60th Anniversary REDEX Peugeot Rerun. - Day 1

Yesterday Ian Hampton (a contributor on this site) completed Day 7 for an overnight stop in Mt Isa in the 60th Anniversary REDEX Peugeot Rerun. Celebrating the 1953 Redex Trial around Australia
Ian has been quiet on this site for some time because of the preparation of his 1950 Peugeot known as Maggie Bleu for this adventure.
With Ian's permission below is a cross post from Ian's The Peugeot #53 Diaries of Day 1.





Rally proper Day 1 - Maitland Airport to Inverell

Is it true that Wayne Swan brought down “his” (actually our) budget tonight. CORRECT answer - who gives a rat’s a****!!! His goose is well cooked anyhow, and up here in the real world of rallying in the north of NSW, we were doing much better things and enjoying it all immensely…

Simple framework - Rutherford Airport (just out of Maitland) to Tamworth to Inverell… Real story - great great countryside and some great enthusiastic driving.


Scenery keeps changing and that is a delight. - beautiful, lush and heavily vegetated Hunter Valley to the more open plains out here but lots of grass playing in the breeze and lit in all sorts of ways by the sun at different angles as it cycles around the sky, and by the effects of the clouds. Light intermittent rain early - Peugeot manual wipers - the only way to go.. When the wiper motor is stuffed anyhow. Also - wonderful old buildings in every town… All of that past skill, enterprise and hard work left as brick and stone “monuments”…

 But still in use and “alive”..But the real story is today’s driving and what you can really do in a Pug 203… These are great old cars… Those little engines are in no way powerful but they just “ask” you to drive them hard - we are not belting the crap out of them… But it is enthusiasm from the engines and the cars that just sit down and hold the road solidly and beautifully and us… Learnt a lot from watching Peter drive this afternoon… how to read what is over the crest of the hill by how the lines are as you approach the crest and when and how to keep the momentum going… Basically we are driving these things at around 100 - 105 km/hour (and even 110 - downhill), but we (anyhow - me) feels like a boy racer….

Really good dinner in town in Inverell and then a drink and talk talk with the Boyd clan… who are camping opposite… Geoff Boyd can be excruciatingly funny…

Tomorrow is Inverell to Dalby with some great events… Visit the Inverell transport museum and first competitive event - motorkhana… all new for me… And finish in Dalby (isn’t that Barnaby Joyce country?). Time to practice our “Ay’s” and other Queensland stuff…