Evan Green's Story
Excerpts from Evan Green's World Of Motor Sport, Summit Books 1977
The Crew:
Evan Green, fellow Aussies, 'Gelignite' Jack Murray and George Shepheard.
The first three marathons of modern times differed from each other in everything except the spirit of adventure they fostered. I've been in all three with varying degrees of non-success.
My car was one of the front runners in the first marathon until the final day. Nothing but misfortune (and great adventure) fell my way in the second. The third seemed more promising for I led at one stage. But then.....................
let's go back to intercontinental rally that started it all.
The London-Sydney Marathon of 1968 used a 16,000 kilometre course that followed the heroic concept of travelling from one side of the world to the other.
This original race ran through England, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, West Pakistan and India, before cars were transported from Bombay to Fremantle for the crossing of Australia.
There were ninety eight starters, seventy two reached Bombay and finally, only fifty six made it to Sydney.
Ford made the biggest effort to win, with teams of Lotus-Cortinas from Britain, Taunus 20 MRS models from Germany and Falcon GT's from Australia. It was a Lotus-Cortina that led for most of the event, with Englishman Roger Clark and Swede, Ove Andersson sharing the driving. They were first to Bombay, and led across the Nullarbor until valve trouble stopped them near Port Augusta.
A cylinder head swap (which put another team car out of the event), kept Clark and Andersson running until a differential failure near Omeo in Victoria halted the car again. They finished tenth.
A German Ford driven by the Swedish topliner, Simo Lampinen and Belgian, Gilbert Staepelaere, took over the lead, only to bend its suspension through the rugged Flinders Ranges of South Australia and then crash in southern New South Wales, with the finish less than half a day away.
It was a topsy-turvy event. The Belgian, Lucien Bianchi, inherited the lead in a Citroen DS21 and had the Marathon won, with less than 200 klms. of non-competitive motoring to go to the finish. But with Bianchi asleep and his French co-driver Jean-Claude Ogier at the wheel, the Citroen became involved in a head-on collision with a private car near Nowra.
Instead of collecting the £10,000 first prize, Bianchi gained a plaster cast on a broken leg.
Lucien Bianchi's Citroen crashes less than 4 hours from the finish
The winner was more surprised than the crowds who came to see the Marathon finish at Warwick Farm. Andrew Cowan of Scotland, with co-drivers Colin Maikin and Brian Coyle, had hoped to come last. Surveys he and Coyle had made before the rally, convinced Cowan it would be so rough only half a dozen cars would finish. 'Build me a car to come last,' the Scot asked the Chrysler factory in Britain, hoping for a sixth place.
They responded by building him a tank-like Hillman Hunter that was guaranteed to survive the journey, but seemed too slow to outpace the galaxy of sprint cars in the contest. The Cowan-Maikin-Coyle victory was a classic win in the 'tortoise and hare' tradition.
There were many hard luck stories in the Marathon. An Australian crew I thought could win, Max Winkless and John Keran, were one of the early victims when their Volvo 144S seized its engine in Yugoslavia. They were among the fastest rally drivers of their day and the Volvo was a specially prepared car with high performance Repco parts in the engine. But it all came to nothing because someone in Europe apparently fitted an oil filter with part of its paper wrapping still attached. And so the engine, starved of oil, failed before the rally proper had begun.
Bengt Sodenstrom and Gunnar Palm, the hottest pair of Scandinavians in the event, had the engine fail on their Lotus-Cortina before Italy. They reached the Turin control because Roger Clark pushed the Swedes with his Ford for more than 50 kilometres. Sodenstrom's Cortina was fixed, only to fail again in Turkey.
David McKay, in one of the fancied Holden Monaros, slid from the road on a muddy bend in Turkey. The bend had claimed several cars, but only McKay's had the misfortune to straddle a rock which lifted its wheels from the ground. The car was undamaged but he lost a great amount of time.
Turkey also claimed the oldest car in the rally, the 1930 eight-litre Bentley Tourer of British adventurer, Keith Schellenberg. He stopped his heavy car on the edge of a road, only to have the bank collapse and deposit the Bentley on its side in the gully below.
One of the favoured Australian crews, Bob Holden and Laurie Nelson, were victims of the dense Indian crowds. A wave of people swept across the road to see their Volvo pass, and forced an oncoming truck to swerve, collecting the Australians head on. They spent a few days in hospital, as honoured guests of the local Maharajah.
Making slow progress near Indore, on the way south to Bombay.
Indian crowds contributed more than half the total audience of 60 million who watched the event
The crowds through India were one of the Marathon's great hazards. Police estimated 30 million spectators saw cars pass on their way to the Bombay docks. It was a continuous game of chicken with the braver (or slower) young men, removing rear vision mirrors with their ribs. Many cars had doors and body panels dented by the crush of onlookers. One competitor ran down two spectators, who remained wedged beneath his car. The driver had visions of being lynched, but the only persons in danger were the up-ended pedestrians. A policeman ran to the scene and beat the two victims until they got out of the car's way.
Englishman Eric Jackson, and Ken Chambers, one of the British Ford team, were in ninth place at Fremantle and could well have won, bearing in mind, the disasters which overtook so many of the leaders. But it was their cylinder head that Ford commandeered for the Clark-Andersson car, and they were forced out of the event on team instructions.
Paradoxically, Roger Clark would have won, but for a slip by the same supporting team. The mechanic assigned to service Clark's Cortina at Omeo - where the Englishman was running second - became involved in a drinking contest with the rival British Leyland team. He lost, and was asleep at the control point when Clark arrived seeking a new differential. With no aid to be found, Clark drove on, only to have the unit fail farther down the road. A passing Cortina driver swapped his differential for the broken one, but too much time had been lost.
But for the Omeo incident, Clark almost certainly would have won. But for hitting a grid post and crashing his Taunus, Lampinen would probably have won, too. Bianchi would have won but for the collision with another car. But for losing a wheel, Jack Murray, George Shepheard and I might have won. We were one of four factory-entered Austin 1800s. We were eighth at Bombay, fifth at Norseman, the leading Australian crew by South Australia and beginning to feel confident because we were back on what we considered to be our home territory.
Our 1800, like Andrew Cowan's Hunter, was a tank. It was not fast, but we managed to coax it to a maximum of 90 mph once, down a mountain road in Turkey. It was a strong car and we had been nursing it to ensure it was right for the tough final stages. We were level with Cowan on points and had passed him on the road when we lost the wheel. The rear-wheel bearing on one side had been overtightened during the service break before the Flinders Ranges, and so about 160 km later, the bearing failed and the back right-hand corner of the suspension fell off - tyre, wheel, brake drum, trailing arm, the lot.
We summoned help from a passing aircraft by scratching a message in the sand. The pilot flew to Broken Hill, found a Leyland service man, and brought him back to the nearest homestead, whose owner then drove the mechanic to our stricken car.
We were there more than four hours. From Menindee to Sydney, our Austin made fastest time but it was all to no purpose.
We finished twenty-first.
- Evan Green
 | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
Home I A Tale Of Two Cities I How It All Began I The Entrants I The Rules I Timetable I The Route I Their Story I Photo Albums
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ladies I How They Finished I BMC I Ford I Holden I Other Marques I Site Map I Memorabilia I Credits/About Us I Links
Home I A Tale Of Two Cities I How It All Began I The Entrants I The Rules I Timetable I The Route I Their Story I Photo Albums
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ladies I How They Finished I BMC I Ford I Holden I Other Marques I Site Map I Memorabilia I Credits/About Us I Links
