with some of the Escorters and some photos taken before leaving at around 8.30 Am to wander the fifty Kms or so up the road to the best-looking spectator point at Caralulup just to the west of Talbot.
The start seeding for the event had placed the four fastest Escort runners in the Grant Walker team cars of Grant and Luke Styema and the Escort four door of Mike Conway and the YB powered coupe of Neil Schey within the top twelve cars and they arrived pretty much in order with all the Escorts putting on a good show and sounding glorious in the damp and tricky conditions. There was evidence that both of the Grant Walker cars had made contact with the scenery with the rear lens assemblies on both cars a little worse for wear but nothing too drastic on a hardworking rally car and pretty much par for the course in the tricky conditions. The rain had settled in and there was a large puddle of standing water in a depression on the track leading into the tight right hand bend that made up the speccy point and as more cars charged through the puddle the slicker the road leading into the turn became. I stayed patiently at the point to await the arrival of Rohan Teagle in the Fjord Four four door Mk 2 and duly the crew arrived and made their way through the point. The plan was to view the cars a second time before heading off to the final spectator point of the event at Sulky close to Ballarat but as happened to us at the recently run Blue Rock stages rally the weather forced the hand of the organisers of the event and the event was cancelled and called off after heat one with the conditions deemed too wet to continue.
As to the final results of the Begonia Rally the five Escorts entered survived the course and showed well against the four-wheel drive opposition and dominated the placings in the 2WD class. The event was won by a Suburu All Wheel Drive piloted by Andrew Pannam which finished 39 seconds ahead of second place. Pannam was followed home by the 2WD Datsun Stanza of Andrew Daniel with Luke Styema in the BDG powered RS 1800 from the Grant Walker team taking out third outright a bare forty seconds behind the Suburau and just a second of snatching second place in the event with a total elapsed time of 00.40.32. Mike Conway brought his Escort four door home in fifth (00.41.31) with Grant Walker in the other RS 1800 coupe in 8th (00.42.20) and Neil Schey in ninth outright (00.43.03). Rohan Teagle finished in 21st place in the event (00.49.29). Of the 38 crews entered four Did Not Start and there were nine DNF’s out of the remaining 34 cars with 25 crews making it to the finish line and posting a final result.
