"No Fishing allowed !!" 

By Flash Mullet

Surfacing from the murky depths of a recent Twenty First birthday this story is an attempt of a recollection of events over that prementioned 21 year period of a group of motorsport enthusiasts calling themselves the Killer Mullet Rallye Team.

Well I guess the likely place to start would be around twenty two years ago when one could be found sitting in a cleverly disguised GT Cortina at a set of traffic lights waiting for the hordes of Datsun 1600s or Escorts to try and blow you into the weeds. As this was indeed proving to be a costly exercise per way of attracting the highway constabulary I decided to go and join a Car Club with the thought of doing all the same things and not risk running the gauntlet with the boys in blue as the events would be CAMS sanctioned on closed roads. It was just after the same time I was introduced to Car Rallying.

My invitation from well known Rally Competitors John B and Sonja, ( my sister, unmarried at the time), to accompany them to the 1977 Bega Valley Rally to help out the University Car Club run a finish control was too good to pass up, after all, not everyone could score an invitation in the middle of winter to probably the coldest region of southern NSW to stand under a CAMS endorsed snow protecting umbrella in the middle of nowhere in the Bondi State Forest complete with plastic bag covered, four layers of socks ( I was pretty naive in those days!) waiting for some semblance of horsepower heaven,or even a glimpse of a full house BDA. ( Full apologies go to the most inappropriately named area in NSW which wins the frozen award HANDS DOWN! ..... Sunny? Corner). Well I came, I saw , I froze, I saw
again and again and again and I instantly decided rallying was to be part of my future as it stands now 22yrs later. You could say the birth of the Killer Mullet Rallye Team was not to be far away.

On arriving back and thawing out, KJ who had accompanied myself together with advise from Sonja And John soon had us building "the secret weapon".It was to be a $620 registered Cortina GT 4 Door 1500 purchased from some gentleman who had assured us he had only driven it backwards and forwards to the local pub where he lived? and only on weekends!, sounded so familiar and good to us at the time.

Strange how the news of a car with a dubious future travels the neighborhood as there was never a problem finding a helping hand with the project?

Bolting in the new 50kmph faster seat belts and patching up the numerous leaks in the factory underslung petrol tank (the weekend only usage of the previous owner must have been brought on by lack of fuel!), a set of 'rally' retreads, we were ready to do a Leyland Brothers out in the mulga.

The only problem was that the car had not been consulted as to its destiny. I recall it took an instant dislike to dust which of course meant more 'bonding' nights in it's home garage convincing it that retirement age was not 10 years old but in fact to remember it's cousins that took out two Southern Cross Rally's and a Bathurst win as well. We were doing reconnaissance work for our car club at the time, (Pacific Rally Club) in the Wingham area on the North Coast of NSW for a future event. Our group at the time included people with names such as Strop, (for reasons better known to himself), Garden Fork, (he was a Horticulturist) also in another Cortina, Yellow Submarine, (as the fading memory recalls he drove a yellow HT which always seemed to have trouble negotiating creeks), Ian & Sharon in a Mazda and Tom who could pretty well put his hand to anything, especially Directing events.

Further coaxing and bonding sessions back home were becoming a problem due to the large collection of now empty cartons restricting access to the future beast of the forests.Our big day was to come during the running of the Manning Valley 400 on 10th June 1978. We were asked to sweep the event due to Tony W (a later Bega Valley Rally director) not being available to sweep. The crew on this day was myself Flash, Navigator was Strop and our service crew was Brick, Pom Pom, Ness, Paul & Pat.

Was this the event responsible for the birth of the infamous Killer Mullet Rallye Team? and how would this existence come about? Well sorry guys, we ARE Mullets and we have a habit of doing things like this so stay tuned for our next episode of "No Fishing Allowed!!". After all we do have a hangover to get rid of!