2008 Myall Stages Rally

[grahamthompson]

Results? Ghetto even. NDDC site is not helpful.

[kam_baker]

Just home from hiding out in the bush.

With 2 stages to run it was:-

Quinn
South
Van Eck
Claude Murry
Fitzgerald

Quinn had smacked a bank and suffered intercooler damage in SS6, but repaired and charged on.

South backed the Subi off the road in SS2 minor off little time lost, rear end damage only.

RC444 had 2 flats in SS1 then had an off later in the day which resulted in DNF.

Mitchell out in SS1 gearbox failure.

Roberts running down the order after a flat and some other issues.

[mick bramble]

Just got home myself

Results
State Round Myall Stages
1st Nathan Quinn 1:09:23
2nd Michael South 1:09:37
3rd Brian VanEck 1:10:20



Results Myall Lakes Rally
Molly Taylor 1:14:35
Michael Long 1:15:15
Matt Young 1:21:01

Matt Young's 3rd place is not confirmed because of a time issue on one stage.


Regards Michael
Motorsport Memories Australia
www.torquenpower.com

[mattj]

another datto goes to the big ol' resting place in the sky... both brad and mel were ok, thank god...they went over 7 times!

[afifield]

I was a bit nervous leading up to this event, as it was our first time back in the car after the crash at Snap-On last year.

Noting on Saturday showed a lot of rocky areas, but most of them had packed down on the second pass. A lot of the slippery areas also seemed to dry out. I would have liked time to do a third pass on 1 & 2, because we changed a few notes on the second pass. I think people would have had to be speeding everywhere to get three passes in on all stages.


Pre-start - Ended up a bit rushed to get sorted. Had more things to do than I thought. Thanks to Gloworm for the valve core for the spare.

SS1 - I was tentative for a while, then started to get into it. Ended up about 30 seconds off where I thought we should be. Jo fell off the notes a couple of times, but picked them up again fairly quickly.

SS2 - Slight improvement, but still not great. Stuffed the exit from the speccie point, but it sounds like a fair few people had issues there. Shame to see Brad's car destroyed, but glad they were both out of the car and walking. It must have taken some time to get out, as Brad was running up the road with the triangles as we came in, and Mel was still near the car with the OK board.

Service - Tried to work out what was causing pad knock-off, but nothing obvious. I think we need to put springs behind the pistons on the front calipers.

SS3 & 4 - Getting better. I've run that loop as a single stage a few times in the past. Having a break in the middle was a luxury.

Service - Fuel, swap the rear tyres left to right. Get front tyre swapped onto a straight rim (thanks to the Dunlop crew who slotted the strip/fit in between a few other things).

SS5 & 6 - About 1.5 sec/km quicker than the first pass. Stuffed the speccie point again. At the finish, we saw the time for the Youngs on their first pass, and instantly called BS. That time is just not possible, no matter who's driving that car.

On the transport back to service, I tried to convince Jo that we needed MCA/Proflex. It didn't work.

Service - Lots of green stuff dripping onto the road. Grabbed some radiator putty from Mick Long and tried to seal it up. Putty wouldn't stick to coolant/aluminium. Decided to take a few litres of water with us and hope for the best. If it wasn't for the 13B ruling the week before, I don't think we would have risked the motor. Swapped the rears left to right again. Used about 10 minutes of late time, so we were behind John/Chris in the Evo.

SS7 & 8 - Figured that the quicker we got through, the less water we'd lose. Had a bit of a go on the last stage, and got to 12 seconds off Molly/Kate and Mick/Aaron. I don't think I've ever seen so many black marks on dirt before.


By the end of the day, I was at a pace that was reasonable, but not risky. I need to run a few more events to get the brain into it again though.

The results show us as 4th in the multi-club event. With combined times, that would have put us at about 15th. If the Young's time on SS2 gets sorted, that'll put us up to 3rd (with a lot of daylight between us and Mick/Aaron).

Congrats to Molly & Kate for a great drive. That car shouldn't go that fast!


Thanks to:
- Graham, Judith and all the officials. It was a great event.
- Tony "the wog". Without him, the car would still be a bent mess in the garage.
- Jo for calling the notes. As usual, you did a great job. Hopefully your voice recovers soon.
- Anthony at AGM engineering for the constant support and wise words, even when you don't realise it.
- Ken at Macquarie Rd Autos for all the pre-event work (including a saturday night wheel alignment before the khanacross), and servicing excellence.
- Kev and the crew at SBCS for the quick turnaround on brakes and clutch before the event.
- Mick Long for the radiator putty. Let me know where to send the replacement pack.


It was a great event. We'll probably be back next year, depending on other commitments.


To Do list:
- Sort out pad knock-off issues
- Radiator and Oil cooler off to PWR for fix/check.
- Rebuild rear shocks. It is about 10 years since they were last rebuilt..... Probably do the fronts at the same time.
- Rebuild/replace gearbox. I think the synchros on 2nd and 3rd are nearly stuffed, and it's jumping out of gear on rough bits/decelerating. It must be a good opportunity to get a close ratio box instead of the standard S4T box, just gotta convince the boss.

[GT4RALLY]

Attached are the results that were handed out at the event finish.
RT

[bryanv]

Overall a very enjoyable event, with a cracking pace up front. The plan was to watch Southie and Nathan on the first 2 stages, as I expected them to go "hammer and tongs", and so it proved. It sounds like both were unlucky to have their offs, but probably were also lucky to be able to continue at full pace with the damage they both sustained!

We pushed hard on stages 3 and 4, and were rewarded with a fastest and a 2nd fastest stage time on those two stages, but ultimately I couldn't stay with Michael and Nathan on the longer stages.

We had a few issues, with the car idling at 5,000rpm through stage 5 before we could reset the TPS. Then as we moved up to the start line for stage 6, a rear brake pad dropped onto the ground! It had de-laminated on the previous stage, so we were a little cautious for the 1st few kms on stage 6. Otherwise the car felt very strong, with a noticeable increase in torque due to the new exhaust and tune. Thanks to Tim Batten and Kari Dirryx for the prep work, and to Matt, Tim and Hugh for another excellent job at service.

Jim was his professional self in the left seat, so thanks to him for another sensational job.

Final thanks to Graham and all the officials of the event. We really enjoyed the format and the roads, and are already looking forward to next years event. It was good to see the increase focus on eligibility, as most competitors want to see an "even playing" field, so it was great to see everyones cars pass without issue.

If anyone has any video or photo's of car 3, please PM me (especially the looong jump on stage 6). Thanks.

[Davo]

Will be uploading photos from speccy point sometime soon...

With South's crash 2 years ago and Brad's this year, Myall stages seems to have become a proving ground for rollcages...

[Ric Cary]

Well what an weekend!!!
We must have used up all our good Kharma. I have never had 2 flats in an event, In the service park before the start Mark Taylor jinxed me by asking if we were carrying 2 spares nah why would you need 2 spares I said,well now I know why!!!!, we drove to the end of stage 1 on the flat rear and dropped about 1min to the quick boys up the front changed the tyre and proceeded to ss2 Rob gave me the hurry up for the transport but the car just wasn't steering so at the start of ss2 jumped out to find a almost flat front right and amazingly there was one just there on the side of the road thanks Fitzy, so changed that and slotted in behind Claude and Lizzie to do SS2 but was a bit tentative with an unknown Hairy tyre on the front .
got to service and the boys and girls performed their miracles and off we went to 3 and 4 two short blasts 8 and 12ks respectively set some reasonable times but towards the end of 4 we had an intermittent intercom problem and the rear wing decided it was almost time to leave this world fortunately it didn't fall off because I'm sure that all the following cars would have gone oh look thats Ric's rear wing we will slow down and go around it !!!!
Back into service give the car the foooooooly sic shaved deck look and a new battery for the intercom seems to fix the problem.So off we trot to stage 5 we start off all good I have never had the car on the redline in 5th for sooooooooooooooooooooo long the first 6 or so k's are just absolutely flat out with little left foot dabs to get the nose into the corners but our intercom was back to intermitent not a comforting thought at those speeds all went well with Rob giving hand signals to back up the garbled messages from the IC until the 13k mark, tulip 17 to be precise where we came over a crest waaaaaaaaay to hot into a right 2 and just slid straight off the road ( yeah front wards so I'm a poof !!!) and parked neatly off the road " beached" carefully placed between 2 trees not a mark on it just can't get it out .
So we proceeded to spectate the rest of the field, special mention needs to go to Rob Inall who I thought was slowing to drag us out in a true sportsman like manner,Silly me! he proceeded to give me a very close up look at the roar power of a v8 comprehensively machine gunning both the car and I with dust and rocks,the best part was Rob and I knew he would have been laughing so hard he was a big chance to go off on the next corner and have to come back sheepishly to join us cause he is scared in the forest, further conversation post event confirms that it was only good luck that he didn't.
Thanks have to go to all the organisers and officials who did an excellent job and to Rob who on countback did fulfill his contractual 4 correct calls per event and of course to our service team Bean,Matt Hope,The Pirate,Brendon and of course Loris the lunch lady.
Congratulations to Nathan,Michael/Sue, Bryan/Jim and indeed Claude/Lizzie who pulled a very creditable 4th after running with water temp problems all day and also to Molly and Kate for their win in the multiclub event that little mirage sounds awesome coming through the forest and Molly rings its neck and to all those who finished

C ya at the Bay hopefully with a bag of luck and 4 bottles of comitment

[BEN]

Was a good compact rally, was well run, and Ari didnt do an upside down turtle impression to hold thing up, which is always a bonus.

Kate did a fantastic job navving in a car or driver whe had never been with before, and mathew did a god job in the service pack, not that anything actually needed to be done all day on the super strong Sprinter.
The new SBS Daul carbon pads from Kev at Specialist Brake and clutch were fantastic and had no fade all day, sorry to Kate for the whiplash

Nothing to report from the stages with me driving within myself and the shagged tyres (had done ROQ so were already shagged) most of the time, a couple of brain fade moments, all resulted in no damage and not alot of time lost.

we will now start stripping the car and converting to tarmac spec for tassi

[Haggers]

Originally Posted by Ric Cary

and the rear wing decided it was almost time to leave this world fortunately it didn't fall off because I'm sure that all the following cars would have gone oh look thats Ric's rear wing we will slow down and go around it !!!!

An Evo rear wing - at least that's new - I don't know how many Commodore front spoilers. left and right rear quarters I've had to drive around thanks to Mr Inall's exploits !

Haggers

[kelzdayt]

The weekend started with the drive Friday night to Buladehlah with the Pig still untested from having his gearbox put back together on Thursday, (after a rock went through the housing at the Kempsey Rallysprint) and put back in the car late Thursday night.

Saturday morning crisp and clear was a great day for recce. All went well until we were nearly run off the road whilst trying to move a branch that had blown down and blocked the road. (Hey Ric, I thought recce speeds were meant to be 60km/h). Even as a first timer, we were able to complete two passes of each stage, with plenty of time for scrutineering and documentation.

After having the opportunity to look at the roads first hand, we decided two new steer tyres were in order (we normally get a couple of events out of each set of tyres.... the one benefit of having absolutely no horse power). Whilst changing the tyres we found that the rear right hand brake was locked on, with no brake pad left. After a bit of jiggling it came loose, and we thought we might be ok to rally.

During a good dinner, we met some new friends at the "no friends table". It was also good to listen to Wayne Bell talk about some of his rally stories, and good for us to meet the fellow who originally built the Pig. We found out that it was a very different Pig back then..... 220 horse power!!!!! Straight cut gear box, big brakes... nothing like the sad Lantra we bought a couple of years ago, but gee it has some history beyond the little clubman rallies we compete in now!

After a noisy night listening to the truck whizz past, Sunday dawns cold and clear. After the a quick drive we check the rear right brakes have locked again, so it's isolated, and we are left with virtually no handbrake, and not much in the way of rear brakes. Another benefit of no horse power.

SS1 - the notes are working! We are both loving this! I like having something to do, and Bruce is driving like never before - for about 5 kms, when he says we've got no power. Tried to go up a hill and the car is getting slower and slower -almost to a standstill. Down the other side, we pick up speed and he starts pumping the accelerator, then pumping the brakes. The throttle cable is jammed open. I just continue making the calls until Bruce pulls over by turning switching the ignition off. It appears it is a gearbox problem - again. We jump out, and fortunately after a few minutes of swearing, we can see the problem - the gear selector has come off, we we only have 4th gear. A quick fix on the run (thanks to the magic tape I bought) and we are off again (after about 4 cars had passed). Lesson One for me - mark where we are in the notes when we stop. It took me about 3km to work out where we were again.... not fun with a Right 2 that I didn't realise was there.

SS2 - Much better than SS1 and getting into the grove now. After finishing a very convincing last in SS1, we finished 6th which is more like it.

Back to service. Not having a service crew, I can only thank the many offers we help we received. Kenny who was servicing for Andrew and Jo did a great job with Chad and few others who helped. Kenny fixed the throttle problem, and we found that our throttle cable had been stuck for a while, (like years) and now for the first time we could put foot to floor and get full acceleration. Gee that made a difference!

SS3 - Went ok. The uphills take their toll on Pig, but we were able to finish ok.

SS4 - Really getting into the grove of these pace notes now. We had a great run, and we finished 5th in stage.

Back to service - more help from Kenny and others. Fantastic.

SS5 - Went well. Again the uphills took their toll, but no complaints.

SS6 - After nailing the spectator point first time around, Bruce came into this and totally lost steering. I thought he was just trying to show off, until he stated that we had no steering at all. Off to the side of the road (again) and we found a rock had shattered the inside of our wheel and tyre. Front left. So much for our new tyre investment! A quick(ish) change, back on the notes, and a bit of a loss in concentration meant another very averagae stage, and another last position.

Back to service. More helpers to help change all four tyres - thanks Hock and the others. Old tyres all round again for the final two stages.

SS7 & 8 - by this time we just wanted to nurse Pig through and finish. Weird noises coming from everywhere, including the gearbox (again) with the car not wanting to go into gear, and the old tyres taking a pounding on the roads that now had loose rocks all over them.

Bruce nursed Pig through and we made it back to service. The list of what we need to fix before the next event is a mile long.... but we finished!

A big thank you to Graham and Judyth and all of the officials, road closures etc. I think it's a great event, very social and was well worth the 4 1/2 hours drive for us, and an excellent opportunity to learn the art of pace noting. For what it's worth I think pace noted events are much safer - I felt far more confident in the nav seat knowing what was coming up than I do in a blind rally.

A big thank you to Andrew and Jo and Kenny for all of their help and assistance, and to the many people who offered and helped with our servicing.

Congratulations to Nathan/John and Molly/Kate for their respective wins. What a great time for rallying when the young guns who are relatively new to the sport show the old timers what its about!

Hope Graham does it again next year. We'll be there.

PS - if anyone has any photos of Pig (Car 109 Myall Lakes Event) they would be most appreciated. Thanks

[Haggers]

Originally Posted by kelzdayt

The weekend started with the drive Friday night to Buladehlah with the Pig still untested from having his gearbox put back together on Thursday, (after a rock went through the housing at the Kempsey Rallysprint) and put back in the car late Thursday night.

Saturday morning crisp and clear was a great day for recce. All went well until we were nearly run off the road whilst trying to move a branch that had blown down and blocked the road. (Hey Ric, I thought recce speeds were meant to be 60km/h). Even as a first timer, we were able to complete two passes of each stage, with plenty of time for scrutineering and documentation.

After having the opportunity to look at the roads first hand, we decided two new steer tyres were in order (we normally get a couple of events out of each set of tyres.... the one benefit of having absolutely no horse power). Whilst changing the tyres we found that the rear right hand brake was locked on, with no brake pad left. After a bit of jiggling it came loose, and we thought we might be ok to rally.

During a good dinner, we met some new friends at the "no friends table". It was also good to listen to Wayne Bell talk about some of his rally stories, and good for us to meet the fellow who originally built the Pig. We found out that it was a very different Pig back then..... 220 horse power!!!!! Straight cut gear box, big brakes... nothing like the sad Lantra we bought a couple of years ago, but gee it has some history beyond the little clubman rallies we compete in now!

After a noisy night listening to the truck whizz past, Sunday dawns cold and clear. After the a quick drive we check the rear right brakes have locked again, so it's isolated, and we are left with virtually no handbrake, and not much in the way of rear brakes. Another benefit of no horse power.

SS1 - the notes are working! We are both loving this! I like having something to do, and Bruce is driving like never before - for about 5 kms, when he says we've got no power. Tried to go up a hill and the car is getting slower and slower -almost to a standstill. Down the other side, we pick up speed and he starts pumping the accelerator, then pumping the brakes. The throttle cable is jammed open. I just continue making the calls until Bruce pulls over by turning switching the ignition off. It appears it is a gearbox problem - again. We jump out, and fortunately after a few minutes of swearing, we can see the problem - the gear selector has come off, we we only have 4th gear. A quick fix on the run (thanks to the magic tape I bought) and we are off again (after about 4 cars had passed). Lesson One for me - mark where we are in the notes when we stop. It took me about 3km to work out where we were again.... not fun with a Right 2 that I didn't realise was there.

SS2 - Much better than SS1 and getting into the grove now. After finishing a very convincing last in SS1, we finished 6th which is more like it.

Back to service. Not having a service crew, I can only thank the many offers we help we received. Kenny who was servicing for Andrew and Jo did a great job with Chad and few others who helped. Kenny fixed the throttle problem, and we found that our throttle cable had been stuck for a while, (like years) and now for the first time we could put foot to floor and get full acceleration. Gee that made a difference!

SS3 - Went ok. The uphills take their toll on Pig, but we were able to finish ok.

SS4 - Really getting into the grove of these pace notes now. We had a great run, and we finished 5th in stage.

Back to service - more help from Kenny and others. Fantastic.

SS5 - Went well. Again the uphills took their toll, but no complaints.

SS6 - After nailing the spectator point first time around, Bruce came into this and totally lost steering. I thought he was just trying to show off, until he stated that we had no steering at all. Off to the side of the road (again) and we found a rock had shattered the inside of our wheel and tyre. Front left. So much for our new tyre investment! A quick(ish) change, back on the notes, and a bit of a loss in concentration meant another very averagae stage, and another last position.

Back to service. More helpers to help change all four tyres - thanks Hock and the others. Old tyres all round again for the final two stages.

SS7 & 8 - by this time we just wanted to nurse Pig through and finish. Weird noises coming from everywhere, including the gearbox (again) with the car not wanting to go into gear, and the old tyres taking a pounding on the roads that now had loose rocks all over them.

Bruce nursed Pig through and we made it back to service. The list of what we need to fix before the next event is a mile long.... but we finished!

A big thank you to Graham and Judyth and all of the officials, road closures etc. I think it's a great event, very social and was well worth the 4 1/2 hours drive for us, and an excellent opportunity to learn the art of pace noting. For what it's worth I think pace noted events are much safer - I felt far more confident in the nav seat knowing what was coming up than I do in a blind rally.

A big thank you to Andrew and Jo and Kenny for all of their help and assistance, and to the many people who offered and helped with our servicing.

Congratulations to Nathan/John and Molly/Kate for their respective wins. What a great time for rallying when the young guns who are relatively new to the sport show the old timers what its about!

Hope Graham does it again next year. We'll be there.

PS - if anyone has any photos of Pig (Car 109 Myall Lakes Event) they would be most appreciated. Thanks

Kellie

What a tale of woe !I was aware of the pedigree of the car (I asked Wayne Bell about it at the EXcel day we had at Race Brakes earlier this year) and it looks like you;ve got a a whole lot of things going or not going as the case maybe. Not sure how the finances are but I reckon you'd have a much more reliable hoot in an Excel. The brake thing is a bit of a worry.

Regards

Haggers

[kelzdayt]

Hi Haggers

I hope the story didn't sound too woeful! We had fun!

And yes, an Excel would be good, but we keep pouring more money into the Pig and we don't seem to know when to stop. This means we aren't putting money aside for an Excel.... vicious circle

We'll do an assessment now of what we need to do to keep it going, and maybe it will be time for Pig to retire. We wouldn't know what to do if we had a car that didn't fall apart all of time!

[Jme]

Hard event for me... ended up getting up at 5 in the morning and doing a control with a DNS beside my name. I'd conned a few people into driving up and helping out in various ways so it would have been bad form to feel sorry for myself for too long.

The car was real strong- much better rally car than I had at Oberon and in testing the times the thing was putting down had us all excited. I was confident we could get amongst it... and at the last minute the issue we've been chasing for a while with the gearbox popped up again.

I didn't want to take an issue into the event, so I just took my medicine and withdrew. Wanted to establish myself as a driver up there, fast roads, need good commitment- I think Myall really sorts out the men from the boys and your car needs to be 'spot on' to do the times. Couldn't see much point running.

I don't have a heap of money to throw at the car so plan A and B involved "reasonable" amounts and a 'suck it and see' approach... plan C gets expensive but it's where we find ourselves.

I'll be the bloke down the Bay with my guitar busking around the service park and at the speccy points. Feel free to donate a gold coin or 2.

The notable thing for me at Myall was how the rally community seemed to get behind the format/concept of the event. NDDC is a small club these days, maybe 15 members at most- but many people/groups showed the event support in many different ways.

I thought the meal was great, and much of it was provided by volunteers- a way the rally can give back to the community. HDDC ran the canteen (again the Batt's at a rally providing a service), people from other rallies/clubs on controls. It was all good. Belly is a champion, and showed his true colours rocking up and saying a few words. I thought Wayne's speech was typical "down to earth" Belly- which is just what the event needed.

I think the Lakes rally was a success. We managed (I hope) to provide a clubman level competition without stealing their thunder. I know there is a minor glitch in a time which is a downer, but it's more than likely just a straight out human error rather than a conceptual thing. The fact that 3rd place trophies have been 'held back' while it all gets weighed up hopefully shows to competitors in the Lakes event, and competitors thinking of running next year, that the event is important and NDDC haven't just added the event to spin some dollars and bulk up the field- which has been the rightful criticism of some other events.

Obviously Graham and Jude do a heap of work... so too does Col Fletcher.

Oberon Rally next year is the events 25th Anniversary. It's our next event (well, if it's not then there's gunna be a good fight down at Auburn one night) so hopefully we'll get a few people up to that, and then Myall later in the year.