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Ken Gratton13 Aug 2011
NEWS

Rallying statesman cautions against 'weekend drivers'

A stalwart of rallying here and overseas, Jeremy Browne is concerned about amateurs driving 500hp cars in tarmac rallies

Jeremy Browne has five decades of rallying under his belt and has seen the sport progress at a phenomenal rate.


Browne has been one of the long-standing supporters of rallying in South Australia, where it went from navigational trials in the 1970s to the sort of pace-noted speed events we all enjoy these days. He himself has backed events boasting higher speeds and more focus on driver and car, less on the navigator.


But it's also his view that drivers and regulations have not kept pace with the technological advances of the cars competing in modern tarmac rallies, such as the increasingly popular events run in Australia.


Speaking last night, during a presentation at a meeting of the Fiat Car Club of Victoria*, Browne expressed some qualms about the direction in which the sport is headed.


"I always had two philosophies," he said, "one is you shouldn't rally something you can't afford to write off and the second is that you shouldn't rally something that you can't handle.


"I think one of the problems today — especially tarmac rallying — we're getting weekend drivers with 500hp motor cars. And I think, personally, it's a recipe for disaster. Fine for Jimmy Richards and people who are professionals, but for me, [with] 150hp, I can't get into too much trouble in that...


"When I first started doing Rally Tasmania, we were getting thirds and fourths outright. Since then, I'm in the same car, with the same tyres — and I'm older. I'm a minute quicker through Hellyer Gorge than I was 10 years ago — and I've gone from being third to being 30th...


"That's how much the pace has gone up in tarmac rallying."


Although Browne doesn't link the two, the win-at-all-costs mentality of lower-skilled drivers in big-engined cars also seems to carry across to some of the unprincipled practices in historic rallying. Browne wryly observed that historic rally cars definitely aren't what they used to be.


"If you look at historic rallying in Europe, the cars are much more as per the period, whereas here, we scrapped Group G back in 1986, 87, but we've really got Group G back on the tarmac. You can do almost whatever you like.


"You're getting Commodores with 600hp and six-speed gearboxes — and all sorts of things being put in them.


"What's the point of having an historic rally car that's just a shell? Surely the fun of having an historic car is if you drive it as an historic car. Once you start putting Motec in them, and you start putting six-pot calipers on them and remote-canister struts and things... you haven't got an historic car any more, you've taken the body and built a sports sedan...


"Particularly in tarmac rallying, there's been virtually no eligibility standards imposed...


"There's a funny thing in motor sport; if you cheat and you get away with it, it's okay. Everyone thinks you're a hero. To me, that's bullshit."


"We've had all this stuff in athletics about drugs and things... and yet, in motor sport, we still often go along with cheaters. Your mates tell you it's good if you get away with it."


Browne cited the example of "a 2.7-litre Porsche" with a 3.5-litre engine fitted — and the driver claiming the original engine remained fitted.


"I just think we need to change that culture; we need to get away from people lying about what they've done. I'm not talking about putting the wrong air cleaner on... cars that are blatantly wrong.


"When you sit at a start control and you listen to a Commodore go away and it changes gear five times — and it's only got a four-speed gearbox..."


At this point, Browne's voice tailed off as the club members laughed in unison. Plainly it's something most in the room had experienced for themselves.



Living la vida Lancia
Jeremy Browne is one of the promoters of Classic Targa Adelaide, but his involvement with rallying extends back much further than the just announced tarmac event.


Browne's rally resume could make a great biopic. It's not perhaps as illustrious as that of a Carlos Sainz or a Colin McCrae, but the rest of us would be happy to have enjoyed a fraction of his competition history.


Contracting the rallying bug in mum's Mini 850, back in the 1960s, he soon developed a great passion for Lancias, which offered similar or better levels of ability, but without the brake fade.


Without reproducing his rally career in full detail, he has competed (driving or co-driving) in the RAC Rally and Rally Australia during different years, plus the 1977 London to Sydney Rally. On multiple occasions he has entered Targa Tasmania and Classic Adelaide, and participated in numerous historic rallies in Europe between 2002 and 2008, including the San Remo Rally Storico in his own Lancia Fulvia 1.6HF.


Behind the scenes he has worked hard on behalf of the rallying fraternity through CAMS and the SA Rally Panel.


While he currently owns a Mini Cooper S he restored himself, plus two Lancia Fulvias (both 1.6HF models, one an ex-works car, build #2269), he has driven or co-driven a wide variety of weird and wonderful cars in competition; everything from Leyland Kimberley X6, P76 and six-cylinder Leyland Marina, through Porsche 911s and Ford Escorts, to Colin Bond's Repco Reliability Trial TF Cortina six.


According to Browne, the Kimberly was surprisingly capable in rallies, but he would finish every event with blistered palms! The Marina had a front-end design that dated back to the 1950s and was never really properly engineered for the heavy six-cylinder engine, meaning when the front wheel bearings inevitably failed, one wheel would lock up and throw the car around its own length at highway speeds.


Browne counts Italian rally ace Sandro Munari among his friends, and has a number of related anecdotes to offer. Munari and Browne first met in 1994, when they shared a Lamborghini Diablo in the Targa Tasmania that year.


Prone to speak his mind, Munari demanded to know of Browne: "do you want to die?!" when Browne's laboriously converted pace notes didn't match the Diablo's performance potential. But Browne got off relatively unscathed by his driver's tongue lashing...


"Who is this fool?" Munari roared as the Lamborghini shot past an open-top Maserati Barchetta, driven by none other than Dick Johnson.


"Just some racing driver," Browne answered sheepishly.


The Italian driver also entered an American round of the World Rally Championship, driving the temperamental Lancia Stratos. By the time the car had been fixed for the next section, Munari and his co-driver were almost out of late-running time. Driving like a maniac to reach the next special stage, he was pursued by a local police car. The Ferrari-engined Stratos pulled away from the cop car and arrived at the special stage just in time to be flagged off.


Pulling up just behind the Stratos the copper leapt out of his interceptor to have a quiet chat with Munari, only to have the headlights and windscreen of his car shattered by a shower of gravel as the Stratos leapt away from the start. The copper's mood was probably best described as incandescent with rage, and the organisers of the event were forced to place Munari in hiding for two days while they negotiated with the police for the Italian to leave the country without being flung in the hoosegow first.


Browne has many such stories to tell, accumulated over many years actively taking part in the sport — and he's an expert on many things Lancia, but especially the Fulvia.



* The Fiat Car Club of Victoria meets the second Thursday of each month, at the Veneto Club in Bulleen. They're a good bunch of blokes who also welcome enthusiasts of other marques, but are naturally more inclined towards those driving Alfas, Lancias, Maseratis and Ferraris — and who knows, possibly Chryslers in the near future?


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Written byKen Gratton
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