Rodney

JDRallysport - Pace Note Books

Rodney

Dedication

JDRallysport used to specialise in producing Pace Notebooks for special stage rallying, but unfortunately the sport has been in decline since the GFC and as the West Australian government decided to give the WRC Rally Australia event away to the east coast there is simply no demand. The event has NEVER again been able to attract the support and attention that it did in Perth, and whilst I have found other passions I have heard that Australia has to share it's rights to a round of the WRC with New Zealand, what a pity for both countries that neither of their stupid governments under stood how important an international event of this stature can increase the tourism and knowledge of their respective countries.

Rod designed and printed his books until his untimely death, sadly he only got a couple of years to develop and use them.

Rod competed for over 30 years mainly in Western Australia. Rod won many rallies, including International and WA State Championships along the way.

He directed many rallies including Pathfinders. He was a long time member of the Mini Club when he owned a 1275 Mini Cooper S.

He basically began his rally career when he volunteered to navigate for me in the last ever Sunshine Trial 1968 I think. This was a navigation event that started in Perth on Friday nightand went all through the night ending in Geraldton.

Along the way the organisers put the cars through what can only be described as horrible boggy conditions, many times there were cars spread out across a dirt road, bogged to the eyeballs, we were lucky in that we never actually got bogged, but at one stage we did end up stranded on a Blackboy, because the only way we could keep going without getting bogged was to keep one side of the car off the track !and the other side in the middle so that the wheels were not in the sand, that way we got some traction. Whilst stranded on this Blackboy the driving wheels were off the ground, try as we could we were not able to budge the car. In those days there was great camaraderie between competitors, and one very kindly stopped to help push us back on the road. that was Peter Briggs, later in the night we had to drive past him in a bog, we could not stop otherwise we would also have got bogged, he understood.

Rod and I finished 4th Outright, which for a Mini in that type of event was fantastic, all we had in front of us were VW Beetles, which were the car of choice in those days as they were very good in boggy conditions, which were what most of the events were like. This of course was way before "rallys" these events were mostly navigation, using Army maps, so the person navigating had to have some knowledge of how to find grid references and be capable of measuring the road off the maps. No GPS units in those days!

The tired crews would sleep in a huge hall. The snoring was horrendous! There was always a big party on the Saturday night. Then the long drive home on the Sunday. Those were the days when trialing as it was then called was FUN.

Rod used to give his time freely to anyone who asked and spent many an evening lecturing at car club meetings. Rod was passionate about his co-driving, he was pedantic in his approach

which eventually gave him great satisfaction.

Rod won many rallies, including International and 6 WA State Championships, he competed in Malaysia, New Zealand, Scotland and all around Australia.

He navigated/co-drove for many local drivers, Jackie Dines, Bob Naylor, Clive Slater, Ross Dunkerton, Jeff Dunkerton, Danny Bignal, Phil Myers, Dean Herridge, Andrew Pinker, to name only the ones I can remember.

He spent many hours with some of the worlds best co-drivers, people like Louis Moya and Staffan Parmander whose experience and help in designing his pace notebooks was invaluable.

Rod was always willing to help anybody with their navigation.

He was involved with the Rally Australia Youth Project in it's early days, contributing not only his co-driving skills but also as a team manager.

Rod always endeavored to improve the way he did things, he was rarely satisfied with what he did.

He put a lot of effort into his co-driving which included the designing of his books.

As a long time friend and colleague in rallying he left the future of the books in my hands.

I hope that I can do justice to his memory and I dedicate this web site to him.