Italian Connection Rally

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Well another year has come around and one more sleep to the start of the Italian Connection trophy.

For those of you not familar with the rally it started five or six years ago, running from Sydney to Melbourne, connecting the three little Italy's, Liechardt, Murtleford and Lygon street over three days of some of the best roads you could find, all orgnised by rally organisers.

This year, the rally has changed with the rally comming out of Albury and still connecting with Murtleford. The rally this year will include some lovely points rally drives through some of the most beautiful mountain roads - mount beauty, omeo, mount hotham, falls creek, bright, rutherglen, beechworth mitta mitta to name a few, each day finishing in Albury, with some great night receptions and entertainment. Along the way we raise money for charity.

And of course as in other years there will be three sanctioned motokarna competitions in town streets as a part of the rally.

For more information go to the Italian Connection Trophy web site. I look forward to sharing our experiences with you over our journey.

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After a lovely reception and dinner hosted by the mayor of Albury at the Manor House last night, the Italian connection rally started at the Albury town square today at 8am.
Albury put on a fine barbecue breakfast and we were greeted by the mayor and a fine display of club member cars from the Albury Wodonga historic car club who led the competitors in the Italian connection trophy in a motcade out of Albury for the start of our first days points rallying.
Today we went thru some of the best cattle country and winding mountain roads thru mount beauty and up to fall creeks summit for the first day motokana in the falls creek long term carpark. And what an eventful day it was with snow hitting 3/4 of the way up the mountain. Great fun was had by all who were brave enough (and yes our team was one) to attempt the motokana in the snow! Unortunately the snow prevented us from going further across the mountain so we took the now techerous road back to bright for some lunch.
In the afternoon we travelled back to Albury thru some historic towns and lovel back road country side to again test our driving skills and back to Albury form a lovely dinner at the SS&A club. Tommorrow we continue the wine district in the area - Chiltern, rutherglen and Milawa followed by some up hill and down dale running to Myrtkeford where the rally will provide motokana enterntainment to the Italian fierra held annually in this great Italian connection city. More fine entertainment to come.........stay tuned.

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The day three of the Italian connection trophy ("ICT") saw us, in the main run to the east and south east of Albury and the third and final motokana run at specially built course at the Albury aquatic center and then onto the Victory presentations and dinner at the spectacular Adamshurst function center in Albury.

In the morning we did a short run to Hume wier across the large waterway bridge to bellridge and up the hills to bethanga. From here we headed toward the murrey river following the twisting roads for some 20 kay's. This run saw some great speed runing thru the twisties on back-roads free from traffic. This ICT has seen some of the best enthusiast roads on any of the ICT rallies.

From here we passed thru picturesque country side dotted with small hamlets - eskenville, mitta-mitta, gateway to the darmouth dam, Tangambalanga/Kiewa, situated in the rolling hills of the valley, the area home to the Murrray-Golburn co-operative. Swinging south, the run took us along the Kiewa river and on to the Yak - yackandandah. A great place to take a rest and take in a lovely town full of historic buildings and lovely pubs, cafe's and something for the gals in the group as well.

The last day is always the hardest, as we begin to come to the end of a great three days of driving and of course, we all want to win the event so there is always some intense driving as we search for the answers to the route questions striving to be at the pointy end at the rallies end. And! day three had its drama's which will be told as we re-count some of the stories from the event as we continue to post more about the lighter side of the rally.

And as we headed back from the Yak to Albury and some more twisties, we were excited by the prospect of the third and final motokana event at the Albury aquatic center. What an event, a specially designed course by the boys from the Albury Wodonga historic car club, with a number of Alberian enthisiats with their machines (mini coopers, mitsbishi GTO, escort rs, V8 holdens and more) and the ever enthusiastic public came out for wood fired pizza in the park and some red hot motokana running.

Earlier as the ICT made its way to Albury for the last time the club had held its own motokana action - more on this in later posts. Our motokana event was full of action and thrills with everyone putting on a great performance. A wonderful finish to a great rally event, made even more enjoyable by a memorable Victory dinner at Adamshurst historic function center in Albury.

The website is currently being updated with plenty of content (this sometimes takes a while as we all take a deep breath). More stories, pictures, web site connections etc. to come - stay tuned................

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Still waiting on post event photo's. Will be comming soon.

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Finally, here are some photo's from the rally. Unfortunately the web site is down at the moment. But I will post connection for all the wrap on the event really soon. In the meantime here are some photo's in a series of posts:

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Apologies for last post. Try these. 1750GT:

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More photo's

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More photos:

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More photo's:

The photo's on these pages show some of the competitors on the rally, some limited footage of two of the three motokana events in Albury and Myrtleford and some of the lovely country side we visited in the Albury and surrounding region.

Once the web page is updated we'll post some stories, more news and preliminary details of next years event.

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