Start to Finish Win for White Hot Motorsport in Rally Tasmania

The White Hot team of John and Jason White entered this years Rally Tasmania intent on proving that their win in Rallye Burnie was not a fluke. Driving the same car as last year, a 2001 Nissan Skyline GTR VSpec II N1, the team was confident that the many hours of development that had been put into the car would give them the edge they needed to win the rally.

Friday 18Feb2005 - After being flagged off from the Burnie Civic Center the teams made their way to the start of the Guide Valley stage for 2 runs, the first being untimed. Racing on SS1 Stage 1 was incident free and saw Jason and John White in the White Hot Nissan Skyline GTR leading the pack with a preliminary time of 2m.14s, followed by the Porsches of Jim Richards and Barry Oliver (911 GT3), Tony Quinn and Keith Wenn in the (911 4WD Turbo).

Saturday 19Feb2005 - John and Jason started Saturday where they had left off the night before being fastest on SS2 and SS3 extending their lead to 6 seconds over Jim Richards and Barry Oliver in their Porsche 911 GT3. Special stage 4 through Hellyer Gorge saw Richards set a blistering pace to pull back the White’s lead to be level pegging at the front of the pack. This was as close as it would get however, the White Hot team turned up the wick to be the fastest car on 3 of the remaining 5 stages for day 2 ending the day 17 seconds ahead of second placed Richards and Oliver and a further 40 seconds back to the third placed team of Alistair Bye and Michael Sherrin in another Porsche.

Sunday 20Feb2005 - The hard charging racing between John and Jason White in their Nissan and Jim Richards in his Porsche from Day 2 promised a day of close racing at the front of the pack between these two very competitive teams. The White Hot team driving confidently and stretched their lead to 22 seconds by the end of the first competitive stage for the day. Jim richards then proved what a champion driver he is by being fastest on the next 3 stages and reducing the lead of John and Jason to a mere 8 seconds. The remaining 3 stages for the race proved to be nail biting stuff with only seconds between the two cars. The White Hot team proved to be up to the challenge and ended up winning with and extended gap of 13 seconds over previous race winners Richards and Oliver in second place and further 90 seconds back to third placed Sherrin and Bye.