Sport: Trial by Trouble
Just before the rally began, the finance company seized one contestant's Fiat. The jack-booted driver of an Australian Ford showed up with his rear seat cramped by an ice-cream-packed icebox. The crew of a Queensland Volkswagen whooped it up in American Indian headdress. But most of the competitors in the 10,563-mile, round-Australia Mobilgas Rally who started west from Melbourne last month spent their last spare minutes sensibly checking safety equipment. They would have to drive a distance more than one-third the circumference of the earth, bounce over the worst of the world's worst roads, put in a scheduled 272 wearying hours...