Right rally, wrong location

The World Rally Championship returned to Australia for the first time in three years last weekend. AUTOSPORT's rallies expert David Evans reckons the event was a success, but wasn't quite sold on the whereabouts

Kingscliff. That's where we were heading. Okay, Rally Australia might have been days away, but we'd expected a little more than this. Than what? Er, nothing. We'd driven straight through Kingscliff and there was no hint of the world's finest rally drivers coming within a million miles of the place. Not, I thought, a great start.

As usual, chairman of the Rally Australia organisers Garry Connelly was on hand to fill me in. Kingscliff is not where the rally is based. Kingscliff is just where the service park is. It's based in Salt. Salt? Salt. That's right. Salt is a resort village just outside Kingscliff. And Salt did have a few flags waving. But Salt to Kingscliff is what Absolutely Nowhere is to Nowhere. It looked like a retirement village.

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