Rally of Canberra

[Micky G]

A fantastic start for the new SG3D Team, Thomo and I have enjoyed some realy fast action in the two special stages yesterday. Increasing our speed on both stages from the first run, while quite a few competitors did slower times the second time through due to the rain. The group A grunter has been sensational! it just powers over the rough stuff.
We found the Super Special a little hard going and nearly speared into the concrete a few times.
Many thanks to all the tireless Canberra rally officials out there, its great to see so many freindly faces and you all seem to be enjoying it as much as we are!
See you out there again today, this time a little faster again eh?
PS Looks like we have won the Bob Garnet Trophy (fastest Canberra crew in Mineshaft) nice to get some silver on day 1!

[Micky G]

Well there's Queensland in just six weeks!
As posted earlier we had a great start but the alternator gave up the game in the middle of the Lees Creek stage and our little light weight battery could not keep up the power to those big fuel pumps.
Lots of fun on day two though, we betterd our times on Greenhills and East West.
Lees the first time game the end time control some excitment, we were barreling down Bullock Paddock road at around 200kph, I made the last call "double caution, crest then five right, timing 200 stop" Michael was having so much fun in top gear he didnt realise how close the five right was until we reached the crest.
Hard under brakes I yelled "turn it in, turn it in" but it if we had lifted off the car would have spun so all that could be done was to ride the brakes into the timing board which conveniently had the beam transmitter right beside it! We took the whole lot out and trampled it under the front left! (allways on my side)
Twenty meters off the road the car settled and I looked over at Michael to see his face covered in sweat and a look of amazment, I said it's ok mate we've broken the beam!

A sensational drive!
Micky

[Spac]

Things I saw/ noticed...

*The Michael Thopmson Gp A WRX has a LOT of grunt... It made the quick Gp N cars look anemic... I want one...

*Cody, Juha, and Ed appeared to be in a class of their own - dunno if Ed had a problem, but if he had a clean run and still finished where he did, it wasn't due to any driving that we saw.

*Zen's WRX was clearly one of the slowest WRXs out there - funny how it is a "gun thing" at a state round, and only average at RoC... Seemed to be driving it very well, though - perhaps a little conservative? Certainly I got the impression that if it had been a blind rally, he'd have moved well up the field (Its easy to be an armchair expert, so I am more than willing to be corrected...).

*Doug's Proton. Ugh. Corner entry speed was much better than the 10 preceding cars, but halfway through the corner you'd see it just bog and die, despite his best efforts... I spoke to him last night, and he was very clearly very frustrated. That shouldn't detract from what I saw to be an impressive drive.

*Red WRX man. Everyone has to start somewhere. Why at an international event??

*Ignises (Ignii?) sound awesome. Can't see them passing a CAMS noise test though... Damn fast too...

*Simon and Sue ARE good people . And now I'm gonna be on television, in a bloody Subaru hat. Oh the shame...

*The Neales were easily the most interesting of the non-works-team AWDs to watch... I though they appeared to be wasting time being sideways on Friday (too short a viewing period to quantify), but they were certainly quick AND sideways on Saturday.

*I know Cody had had a few to drink, but I'd like to introduce to him the word "understatment" when telling stories...

*AFAIK, only one team in the rally had ever rallied an RX-5... And guess who won it? I think there might be a lesson there for all of us...

[Daniel]

Yeh I have to admit Spac - overcoming a handycap like that mustv'e been hard.