Alpine 2007
I’d been planning this event for a while, pretty much since I lent the car to GT for the 05 Alpine. 18 months out I booked in Marc Kelly for the Navigation duties and I thought with a newly purchased gearbox that the car would be a fairly straight forward thing to prepare before the event. What could go wrong in 18 months? 12 months before the start see’s Heimo and myself enjoying a few hot laps around Wakefield Park in a super sprint. On the last lap, pop goes the motor. No worries still 12 months to go. Having acquired a stroker crank a few years back I set about fitting this to the motor. 2 months to the Alpine and its all fitted up to the car. Mark Banyard having just flowed to Perkins heads from a flow tested 400hp to a new mark of 470hp. Hook every thing up, hit the starter and she fires up first go. Tops Alpine here we come. Now just to run it in and get it tuned.
During running in there seems to be a bit of a problem with a heap of smoke coming out of it? To cut a long story we run out of oil and decide to pull it back out. Crank scored, bearings stuffed. Smoke/oil was coming through the base of both the inlet gaskets under vacuum on back off. Spend the money get it all fixed, put it back together (putting a V8 crank in with the pistons and heads on the block was interesting exercise), practically glued the inlet manifold to the heads, bolted it in again, starts first kick, but this time with a vibration. WTF. No worries I’ve got 2 weeks before the Alpine. Should be heaps of time to fix it. Didn’t have time to work on it during the week due to working 2 jobs to pay for the thing. Did have time to chuck in on the dyno across the road from work and after a few runs and a new carbie in makes a respectable 270kw at the wheels at 5500rpm. But it still vibrates... First thing Saturday morning after checking everything that spins on the front of the motor, the decision is made to pull out the gearbox and have a good look at things? After moving every component, the flywheel comes off and the external balancer that sits between the flywheel and the crank was put on backwards in the rush to get back together the second time. With the balancer put on correctly and everything back together all of a sudden the mystery vibration is gone. Strange that. Things are good.
With a week to go I decide to drive it down to Marc Kelly house to do some work on it. Sitting on the parkway at 100km/h the temp sits on a steady 110’c. Now I was starting to panic. Went to work Monday and decided I needed to the rest of the week of to fix this and prepare things. A quick ring around Sunday afternoon found a PWR radiator on the shelf at REPCO in Fyshwick (got to love the ease of finding the competition Commodore parts at 3pm Sunday afternoon) Went out and bought it Monday lunch time. Fitted it up Tuesday morning and it bought the temp down to 105’C. Still not good enough. Hmmm. Thinking caps on. After a day of testing different combinations we worked out that it didn’t over heat the more you revved it. Mark Banyard dropped everything got on the lathe and punched out a super small pulley to spin the pump faster. This with an added fan shroud fixed the problem. Any thing above 2000rpm and it now sits on 82’C which is the thermostat opening temp. Gold, only took 20 hours of stuffing around to fix that. I was still pretty calm until I realised that it was infact 3pm Wednesday not 3pm Tuesday.
Thursday consisted of Running around putting tyres on rims (cheers TTS) and heading back to do some final work on the car before it was to be put on the trailer. Then it started raining. This caused a slight problem as I had a bit to do under the car and I have to work on it out side. So I got a bit damp. Friday morning dawned and it was still raining, so we load up, got wet again, went past Shell to pick up $640 worth of Shell 100 and set sail for Lakes entrance. Got there in the afternoon set up camp, go the doco done. Meet all the Orange roughy guys & gals them off to bed.
Saturday. Race day.
Woke up after a crappy nights sleep and decided to put a new set of wiper blades in it. Half way through this process the wipers slipped out of my hands hit the windscreen and proceeded to snap all the old brittle plastic clips that hold the wiper blade in. 5 minutes to the start so I send the boys off to Autopro. They come back with some wipers that old mate behind the desk guarantees will fit and of course they are nothing like the one that I need. About the same time Geoff Portman’s car arrived on a trailer at the start with a blown engine. Tortfeasor quick as a flash was over there on the borrow, so that’s where our wiper problem ended. Then joined the line up to leave the start with the 2 Thompson lads in front of me. After a while of both GT & Matty T chewy the announcer ear off. He didn’t want a bar of me after that and we take off…
Stage one. Lined up, took off and put in top, put my foot down and she’s just lights up the rear wheels. Rusty as hell. But got through it OK. Can’t really remember many of the next couple except that the straight after the speccy point on stage 4 saw red line in top for what seemed like a long time. Some time between the 1st & 2nd service breaks a bit of a knock emerges from the back of the car. Back at my own personal Orbost service spot (Mums shed) the boys find that a rose joint on the shock was a bit stuffed. After searching through the spares and not finding the right size washers to fix it, Munyard digs deep into his car and find a few washers from a toilet cistern that solve the problem. Enter the **** box jokes. A few more stages around Orbost see’s us come off the road once, then off an embankment that leads us back onto the middle of the road, which was pretty lucky.
After service again, we go up the highway to and get to stage 8. This is the best stage in the world. 27kms of hectic drifto. Can’t wait for the incar on this one. The first 10-15kms were just back it in slide to back it in slide. Awesome. Would have been wild if it had of rained though, with 2kms of red clay in the middle. The rest of the stage’s before the main meal break all done with out and hassle.
Once again to mums place for service, where she went all out with a 3 course meal for the lads highlighted with tender pork chops and a chocolate cake. After that, with the road tires on, it was down to the regroup to watch the action (Fro) and shoot the breeze with the lads.
Night stages.
First stage of the night was the famous tar run up to Buchan. 1 minute gaps didn’t leave anytime for stuffing around at the start. After about the first 2 corners I decide that the decision to run with the semi slicks was a good one. With out them gripping the front I have no doubt that I would have gone off the edge up there somewhere as my driving style of backing it in a gassing it wasn’t the thinker’s way to attack this stage. About 3 quarters up the stage Wayne Bell is on the side of the road waving is arms and the Fiat is backed off the road. It was good he was there as this was the start of about 3 kays of loose crap on the surface of the road. Finished the stage with out any hassles went down to the service park and waited for the crew to catch up.
At service we fitted a the best pair of second hand Michelins that I have for an assault on the night stages. With the plan being (well in my mind at least) to have a bit of a go as I’ve always done ok at night. About 2 kays into the first night stage, Marc calls RGR so I promptly pull another gear and head up the left road. Do a hand brake slide and them remiss the road I’m meant to go down because of my own dust. Total shambles that turns out to be all with in 100m of a spectator point. After that I sort of lost the rhythm for the night and just tried to stay on the road. Was a pity as they were some of my favourite roads of the event. Ended up completing them all then back to lakes and into bed before 2.
Sunday.
Woke up to an over cast day and a sprinkle of rain. This was a good thing as the first handful of stages were at 1 minute gaps. Went from the start just up the road to the first stage. These first 3 stages before the first service at Nowa Nowa were fast and grippy due to the light rain. It was a good warm up for the rest of the day. After the service it was up the Highway towards Bruthen for a bit into a short stage that I’m sure that we used bits of the day before. Then up the road to the long stage where there was a bit of a hold up at the start, so we had a good chance to catch up with the fast guys & girls in front of us. About 30kms in this stage the rear tires started to over heat which produced a few interesting moments on the brakes. But got through it all ok. Out of the stage up the road for a click, then into a 8k stage before service. At about the 2k into this stage it became apparent that we had a flat rear left. Decided to keep driving on it and lost about 1.30 in time. Change the tires at service and then off to complete the last 2 stages. The last stage was a ripper of a mix of flat out with a super twisty section in the middle that landed us out about 3kms from the pub. Off back to the pub, hand the time card in and then it sinks in that we actually completed the Alpine. Still a week later im in a post Alpine haze that might take a while to get over.
From the results at the score board on wall at the Pub, we ended up coming home 14th OR from a starting position of 27. We were first Aussie car most importantly the first ACT crew to finish. So for the next 2 years anytime I have a beer you’ll have to listen to me being the fastest 2wd crew in Canberra
A few thank yous:
Club Munyard & Miss Dash for allowing me to store and work on the car at their place for the last 12 months. Also for Munyard for semi sponsoring me to a: get the power out of the heads and b: help me out with a loan when my bank roll was drying up.
Heimo Ruuskanen. He was there every step of the rebuild and nothing was ever too hard for him to handle
Marc Kelly for the enthusiasm, doing a lot of hard yards on the car before hand and being the partner in crime during the Alpine. His organisational skills are second to none.
Michael & Thomas from TTS, Kim from Speeds, Chris from Engine rebuilders and Jake from Jakes performance who helped me out where they could
All the Orange Roughy Massive. Was good to get he band back together for the Alpine and to share all the pre Alpine pain.
Finally my long suffering Cherie who I didn’t really see all that much in the last 3 months due to working 2 jobs any other spare time was spent on the car. She has now taken the keys off me…
Thank you all. Now it’s only another 2 years before we do it all again…
Luckily the main results dude tried to sort it and said once cross checks are done, we should get it back.
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. Some shenanigans with the lights was going on, but I was under the car and didn't really know whether Fro had ground through the wires to the lights during cordless angle grinder mayhem or whether there was some other problem.
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