1973 Australian Rally Championship

1973 ARC winners Peter Lang and Warwick Smith in the HDT XU-1 Torana

The 1973 Australian Rally Championship was a series of six rallying events held across Australia. It was the sixth season in the history of the competition.

Peter Lang and navigator Warwick Smith in the Holden Torana GTR XU-1 were the winners of the 1973 Championship.

Season review

The sixth Australian Rally Championship was decided over six events, staged across the Eastern States of Australia with two events each in New South Wales and Victoria and one each in Queensland and South Australia.[1] The series saw more domination from the Holden Torana GTR XU-1's which won all six rounds, three wins for Peter Lang/Warwick Smith, two wins for Colin Bond/George Shepheard and one win for Steward McLeod/Adrian Mortimer. Lang and Smith managed high placings in the events that they didn't win and thus convincingly took out the 1973 championship.

The Rallies

The six events of the 1973 season were as follows.[2][3]

Round	Rally	Date
1	Uniroyal Southern Rally (SA)	10/11 March 1973
2	Classic Rally (VIC)	24/25 March 1973
3	Bunbury Curran (NSW)	14/15 April 1973
4	Bega Valley Rally (NSW)	2–4 June 1973
5	Warana Rally (QLD)	22/23 September 1973
6	Alpine Rally (VIC)	8/9 December 1973

Round One – Uniroyal Southern 500 Rally

Position	Driver	Navigator	Car	Points
1	Stewart McLeod	Adrian Mortimer	Torana GTR XU-1	68
2	Dean Rainsford	Graham West	Citroen GS	78
3	Tony Roberts	Jeff Beaumont	Peugeot 504	79
4	Colin Bond	George Shepheard	Torana GTR XU-1	87
5	Bob Holden	Roger Bonhomme	Torana GTR XU-1	100
6	Frank Kilfoyle	Mike Osborne	Datsun 240Z	107

Round Two – Classic Rally

Position	Driver	Navigator	Car	Points
1	Colin Bond	George Shepheard	Torana GTR XU-1	79
2	Peter Lang	Warwick Smith	Torana GTR XU-1	96
3	Tony Roberts	Jeff Beaumont	Peugeot 504	112
4	Ed Mulligan	Mike Batten	Mazda RX-2 Coupe	119
5	Stewart McLeod	Adrian Mortimer	Torana GTR XU-1	135
6	Bruce Hodgson	Fred Gocentas	Ford XA Falcon GTHO	n/a

Round Three – Bunbury Curran Rally

Position	Driver	Navigator	Car	Points
1	Peter Lang	Warwick Smith	Torana GTR XU-1	24
=2	Stewart McLeod	Adrian Mortimer	Datsun 240Z	38
=2	Frank Kilfoyle	Mike Osborne	Datsun 240Z	38
4	Tony Roberts	Jeff Beaumont	Peugeot 504	53
5	Bruce Hodgson	Fred Gocentas	Ford XA Falcon GTHO	65
6	Wal Glass	R Smith	Holden HR	75

Round Four – Bega Valley Rally

Position	Driver	Navigator	Car	Points
1	Peter Lang	Warwick Smith	Torana GTR XU-1	79
2	Colin Bond	George Shepheard	Torana GTR XU-1	84
3	Ed Mulligan	Mike Batten	Mazda RX-2 Coupe	85
4	Stewart McLeod	Adrian Mortimer	Torana GTR XU-1	97
5	Roy Denny	Richard Denny	Triumph 2.5 PI	181
6	Wal Glass	R Smith	Holden HR	n/a

Round Five – Warana Rally

Position	Driver	Navigator	Car	Points
1	Colin Bond	George Shepheard	Torana GTR XU-1	40
2	Ed Mulligan	Mike Batten	Mazda RX-2 Coupe	61
3	John Shera	Lloyd Meller	Mazda 1300	104
4	Peter Lang	Warwick Smith	Torana GTR XU-1	106
5	Bryan Evans	Barry Lake	Datsun 240Z	115
6	Jim Reddiex	Moss Pollack	Citroen GS	168

Round Six – Golden Alpine Rally

Note that Kilfoyle and Osborne won this event outright in a works Datsun 180B SSS but were ineligible for ARC points.

Position	Driver	Navigator	Car	Points
1	Peter Lang	Warwick Smith	Torana GTR XU-1	118
2	Stewart McLeod	Adrian Mortimer	Torana GTR XU-1	132
3	Bruce Hodgson	Fred Gocentas	Ford XA Falcon GTHO	147
4	Ed Mulligan	Mike Batten	Mazda RX-2 Coupe	156
5	Colin Bond	George Shepheard	Torana GTR XU-1	744
6	Roy Denny	Richard Denny	Triumph 2.5 PI	776

1973 Drivers and Navigators Championships

Final pointscore for 1973 is as follows.[1][3]

Peter Lang – Champion Driver 1973

Position	Driver	Car	Points
1	Peter Lang	Torana GTR XU-1	36
2	Colin Bond	Torana GTR XU-1	29
3	Stewart McLeod	Torana GTR XU-1	25
4	Ed Mulligan	Mazda RX-2 Coupe	16
5	Tony Roberts	Peugeot 504 & Saab	11
6	Bruce Hodgson	Falcon GT	7
=7	Dean Rainsford	Citroen GS	6
=7	Frank Kilfoyle	Datsun 240Z	6
9	John Shera	Mazda 1300	4
10	Bryan Evans	Datsun 240Z	2

Warwick Smith – Champion Navigator 1973

Position	Navigator	Car	Points
1	Warwick Smith	Torana GTR XU-1	36
2	George Shepheard	Torana GTR XU-1	29
3	Adrian Mortimer	Torana GTR XU-1	25
4	Mike Batten	Mazda RX-2 Coupe	16
5	Jeff Beaumont	Peugeot 504 & Saab	11
6	Fred Gocentas	Falcon GT	7
=7	Grahame West	Citroen GS	6
=7	Mike Osborne	Datsun 240Z	6
9	Lloyd Meller	Mazda 1300	4
10	Barry Lake	Datsun 240Z	2

References

1. "Bega Valley Rally website". Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
2. "Bega Valley Rally". Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
3. Australian Competition Yearbook 1974

External links

• [1] Results of Snowy Mountains Rally and ARC results.