Middle Maria State Rallysprint

[ropie]

Just back in Armidale after top event in Kempsey for state rallysprint, brilliant 2 bits of road for event, fast in lots of places, bit of tricky slippery stuff, really had it all.

some results, 1st outright ( cough cough ) me , notes by Kam Baker, ta,
in the Lancer Evo 4

2nd outright Joel Payne VR4

3rd outright Scott McCloy Stanza also 1st 2WD

I would like to thank Michael South, mainly as he didn't turn up, allowing me to get first ever rallysprint win. Really can't keep up with the WRX, er that is both the car & driver.

Excellent job by Paul Mountford, Sue Thompson, Jeff Hawkins, Bernie Keast of the Kempsey club for running event, Someone will surely put up full results later.

[triplecaution]

Congrats on the win Richard, i'll hopefully get some results from Keeper in the next day or so to upload...

[kam_baker]

Well the trip to the event started with a roadtrip as Lord Farquar would call it due to some crazy person buying a bargin on ebuy.

Leave Gloucester Friday with empty trailer in tow to pick up new classic rally car project (the building of an Opel Kadett GT/E works replica - aka Gemini coupe) which was brought for $1700, no rust - welded in steel cage - painted - new engine and the list goes on.

Arrive Armidale just before midday and pick up Donkey whom also has a car to pick up on the Gold Coast from the Queenslander to give it the Donkey preparation touch. Drop all my paperwork at Lord Farquar's just in case we would not get back in time for doco Saturday.

Shrek & Donkey depart Armidale for a land far far away (Brisvegas). After many rally stories, how fast was that, and maybe we should have and of course the classic comment 'are we there yet',the trusty dash girlfriend navigates us to some dark suburb on the north side of the far far away land to pick up the prize.

So we meet the owner of the swamp and ebuy seller to find the prize is way better than expected, ute is stacked to the brim with parts (and many new ones to boot) everything to put it together except a grille & radiator, load the car on trailer, hand over the cash and high tail it out of there before the swamp owner comes to the reality that he has been robbed.

Leave the swamp and head for the south side of Brisvegas for a bed & overnight stay at one of Donkey's old co-drivers place. Beer, pizza, bourbon and more rally stories til 2am when the dead soldiers crowded the kitchen cupboard and ordered us to bed.

7am rise to some hair brain idea that Shrek could put this car together and have a run at the rallysprint - NOT. So once again we hit the road this time the via point is the Queenslanders to pick up his Tommi Mak limited edition Evo 6.5 road car (its for sale contact Donkey), coffee there, more rally stories and head south for Kempsey.

Are we there yet? Arrive Kempsey 430pm at the Keepers to look at his new project (Lancia Beta classic rally car) and show off the new prize.

5pm down to doco and wait the grand entrance of Lord Farquar. Do all the pre event doco things and get the noble steed scrutineered the head for motel. Raid the motel restaurant for big seafood & steak feed with beer of course and more rally stories.

Race day dawns, nice clear day, so off we head to the forest south of Kempsey that has not seen a rally car for twenty years. Lord Farquar awakes with an attitude never seen before - today we attack

Off when head and do reccy for the forward direction, 2 absolutely fantastic bits of forest roads totally some 11km, the 2 stages make up the time for each section, so you still only have 6 times with the worst in each direction dropped - therefore 12 stages in essence. 2 passes for reccy so the usual write on the first pass, check on the second, 2 pages of notes per stage and very busy. The course had lots of what I call hidden corners (can't see around or read them) so committment to the notes was essential to putting down good times.

Quick Redbull, change and into the Evo 4, down we go and line up for Section 1. On the line 5 4 3 2 1 go, by the 1km mark I decided that the Lord was on a mission and tightening the belts further was in order . Flying finish and Pip Slade is on the control - holds up the clock and said whose driving Lord Farquar or Donkey - the Lord I said and he just and said fastest time by 6 I think , repeat to the Lord and he said that's just the sighter lap. Roll down the road 400m to the next stage, and oh my god here we go again fastest again.

Section 2 - stage 3, launch off the start, rattle along the 1.7km to the TR3d/c into 3R boggy and 'zit' off the road we go out into the scenery lucky nothing hit, select reverse back up onto the road and continue on take it easy for the rest of the run, no need to take chances the run is already blown. Stage 4 fastest time again.

Section 3 - no problems and set fastest times again. Poor old Joel Payne was sitting there gob smacked , he had always had Richard's measure on every head to head encounter, but not this time. The Lord wanted a new Kingdom to add to the trophy cabinet.

Lunch - reverse direction reccy, more good notes written.

Section 4 - attack, sighter lap and set the fastest times again.

Section 5 - problem, we line up in the que and the tempreture goes off the dial, pullover to the side, track the problem to an airlock we think, but as usual the header tank is full and radiator half empty, top up the radiator and line up. Oh just for good measure lay down the good times again.

Section 6 - Well we got it in the bag so I though he might take it easy - WRONG - maximum attack.

Have a look at the results board and we got it by just under 1min, and the rest weren't going easy or no slouches either. I must congratulate the Lord on one of the best drives I have every seen him put in, 100% all day and a committment to the notes that I have never seen before by him - top drive boss.

The Kempsey club have put on another great event and full marks for the format and the road selection, they were just brilliant & very technical.

[triplecaution]

Car 8 - Erkki Kytola / Pete Graham - Ford Escort

Well the dramas for us started well before the event... Starter motor died Friday morning, luckily Erkki managed to find another one and put it in and off he went, though the new tyres that were ordered didn't arrive...

I cruised down from Brisbane on Saturday morning, got stuck on the highway between Grafton and Coffs with a 2 car collision requiring an air lift blocking the highway for a good 40 mins or so, so that delayed me but we both made it to doco on Sat evening...

Sunday morning all was good, did our notes and settled into the Escort after spending the last 7 or so years in a 4wd (Familia then WRX).

1st stage, about 1km in, engine went onto 3 cylinders, so back to service and abandoned 2nd stage of run one, found a broken rocker arm on the exhaust of cylinder #3, for some unknown reason we had a couple spares, put one in and all was good...

Run two was good, a couple half spins, just getting used to a car that would hand brake again, nothing major at all, car running as it should.

Stage 2 of run 3 is where the weekend ended, slow hairpin right, got around it and caught a hump in the road and the escort went over, a nice slow roll, cracked the flares, broke the windscreen and it was day over, car still running perfect, no one hurt, but day over...

A big thanks to the KSCC team for putting on another great event, fantastic road selection with a bit of everything in there, some very nice fast bits and some quite technical sections

[keeper]

I drove into this forest about two years ago, had a bit of a look about, came home and got out the 1:25000 Kundabung (9435-1-S) topographic map, and said to myself, "self, we could run a good event in here". Then, a little while later, I got out the Rallysprint Standing Regs, and said to myself, "self, we can run two stages, three times in each direction!" So, off to the photocopier, run off some copies, and back out to the forest, in the rally car with the terratrip to measure some distances. A couple of hours later I say's to myself "Dammit self, we COULD run a GREAT event in here!, and its only 8km's out of town..."
I said to my mate Bernie, "Bernie, whatjareckon bout runnin' a sprint in Maria River State Forest?? "Oh yeah, we ran a rally stage in there, back in 198?....." was his reminiscent reply....
"No, Bern" I says "forget about the past, what about this year, now, 2008???" So, with the BP Clybucca Rally unable to get off the ground this year due to a lack of motivated and "CAMS accredited" officials (a difficult combination in a small club) the idea was first mooted to use a sprint as an opportunity to blood some new, but keen, and unaccredited personnel in the art of organising an event. So, a small group of 3 "newchums" (myself, Sue Thompson & Scott Wheeldon)met one night with a couple of old hands (Bernie Keast & Paul Mountford) and started to put this thing together. First of all, we asked ForestsNSW which area they would prefer that we ran in, the traditional Tamban Forest to the north of Kempsey or Maria River to the south. Much to our surprise, they replied that they'd prefer Maria River, as there was logging programmed for Tamban. (I was quietly ecstatic at this revelation!) The rest is history now....
I've learnt a lot about organising an event, and have a much better appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes now, and best of all, as Assistant Secretary, I could still compete on the day.... more about that, later.....
P.S. Official Results will be posted on Thursday (please be patient, we're only new at this....)

[rskb4]

Congrats to Richard and Kam on the win, looks like it was a great event.

sorry we couldnt be there, we were all packed and ready to go, but then some issues got in the way and it just wasnt going to happen,

thanks also to Kam for letting the organisers know that we couldnt make it, much appreciated.

[triplecaution]

Results Attahced

[kam_baker]

Here we go hot off the press.