Guys,

Attached is a pic of a 1970 240Z which was taken at the 2003 'Classic Sandalford' in Perth Australia. This event is basically a quarter mile sprint for classis and interesting cars held at one of the wineries near Perth (yes, those are grape vines in the background!)

The owner is Rich Davies, a local 240Z identity. He and his wife Pat (both retired) regularly compete in Classic rallies, sprints and navigation trials in Western Australia... Now, after the odd disparaging remark about female drivers/navigators, he has asked me to defend Pat. Rather than paraphrase, I'll include Rich's own words which provide us all a lesson in growing old (dis)gracefully!

"...so perhaps you would be good enough to do so for me , with tongue in cheek of course . In the last 5 years Pat has navigated me to 5 class wins , 3rd outright once and 2nd outright twice in the Classic Rally in W.A. As well as that she navigated me to 1st outright in the Cape to Cape Rally late last year. You are no doubt aware that these rallies are all tarmac rallies [ I would not use the car on dirt ] and are absolutely full on .The Classic for example had , I think , 27 driving stages and is run over 3 days .When you consider that the combined age of the car , the driver and navigator is 170 years I reckon she does a wonderful job . She is the bravest lady , and is usually urging me on in special stages.

Anyway , if you feel like defending her and giving the guys who access the site a giggle I would be grateful..."

Try this:

http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=3320&papass=&sort=1&thecat=998

Since she was the NAVIGATOR, she basically was telling the driver what to do......in the U.S. we refer to them as Back Seat Drivers. But since there is no back seat in a 240, I guess Navigator will work.

Besides, she does what most Wife's do......order the driver around.

J/K.......:

I personally would not have a man that I could order around. Of course with my track record, what do I know?!?!

How long ago was that? Harvest is coming up over there, isn't it? The vines look mighty healthy. Are they irrigated or dry-farmed? Are they head-trained? Either that or the smallish vine at the end is hiding the anchor-post of the trellis. Do you have any more pix of head-trained shiraz? Try not to get them so blurry! At LEAST include the name of the vineyard next time! DOHHHHH!

steve

The photo was taken in Feb 2003 (2 weeks ago) and the vines in the background are largely obscured by the Ecalypts on the far side of the track.

I don't know too much about the grape growing side of wineries except that these vines are all in berry with harvest set to be around March (I think) which is our Autumn (fall).

The winery is called Sandalford and yes, they have a website: www.sandalford.com. Being in the Swan valley, the winery could be termed a 'warm climate' type - it was 43degrees Celsius on the day of the car event - so the wines they produce would reflect the climate. I'm thinking that big reds would be good here.

anyay, I hope that fills you in - check the wensite for more info...