Thanks for that link Steve.
I took my kids to see him near Brisbane in an ARC...would have been about 1995. He was tops then... very fast. I drove a rally car for four years, twenty years earlier, in the QRC and four ARC events, against Peter Brock, Ross Dunkerton, Colin Bond etc. Seeing it the first time for twenty years, I couldn't believe the speed, or the acceleration out of corners. Rallying had changed dramatically in that period.
There were many changes - four wheel drive, massive horsepower increases, and pace notes. When we rallied there were no pace notes and rear wheel drive only. The navigator used maps and called instructions such as "Turn right 200;" "turn right 100;" "turn right 50", using a 'Halda', a very accurate odometer. Often you couldn't see the turn, but set up the car to slide the opposite way to wash off the speed, solely on the navigator's instructions, then over-corrected the slide to point the right way into the corner. We were invincible, missing trees and drop-offs by millimetres. High speed reverse flicks were easy peasy, unless you got it wrong. I recall showing off to a carload of whitewater paddlers near the Nymboida one day, on a fairly narrow road. They nearly crapped themselves, and never asked me for a repeat.
In the rallies there were some spectacular prangs, but very few injuries due to the roll cages, the 4 or 6 point harnesses, and helmets. One such spectacular prang was an off road roll down a mountain side with only foot high pines (on a daylight stage), so no stopping the car as it kept slowly rolling and rolling. The driver told me later that it crossed the rally road many times, and each time it rolled the roll bar plates would punch into the floor a bit more, with the roof getting lower and lower. It finally came to rest way down the mountain, unbelievably on it's wheels, and pointing the right way on the route. So with barely 6" of space to look through where the windscreen had been, they completed the stage. What a sight! Even luckier, they didn't get picked up by the police driving it back to Brissie!
Hell of a way to spend a Saturday night. Actually some of the bigger events started at midday Sat, and didn't finish till 8 am Sunday morning. I used to get so knackered from the concentration and adrenalin overload that I would often sleep 16 hours straight. Fond memories indeed.
Back onto Possum, I noted Steve, that as fast as we thought he was, his best placing in a WRC event was 14th. There were plenty of faster drivers in Europe.
