Telstra Rally Australia:
The Spectator Experience
Note: all of the little images link to hi-res versions when you click on them.
Then, the crossing guards suddenly close off the track and in the distance, you hear the blast of an air horn from one of the race officials. In series along the track the guards start blowing their whistles as a final warning to the spectators that there's a 300hp+ beast approaching fast. You hear the roar of an engine, revs climbing and dropping at an alarming rate, the engine backfiring any moment the driver eases off the throttle. And suddenly, there it is! Around a sweeping bend slides a fantastic machine with a highly skilled driver at the reigns, holding it together, barely keeping it on the track covered with ball-bearing like gravel. It screams towards you, throttle wide open, all four tires spinning in the dirt, with a huge cloud of dust billowing out behind it. Before you know it, the car flies past with you and the other spectators cheering the driver on. Then, hold your breath and close your eyes while the dust clears. Awesome! And there's nearly 90 more cars after that one! That's my impression of the first stage I made it out to during the rally. I was able to get out to several more stages which are all summarized here.... The park had a specially constructed double track with tight turns over a fairly level surface. The track was mostly dirt but also had a short asphalt section along Riverside Drive. The Qantas Tunnel/Jump is where the 2 simultaneously racing cars would cross over to the other side of the track -- one making the jump, the other squeezing through the tunnel. There were tons of (reserved) stadium seats providing great vantage points, lots of places for photography, and a public pit area where mechanics had 45 minutes to fix whatever damage the drivers had done during the races to their carefully prepared cars. One disturbing thing about the way the track was set up: the finish line was immediately before turn #1. If drivers weren't braking full-on from about 20 metres before the finish line, they would go flying into the outside wall. Several anxious drivers left the breaking too late and did exactly that. This aspect of the setup was a very bad move in my opinion. What driver want's to be braking across the finish line? Note: the aerial photograph is from the excellent Telstra Rally Australia site. Check it out!
W H A T I T ' S L I K E
You've been anxiously waiting for half an hour, not knowing exactly what to expect, and wishing you'd brought a water bottle with you. It's hot, dry, and very sunny. You figure the spot you've picked out is a pretty good vantage point, and now you're waiting for the action.
Helena Stage
The spectator point at this stage was in the middle of a fairly dense forest. The cars came down a steep hill, had to make a hard right 180 degree hairpin turn (or smash into the massive pipelines ahead), and shoot out back up the hill on the other side. Spectators were allowed to hang out in the middle, between the two sides of the track. These photos were taken right at the bottom as cars struggled to stay on the track and accelerate back up to speed up the hill.
Langley Park Superstage
Langley Park was a great idea on the part of the race organizers. It was a place very near the city (right downtown, actually) so people didn't need to take 50 to 200km treks out to the spectator points.
Bunnings Tree Farm Final Stages
Bunnings is a large Home Depo kind of company here in Australia. Their tree farm was where the final 5 stages of the rally were held. The grounds had large hills and a few small rivers, both of which the track designers took full advantage of. It was a very exciting day with television helicopters constantly buzzing overhead and all the non-destroyed cars going over some of the best parts of the course twice. I must apologize for the quality of the car jump photos. Spectators were limited by how close they could get to the area, and the zoom on my camera only goes to about 75mm. Oh well -- it was still thrilling to see it in person! The area where these photos were taken involved a rapid decent down a hill which featured some impressive jumps, a splash through a small river, and then a hard left and on to the finish line. The area right after the river was very muddy after over 100 cars going through it, and this posed some problems for less experienced drivers.
The photos I have here aren't really that great compared to the ones on the photos section of the Telstra Rally Australia site. Press photographers had access to the choicest vantage points and obviously had better cameras than mine. Some of the photos on the site are just fantastic.
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