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From Racing Car News, December 1976
TRAGIC END TO WA "PATHFINDER"
Story by DAVE MANNERS
TOP Clubman driver, Ross McFarlane, was killed while competing in the 1976 Pathfinder Trial, final round of the WA State Championship run on October 24. Exact details of the accident are not clear, but one thing is certain, WA lost a marvellous competitor and a dedicated enthusiast.
Provisional winners of the event after a night of changing fortunes were Roland Waters / Steve Vanderbyl (Escort 1600). Their winning margin of 18 points was gained on one of the last competitive sections and before then they were never better than third.
Second place went to Arthur Torr / Bruce Smith (Cortina 250), topping off a great comeback season for this crew after a couple of years out of the sport.
Only one point back in third place came the Corolla 1600 crew of Clive Slater / Andy Van Kann, who had the event in the bag three sections from the finish only to cop a wrong-way at a tricky passage control.
Director Peter Roga, checker Jim Newell and the WACC are to be congratulated for the imagination and planning that went into the event, particularly the route instructions. It was a true test of navigation in the traditional form.
Navigators had little time to settle down and a passage control only 200m from the start was missed by four of the top crews (including the eventual winner), but was deleted from the results. A lengthy transport interrupted by a publicity driving stage took the 40 strong field to Northam for the start of what was to become a very eventful night.
The first two competitive sections up to Southern Brook resulted in some rather gigantic scores (with 30F's and 30W's being the order of the day). At the first service point on the Cunderdin / Wyalcatchem road, Beechen / McDonald (Galant) were holding the lead, down 4, with Hill / vander Straaten (Torana SLR) and Russell-Brown / Naylor (Datsun 1600) both on 10.
Waters / Vanderbyl followed on 13, Slater / Van Kann on 18 and Torr / Smith on 22. Clubman crews, Forester / Mulcahy (Anglia !!) and McElroy / Pearce (Renault), were sharing the honours in their class, both down 27.
Yours truly at this stage was redecorating the side of John Neal's Gemini with an almost digested lunch and was generally stuffing things up in a big way! Next year !!
Two secret passage controls straight after the service point added another column of 20F's to the results board and, when the field rolled into Wyalcatchem for the first stop, there were rather gloomy navigators cowering about.
Early leaders Beechen / McDonald had dropped to seventh as a result of a missed passage, leaving Hill / vander Straaten and Russell-Brown / Naylor sharing the lead, both still down 10. Slater / Van Kann followed on 18, Waters / Vanderbyl having dropped an extra 7 somewhere to slip to 4th down 20. Torr / Smith came next on 23.
In the Clubman class the ill-fated McFarlane / Burton were leading on 33, while further down the field the novices were having a torrid time of it, the best being Mollier / Hayes down 71.
From Wyalcatchem the route headed east to Yelbini Siding, where Torr / Smith dropped their first passage control, putting them temporarily out of contention. Many crews missed or wrong-wayed two or three controls in this area, adding to their already mammoth scores.
A service section south of Yelbini was followed by a tricky stick map and a jaunt through a quarry which Russell-Brown / Naylor left out, resulting in a 30W and the loss of the lead they had shared for most of the event.
Several more straight-forward sections took the crews back to Wyalcatchem for supper. Slater / Van Kann had taken over the lead, down 20, although the resulted posted showed them as having a 30W, which was later scrubbed.
Hill / van der Straaten followed on 22, Waters / Vanderbyl on 36, Beechen / McDonald on 40 and Torr / Smith back in it on 43. McFarlane / Burton were well in the lead in the Clubman brigade and Mollier / Hayes were doing better than the only other remaining novice crew.
Leaving Wyalcatchem for the last leg, navigators were faced with a diabolical nine-minute section with three passage controls and three pages of route instructions! Quickest through without dropping a passage was Riseborough / Stafford (Escort 1600), this crew beginning to work their way up the field after a slow start.
A relatively easy stage to Minnivale followed by a complicated loop through Amery saw Hill / van der Straaten missing a passage and 19 time points in the process. Slater / Van Kann forged further ahead but with the end in sight blundered straight into a wrong way along with most of the 20-odd remaining crews.
Waters / Vanderbyl played it cool, got the offending passage the right
way and, when the frustrated field reached Nambling, the Escort crew were
firmly in the lead. Two sections later the Director learned of the tragic
accident back in the field and immediately terminated the event.
1st Rolly Waters / Steve Vandebyl
Escort 1600 58
2nd Arthur Torr / Bruce Smith
Cortina 250 76
3rd Clive Slater / Andy Van Kann
Corolla 1600 77
4th John Riseborough / Adrian Stafford
Escort 1600 83
5th Stuart Beechen / Dave McDonald
Galant
85
6th Gary Russell-Brown / Bob Naylor
Datsun 1600 89
Drivers:
Tim Corr
31 1/3 points
Danny Bignell
19 1/3
Ean Hill
18
John Neal
14
Clive Slater
12 ½
Ross McFarlane 11
Navigators:
Jim Newell
22 1/3 points
Steve Vanderbyl 21
Rod van der Straaten 18
Dave Manners
14
Andy Van Kann
12 ½
Dave Burton
11
Comments:
There were 40 entries for the event.
As the final round of the series, Rod Van der Straaten needed a win to take the navigators title from Jim Newell, Tim Corr had already secured the drivers title, Tim and Jim were on stand down for the event.
Clive Slater and Andy van Kann were leading until the last serious navigation
challenge, when they wrong-wayed on a dubious interpretation of a fourth
class road.