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LONDON-SYDNEY MARATHON 2000 | |
Nick Brittan’s Trans World Events organisation announced its latest epic event. Ninety five competitors from 15 countries are already signed up to take part In the London-Sydney Marathon, that icon of long haul rallies.
In a spectacular celebration of the Millennium the event wilt leave London on June 3rd, 2000 on a 30-day 16000 km adventure that will take it across 17 countries to arrive on the steps of Sydney’s Opera House on July 2nd.
It’s an FIA approved event with over 45 special stages. On the 16,000 km route there will be over 1,400 kms of racing stages on which competitors are timed to the second.
The entry is restricted to 100 pre-1971 vehicles. Only five places remain.
From London across the Channel into France, Belgium, Germany, to Prague in the Czech Republic, onward to Slovakia, Austria, Budapest in Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and the Mediterranean sea port of Kavala in Greece. Into Turkey via Gallipoli and across the Dardanelles into the heart of primitive and biblical Turkey and the mountains of Iran. That first leg takes 14 days.
Then an airlift to Chiang Mai in Thailand and then six days down the Malay peninsula to Singapore. From there another airlift to Darwin in the northern tip of Australia. Then eight days through the tough and rugged outback to finish on the Steps of the famous Opera House.
Brittan has chartered two of the worlds biggest cargo planes, the massive Russian Antonov 124s, to lift the 100 racers from continent to continent in what will be most expensive airlift in motor sport.
"We have special racking systems built for them which enable each one to carry 50 cars - it’s an amazing achievement, an awesome sight. Loading them is like watching an automotive Noah’s Ark filling up ", said Brittan.
There will also be a chartered Boeing 727 to carry the passengers, plus Brittan’s own airborne office - an 8-seater light plane.
The total bill for aviation will exceed US$ 2 million. "Sometimes I don’t know whether I’m running a charter airline or a rally", quipped Brittan.
A deal has been signed with Australia’s Channel Ten to send two crews on the event to produce three hours of documentary coverage. In addition to which they will be beaming out news coverage for Ten’s nightly sports news programmes.
Channel Ten, Australia’s leading sports coverage channel, will run a live programme to welcome the event into Darwin and will be live to cover the finish in Sydney.
Channel Ten boss David White described their planned coverage as, "More than the time given to two Grande Prix and five times as interesting."
Channel Ten’s footage will then go world-wide to 98 countries.
In addition to the 100 ‘racers’ there is a Challenge Category for modern 4wd vehicles for ‘gentlemen and lady adventurers’ who want to follow one of the great motor adventure rallies in modern air conditioned comfort.
The Challenge Category is limited to 50 vehicles. It is non-competitive and no competition licences are required.
"We’ve had so many requests from people who wanted to come but didn’t want to build a rally car.... so we created this category for them", said Brittan. Do it in a rent-a-car !
For adventurers not wishing to use their own cars there is a deal to use a brand new Toyota Landcruiser 4wd on a buy-back deal. Brittan’s TWE company has only 20 of these vehicles available in a deal done with Toyota Australia. The deal costs just $12,500. "It’s a bargain", says Brittan. "Pick it up in London, hand it back in Sydney 30 days later. If there are four of you you’ve put 16,000 kms on someone else’s vehicle for less than you’d spend on a cheap package tour to Spain".
The first London-Sydney Marathon took place in 1968, it was a milestone in motoring and became a legend in motor sport. It was won by Scotsman Andrew Cowan in a Hillman Hunter after a titanic battle with Roger Clark (Ford), Lucien Bianchi (Citroen) and all the tops stars of the day including Rauno Altonen, Simo Lampinen, Bengt Soderstrom and Gunnar Palm.
TWE ran the 25th anniversary event in 1993 in which 21 of the original competitors took part including Andrew Cowan and the late Roger Clark. Cowan. sentimentally, ran the ‘68 winning Hunter loaned by the Royal Scottish Automobile Club museum. The event was won by Francis Tuthill (Porsche 911) with Australian Ian Vaughan in second place in a Ford Falcon identical to the one in which he’d finished third in on the ‘68 event.
Vaughan in ‘68 was a mechanic at Ford Australia, today he still works for Ford as Vice President of Engineering. Andrew Cowan is the Director of Ralliart, Mitsubishi’s world championship rally team. Brittan was a member of the Ford team In 1968 and now heads the TWE organisation.
The entry fee for the both the Competition and the Touring categories is US$ 36,000 which covers two people in a car and includes all hotels, airlifts and a container to ship the car from Sydney to London.