Local spray painter Jon Parker’s experience with cars that have been twisted out of shape hasn’t been restricted to the Parkers Smash Repairs workshop in Harden.
Jon has been successfully competing in rally events for the past eight years.
During this time, Jon who has said he always wanted to try rallying has managed to generate his own share of bent panels.
His first car a Datsun 1600 took Jon to the podium with a win in the Southern Cross Rally at Port Macquarie. The Datsun was damaged beyond repair after the car barrel-rolled during a rally with co-driver Rod Howe. This didn’t deter Jon; he soon found himself a bigger more powerful machine, a V8 VK Holden Commodore and success continued for the talented driver.
The VK eventually rolled as well and after it was repaired it was sold and Jon bought his current car a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO III. With this car Jon managed a third outright in the Canberra Rally series in 2006 then in 2007 he won the Cowra RSL Club Rally by an amazing four minutes. In a sport where every second counts the win by four minutes was quite an effort. Jon has also been the Wagga District Car Club Champion for 5 years in a row.
When John Dunkley from Canberra approached Jon about driving his car for the Targa Tasmania Rally this year he jumped at the chance.
“Targa Tasmania is one of those events that as a rally driver that you wish you could do one day, but it’s not often you get the chance,” Jon said.
It’s not cheap to take a rally car to Tasmania to compete in a rally.
Targa Tasmania caters for up to 300 cars over six days (including a Prologue) on some 2,000 kilometres of tarmac roads.
Targa Tasmania entrants comprise a wide range of media-attracting personalities including former World Champions, other well-known motor sport competitors from both Australia and overseas, as well as national and international celebrities. This year Alastair McCrae, brother of the late World Rally Champion Colin McCrae, competed as well as Australian Rally champion for the last two years, Simon Evans.
John Dunkley was co-driver for the John Dunkley International Brokerage and Parkers Smash Repairs sponsored Peugeot 206 GTI 2L, 2WD rally car.
They travelled to Tasmania five weeks prior to the event to plot out the course.
The pair achieved an outstanding result of first place in their two wheel drive showroom class, and third outright in the showroom catagory and managed to beat class heavyweights such as Rick Bates.
Jon thought that they could do well in the rally, but was pleasantly surprised to do as well as they did. John said he owes a great deal of thanks to John Dunkley for the chance to live out a dream. Jon will compete in his own car in a couple of rallies this year but the costs involved in rallying limit the number of events he can attend. He is on the lookout for some new major sponsors so he can compete in more events. As the saying goes “Rallying is a quick way to make a small fortune... if you start out with a large fortune”.
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