7 minute read
Feisty 18-year-old Porsche Conquers the Simpson to Fight MND
Back in 1999, 22 years ago, two respected motoring writers – Michael Stahl and Michael Browning drove a Porsche 911 Carrera (type 996) across the Simpson desert to demonstrate the technical mastery of the vehicle. Today’s crossing by Tom Barr Smith and his contingent of six had little to do with demonstrating the mastery of his 2003 C4S Porsche and everything to do with honouring Tom’s wife Jenny and her battle with Motor Neurone Disease (MND). Though simply by completing the trip it will inadvertently demonstrate the technical mastery that can be extracted from a Porsche, even one 18 years old. After all the Simpson Desert is one of the roughest and most remote places on Earth, even in a good year it is notoriously difficult to cross and nowadays made that little bit trickier by our constantly changing border closures due to Covid.
Before heading off there was some trepidation because there is no guidebook on how to get a Porsche through the challenging conditions of the trip. Afterall the car was designed for highways not byways, hence the schedule had to incorporate some fluidity.
old Porsche conquers the Simpson to fight MND
‘We are determined not to be bound by a tight schedule for several reasons because we have no idea just how a Porsche without modifications will cope with the sand dunes,’ Tom senior said. ‘It could also be that the dunes are ok but the gibbers on the stony Cordillo country might roll along underneath and create some major dilemma we haven’t planned for.’ Tom Barr Smith junior joined his father on the trip. Along with the two Toms were Andrew Hardy of Hardy’s Wines, Andrew Burgess, Andrew Nikakis, John Beresford and Nick Van der Merwe – apart from Tom Snr, the others rode in 4WD utes as back-up vehicles. Tom (senior) not to be confused with his father Tom (and grandfather also Tom), but in a similar vein to them was brought up on remote properties and so is no stranger to the outback. His early days were spent in the dirt, rallying. In 1975 he won the Central Yorke 500, the opening round of the SA Rally Championship, an event of some consequence. Later, in 1993, he completed London to Sydney marathon in a Rover P6B, quite an achievement in anyone’s book.
The Adventure Starts
It was not long after Tom’s wife Jenny died of MND six years ago, that he and son Tom were at the Birdsville Pub when he spied a photo of the first Porsche crossing the Simpson Desert and that set his mind racing. So, at the crack of dawn on 10 July 2021 with his Porsche loaded, the team headed out for its first overnight stop at Burra after which it was off to Commodore Station and a welcome meal at the Parachilna Pub. From there they travelled to Beltana Station around 550km north of Adelaide by now they were well into the desert and enjoying the open night sky under swags. Everything was going to plan until they had travelled another 360km to William Creek where the first puncture set them back a little, but what set them back even further was a grader on the road. ‘Disappointed as I am stuck in William Creek, but only because we’re now a little behind time. The grader was on the road and much needed, but they tend to turn up some nasty sharp rocks, hence our dilemma,’ Tom (senior) had said at the time. Onward through wet roads to the Algebuckina Bridge just shy of Oodnadatta. Forget the 5g network, there’s not even 4g in most of inland Australia other than perhaps around major towns so it was onto the satellite phone for any communication with the outside world, and even that was limited. No phone coverage in the middle of Australia would send today’s generation into a psychotic episode, you can only imagine how tough it would have been in 1936 when Ted Colson crossed the desert – other white men had explored its edges, but he was the first to cross it. It wasn’t until 1962 that it was crossed by a motor car, and even then, it was a 4WD. After eight days behind the wheel, Tom (senior) proudly drove his Porsche into Birdsville, but it was a tough drive over the Simpson. ‘The sand dunes are unpredictable you come over a sand dune and you have to go reasonably quickly and then you don’t know which way the road goes because they’re so steep and the drop offs are so blind that you come up to find an immediate full lock right hand turn at the top of the sand dune,’ explained Tom (senior) with excitement still obvious in his voice. ‘If you haven’t got the speed up, particularly in a low-slung car, you just don’t get there.’ The highs and lows of the trip were more than the sand dunes. ‘The highs were the fact that we got here, the lows were that it hasn’t done the car any particular favours we’re trying to get it up on a hoist today to have a major inspection underneath,’ Tom continued. ‘Really, I think it’s a credit to the car, it’s amazing what it has handled. It’s taken the most frightful beating. The roads were rough and made rougher by the fact that we had no clearance and we had to drive almost permanently with the wheels on the middle ruts.’
Tom junior was equally impressed with both the car and its driver. ‘I know it was tough for dad in the Porsche because he had to concentrate; if you let your concentration lapse for whatever reason something will come up, so all day he had to be on guard. He did an amazing job,’ he said. ‘The car did extraordinarily well, about 80 percent of the sandhills we were amazed that the car went over. In the end I hung back because I hated seeing the car grounding out. There would have been countless times when I thought something catastrophic was about to happen, but it would just keep going. ‘We all love Porsches, but if you’d seen what it went though there would be few people who would think it would get through. There were no mechanical issues.’
There are not many standard cars, especially not ones 18 years old that could have completed that trip without any major issues. And it was a basically standard vehicle, the suspension was not lifted as it had been for the prior trip with the two Michaels. In hindsight the only thing that Tom would have changed was to put a full underside bash plate on the car. ‘The Porsche is just the most rugged little car … we’ve beaten the living daylights out of it but it’s still going strongly,’ Tom (snr) said. ‘It’s running fine, the air conditioner is buggered I don’t know what we did to that, so the car is like driving around in the internal organs of a vacuum cleaner with dust everywhere. My son who’s with me said this is a keeper dad, we’re not going to get rid of it.’ That Jenny wasn’t part of the adventure was a great sadness for both husband Tom and son Tom.
‘She is not here partly because she was amongst the 10% of MND sufferers who tragically have the ‘familial’ gene about which little was known when her mother and her aunt died of it many years ago,’ explained Tom (senior). ‘Neale Daniher and Jenny were diagnosed at the same time and she only lasted 20 months, and my three children – because she had that particular gene – my three children have a 50/50 chance of getting it. It’s near to our hearts.’
And as far as MND is concerned Tom is not giving up until there’s a cure. Hence his parting words were that he was thinking he would head to Cape York next year. But this time he said, ‘I’ll put a total skin underneath the whole car, other than that nothing – it runs beautifully’. To contribute to fundraising visit: https://hub.fightmnd.org.au/fundraisefor-fightmnd/tom-tackles-the-simpson-to-beat-the-beast •
CLIC K HERE TO LEARN MOR E
Tom Barr Smith Senior and Junior
