SA: Motor team laps it up

AAP General News (Australia)
04-01-2004
SA: Motor team laps it up

ADELAIDE, April 1 AAP - A team of drivers and cars from Motor Magazine has completed
a lap of Australia in record time.

The Motor team arrived in Melbourne yesterday to complete the 15,000 kilometre journey
in six days, eight hours and 52 minutes.

That was more than seven hours faster than the previous best lap of the country set
by a similar group in 1979, despite a 14-hour hold-up for the Motor team in Broome as
a result of Cyclone Faye.

Motor editor Michael Taylor said the two Holden Commodores which left Melbourne last
week ran almost non-stop, apart from the cyclone-induced halt and some running repairs
when one of the cars hit a kangaroo.

"The 1979 effort was very much a pushed-to-the-limit exercise and we wanted to see
if it was still possible to get around this monumental island in seven days," Mr Taylor
said.

"The Commodores didn't miss a beat and our teams returned without so much as a ticket."

The two cars left Melbourne last Thursday, travelling first up the east coast before
heading for Darwin, Broome, down the west coast and then across the Nullabor and back
to Melbourne.

AAP tjd/tma

KEYWORD: MOTOR RECORD

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