tall Pines 1971


Inaugural Tall Pines winner John Medwell’s take on the rally The Following is an excerpt


from an article written by John Medwell, winner of the inaugural Rally of the Tall Pines in 1971 along with Paul Manson.


stood up. It is the same car, now three years old, that I have been driving to and from the office and using as a family car for the last year and a half. For the first 18 months of its life,


W


Paul and I used it in about a dozen national rallies. It placed in the top five positions in most of the events, winning several and taking its full share of rough roads, forestry trails and stone-filled gullies. The only major repairs have been a new clutch and a universal joint. We have done no work on the engine, except regular tune-ups. It has been driven “stock” since the day it was delivered. I believe the relia- bility and consistent performance we get from a standard model helps win more rallies than any performance advantages we might get from a competition model. Yet this 1969 Datsun was able to


come back in to national competi- tion on November 17 and win against Walter Boyce’s factory- prepped Toyota Corolla Couple, Jacques Racine’s Datsun SSS and many other well-prepared rally cars. This, it seems to me, says quite a bit for the basic design of the Datsun machine and its ability to withstand many months of hard driving – both in competition and in family use. Preparation? We did very little -


just a sump shield, Marchal iodine conversions for the headlights, plus two Cibié driving lights. The sump shield was fabricated and installed for us by St. Clair Motor Service – long known as Toronto’s centre for rally-winning Datsuns. Paul and I had approached this rally rather casually. When, a month earlier, we talked over the idea of enter- ing, we agreed we would not be too aggressively competitive about it. Let’s not spend a lot of time and money, we said. We’ll take the old car, do just enough to add lights and an


12 • www.tallPinesRally.com


e drove my Datsun and were amazed how well it


odometer and protect the sump from flying rocks. Then, if the car lasted to the end of the route, we planned to enjoy ourselves, not take any risks and do as well as we could; not in any particularly com- petitive spirit, just relaxing and tak- ing things easily. I expected the car not to last


much more than the first 100 miles. After 18 months of rally roads and another 18 months on city streets (including a couple of winter seasons in Toronto salt) you must expect weaknesses to de- velop here and there. Perhaps the fan belt would go, a radiator hose, the alternator bracket, or we might shake up some dirt into the carbu- retor jet – anything might happen. As to winning, I never thought


we would come close. My misgiv- ings on this point were confirmed (so I thought at the time, though later I was proved quite wrong) after we put four snow tires on the car, loaded up the back seat and trunk with Paul’s heavy boxes of rally equipment and set off along Highway 401 in the late afternoon towards the start of the rally at Bra- malea City Centre. Even on the paved service of the highway, trav- elling downhill with the wind be- hind us, the car could scarcely top 70mph. What would happen, I wondered, on gravel? Probably 55 at the most, and in my mind I pictured us gradually dropping down the placings as all the speedy machinery passed us on the route one-by-one. As it turned out, though, luck


was with us that night. The route went northwest out of Bramalea, through the Forks of the Credit Cataract, then a hill climb up the north slope of the Hockley Valley into Mono Centre. We were not five miles along the route be- fore we were into difficult road and weather conditions which were to continue for the next 400 miles. Temperatures were around 30 degrees F – cold enough that four to sixe inches of soft, wet snow were still covering the roads, but not cold enough to freeze and firm up the wet mud lying on many just under. Since the route


lay wholly in Ontario, we had to drive without tire studs. This proved a real problem for many of the faster drivers accustomed to several seasons of winter competi- tion driving on studs. Suddenly to be faced with wet and slippery road conditions and at the same time to have to adjust one’s driving style to the absence of studs proved a real challenge to many. We a passed a flare where Guy


Vanier had fallen off the road at the first 90-degree forced turn, got tangled in a wire fence and de-


layed beyond his maximum late- ness, thus becoming an early DNF. Paul and I motored on through the night, but soon noticed we were 17 minutes late against a maximum lateness rule of 30 minutes; a quick calculation led us through the first leg, but had used up more than half our maximum lateness. Thus, we came face-to-face with the problem that was soon to be uppermost in every competitor’s mind – how to avoid a DNF due to maximum lateness? We toyed with the idea of short-


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