MOTORSPORT: Climb Dancer comes to Canberra

Most attention of Australian motorsport fans is on Adelaide and the start of the V8 Supercar Championship, but there’s another national series starting in Canberra – the Australian Rally Championship.

But ahead of the National Capital Rally the interest is not so much in the pending competition as the presence of the legendary Ari Vatanen.

The mercurial Finn won the 1981 world rally title, the last driver to do it in a Ford, and four Dakar marathon rallies, three with Peugeot and the other with Citroen, but it is his spectacular dash up Pikes Peak a quarter of a century ago for which he is best known.

That run in a Peugeot 405T16 – before the famous American hillclimb was sealed, as it was when Sebastien Loeb set the latest record last year in another Peugeot is remembered as a popular video entitled 'Climb Dance'.

In Australia, before he was world champion, there also was Vatanen’s participation in the Southern Cross Rally and his famous duel with Greg Carr in Canberra’s Castrol International Rally, in which the Aussie virtually unknown outside his home country beat the Scandinavian star by 40 split seconds.

Vatanen has recalled that he “couldn’t figure out how some unheard of guy [Carr] could be so fast”.

But the man who has described life as “a big special stage” said those memories were “engraved” in his mind.

Vatanen, who has been a member of the European Parliament and ran, unsuccessfully, for the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile presidency against Jean Todt, is back in Australia as the special guest at the Australian Rally Hall of Fame presentation tonight (Thursday) in Canberra.

The rally community will hang on his every word, but even more keenly anticipated are the guest rides he will give 10 passengers at Friday morning’s shakedown for the National Capital Rally. One of the passengers will be the raffle winner from tonight’s Hall of Fame dinner.

The second batch of Rally Hall of Fame inductees are, in alphabetical order, Colin Bond, Barry Ferguson, Evan Green, Fred Gocentas, Graham Hoinville, Frank Kilfoyle, David Officer, Kate Officer, Ed Ordynski and Jim Reddiex.

The first group inducted last year comprised Neal Bates, Peter (Possum) Bourne, Garry Connelly, Ross Dunkerton, Harry Firth, John Large, Jack Murray, George Shepherd, Tom Snooks, Doug Stewart, Donald K Thomson, Ken Tubman and Bob Watson.

It’s curious that Carr has not made the list either year.

Be that as it may, Vatanen’s spectacular style will be on display during Friday’s runs in an Audi Quattro, a Group B monster on loan from Tasmanian businessman David Thompson. It will be Vatanen's first drive of a machine he competed against when he was with Peugeot.

In the first round of the ARC this weekend there are six makes represented among the 13 entries in the key category – but none of them are genuine factory entries. It would have been seven makes had reigning national champion Eli Evans proceeded with plans to drive a Honda Civic Type-R but he made a late switch to a Volkswagen Polo.

The main challenge to Evans’ recent ARC supremacy is likely to come from Scott Pedder in a Renault Clio R now prepared by Walkinshaw Performance, and the Mazda2 driven by youngster Brendan Reeves.

The other makes are Ford (two Fiestas and a Focus), Citroen (two DS3 R3Ts), Peugeot (two 207s), while there are two other VWs and another Renault.

It will be a pity that Vatanen will see a greatly diminished national championship after the hopes of a revival with its emphasis on two-wheel-drive cars – and not a single entry in the SUV category after two years with just one, Brett Middleton in a Subaru Forester.

Ari Vatanen at the shakedown promises to be much more entertaining than the ARC round.

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