Phew. I just got back. We were suppose to be servicing for Richard...but 3rd gear waved goodbye in SS3 when he started to get up it and remember how to drive. After reading in the service instructions that some service parks can't handle car trailers I left the trailer back at the hotel. 120km later...
So, all over by the time that some cars still hadn't started. Apparently, it takes an engine hoist to do the gearbox on Richard's car because it it a Cortina box that is too big for the tunnel. Game over.
Got a bit cheesed off. At 10.15am the scrutineers decided that Rob's helmet wasn't appropriate and said it good enough for his kids to use on a go-kart only, and they were due to start the Event at 10.52am or something. Luckily Winton Bocklebank overhead the conversation, and carried a spare, (as does GT BTW) and lent it to Rob. I'm fine with scrutineering but when you don't trust your staff who are by nature distributed across the country, well, it just won't work for anyone. Winton = Legend.
Looking for some action after coming all this way, Frinky and I dragged the Escort on the trailer BACK to Orbost Service Park (which was very nice servicing on grass with shade at an oval), 60kms up the road from Lake's Entrance and decided to get in the way of some of the rest of the Orange Roughy crews etc:
-Spac had some rear end problems with the trailing arm mounting bolts - which Matt Boorman was looking at, while Simey and Anna patched the front end up.
-Jamar was looking after Matty T, who hit a tree early on on Saturday with the lightest of touches. The bonnet was untouched, the silver trim below the light was intact but took out the light. Later on, they chained the car to Frinky's Navara and ran it back to pull out the metal bumper with a bit of a run up. Jason and Marla have the servicing down pat. It looked like it took them a mere 30 seconds to pull up stumps to go to the next service park.
-Claude and Lizzy looked like they had no mechanical problems all day long but Claude was lamenting the lack of a true semi-slick for the tarmac stage at the beginning of Div 3, around night time. He said they had a few offs and reckon they had lost about 1m35s. Claude then pointed out that they were just 1m30s off the lead at that point!
-At the long 2h15m meal break, it was all happening. Carl and Matt J were going to do a gearbox change cause something just wasn't right, so Frinky, Rob, Richard and I headed up there and helped them pull it out. In the end the gearbox was fine but the clutch had turned into some splinky silver bits. Gearbox back in. It was pretty funny at one point, just Richard and Frinky under someone else's car...Trying to get a clutch meant asking the whole service park. The Snooks Service Massive had one or two but weren't willing to sell it on so I think Carl found one with Car 28...
-I can't remember how Fro and Paulie were going early on but after we finished Carl's gearbox change, then Fro needed a hand doing the same. Tony Maxwell and his mate were well into it, we gave them a hand as well but there was less time available and Fro and Paulie just made it I think.
-The Lancia 037 blew a supercharger on SS1 apparently but looked just awesome standing still.
And it was raining down there this morning!
Enjoy.
Mark
for the final stage apparently - Jack won the stage, then 1 sec behind were Kari and Claude with =2nd fastest stage time, then Carl was another 1 sec slower.
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