Peter Rodgers Real Estate Bathurst Rally 2003 - Event Report

[Mark]

Ben,

Two words - "stock conrods..." not "Formula Atlantic".

Daniel, when you've got time (and sleep ) feel free to do what you want to do to the front end!

For anyone who cares, I found out last night the spec of the Ignis's engines...from a reliable source.
9,200 rpm - 235 hp, 200 kph in 6th at such revs.
I think when they came to Canberra a year ago, they claimed 195 hp in ARN (nope, haven't read that article a few times ).

Mark

[KurtHipp]

Peter Rogers Bathurst Rally.

After a fairly disappointing rally at Wauchope where we DNF’d in stage 3 we were hoping for a good, trouble-free run. Having not driven since Wyong last year and with a new engine we had planned a cautious start to get used to this whole rally thing again.

Stage 1:
Decided to run on fairly used road tyres for the stage, mainly to conserve the rally tyres and try to squeeze one more event from them. Fairly ordinary stage really as I am sure Conrod Straight was not designed with a 1600cc Gemini in mind. The high point was seeing 160 on the speedo before the chase. The low point was backing of at the flying finish board and not the Timing mark much to the disgust of Mrs Navigator (Jayne) who didn’t let up about it until we got to the service – brain fade I guess.

Stage 2:
Had heard much about Hen and Chicken. Pretty fast in a fast car I assume, Mrs Navigator commented it was like a drive in the country! Only really got interesting at the end. Nothing remarkable to say.

Stage 3:
Long transport! Mrs Navigator nearly fell asleep and I have to admit I got on the radio to our service crew for a chat out of boredom. When we finally arrived we were greeted by a line of cars and given a start time 50 minutes off. Hurry up and wait or what! Once we got away decided to really start to have a go until about 3 km in the rear of the car was starting to become really loose. After a 3 second conference and following thumping sound from the rear we decided we must have had a puncture and found a place to pull off the road. After a frantic tyre changing effort we were back moving again, probably over-driving as I was not sure how far behind us the next car was.

Stage 4:
Short and into a much needed service as we were running tight on fuel. Started with the knowledge we had no spare but decided to have a go again to try to make up some of the time lost changing tyres in stage 3. Problems began about the same distance in with the same feeling from the back and this time a louder thumping and a really burnt rubber smell in the cabin. After swearing about the coincidence of 2 punctures in two consecutive stages we decided to press on and drive the last 6 km on the rim. Did the final couple of km’s at a ridiculous speed on 3 wheels to maintain momentum up hill (open diff!). Finally service! Fully checked the left rear to see if something was fouling the wheel but turned up nothing – coincidence I guess.

Stage 5
Cant really remember this stage much except for humps (I think) and an overwhelming paranoia about punctures.

Stage 6
Long, felt like every 2nd corner you would turn into the setting sun and blinding dust. Only really started to enjoy the stage towards the end. Worried most of the stage about keeping up the pace and not loosing concentration. The only real drama we had was Mrs Navigator calling a RGL Hard to see don’t overshoot about .5 of a metre before we got there. I kind of realised something was up when I saw the bunting directly across the road we were on. Spun the car to a stop in a cloud of dust and headed off in the direction I thought the road went – nothing to see here. We were really glad to be finished with that. Lots of cars off in the stage which is always un-nerving, particularly when the triangles appear with no obvious sign of a car anywhere.

Stage 7
Rough, humps, light pod was jumping all over the place. Kind of in car preservation mode with the only real objective to finish. Got to the long service and discovered the master cylinder reservoir was open and almost empty. Somehow the fluid had not sloshed around and un-bled (um?) the brakes. Added a magic cable tie and we were ready to go.

Stage 8
Another long transport. Nearly missed the first corner – tired now. Came into a RGL and saw the triangle for the Skippers car late and nearly understeered off and nearly bogged reversing. Sorry guys if we showered you with rocks. Rest of the stage was really rough, result was a damaged exhaust which just about choked the car so we lost engine revs. Decided to slow to preserve the head gasket and finish. Finished the stage with no speedo, (ripped the cable) and a squashed exhaust. Crawled back to the finish, but we finished.

Overall not a bad event, too rough in spots and with all the humps is was difficult to maintain any type of momentum. Two consecutive punctures stuffed us around badly, (2 brand new tyres as well). Looking at the results we went through the usual convoluted logic of “if we hadn’t had a puncture and lost all that time we could have finished up here” etc etc

Congrats to all who finished and commiserations to the DNF’s.

The final foot note to the jinxed tyre dramas, we woke up on Sunday morning to find the Left rear on the service ute was flat and one of the tyres on the car trailer was just about flat – spooky! Hopefully this is all the tyres we go through this year!

Bring on Oberon!