One of the crews favoured to take victory in the Bathurst RSL Club Rally of Bathurst on May 16 and 17, is a former winner of the event, Gareth Morgan-Thomas of Bathurst and his Sydney co-driver, Matt Ruggles.
The two day event that will start and finish in Bathurst, is the second round of the 2009 Pipe King Southern Cross Rally Series run by the Australian Motor sport Action Group (AMSAG), with Dave Aitchison as rally director.The event will cover 230 kilometres of competitive roads within the Sunny Corner State Forest, east of Bathurst.
Morgan-Thomas won the Bathurst RSL Rally of Bathurst in 2004 driving a 5 litre V8 Holden Commodore, and finished a close second in that year’s Southern Cross Rally Series, as he had done the previous season, 2003.
“You could say we lost that 2004 championship by only three seconds, because that was what we were beaten by, in the final round at Port Macquarie. We were beaten by a lack of tyres,†Morgan-Thomas said.
He sold his Commodore a short time after the 2004 series, and last year purchased a 1996 Subaru WRX STi that had won the 2004 Victorian Championship.
“It is unbelievable the difference between the Commodore and the WRX. The WRX is a maintenance intensive car, and you must spend many hours working on it between events, whereas the Commodore would seldom need a spanner on it.  Details