Forest Rally Updates!

[Daniel Nicholls]

Stage 16 Stopped. Accident. more details to come. Kipling and Raymond stopped.Car 22 Darren Windus has hit a tree. FIV has attended and is now under medical observation. Navigator OK back at service park.

Hope Darren is alright. he was going alright and was winning heat 2 till that happen it looks like..

[Rallyray]

Last stage...

Bates ahead by 13.6 secs over Evans.

Last stage 15kms... Big Charge....

[Ausrally]

He is OK, FIV boys checked him over and he is at service.

We are putting up info as we get it confirmed.

D

[Rally Angel]

First things first - the "thank you" list!

Craig - Top drive all weekend (hasn't rallied for 15 years)! Fantastic fun! Will do again!
Wayne & Chris - Top service crewage all weekend! You guys are a hoot and entertaining!
Nate - For service crewage when he could and that infectious smile and enthusiasm! Keep it up!
Ethan - Top service crewage, all the running around for me before, during and after the event, for all your support and just for being there when I need you!

We were entered in the WARC only in the VR$. We came 2nd in class for both heats. We finished heat 1 in 12th position and unconfirmed but we may have finished 7th in heat 2!

Event report to come later when I am a bit more awake. Oh, and if any of you WA lurkers have piccies of car 43, would love to get some. Send me a pm and I will let you know our email addy. Cheers.

[Pickstock Rally Team]

Originally Posted by Rally Angel

Ethan - Top service crewage, all the running around for me before, during and after the event, for all your support and just for being there when I need you!

I did what I could, it was a little hard looking after 3 cars at times but we got there. It was good though to see the car at the finish with no extra scratches and no damage. You and Craig did a great job.
It was a shame though that I couldnt have all 3 cars finish, with Alex and Lisa breaking a gearbox with 3 stages to go, and not having a spare with us. And also congrats to Raz and Iona for 2nd in class (?) after couple little scary moment on stages and a very suspect clutch that seemed to hang in there yesterday.

I must say thanks to Nate for his help when he could, that extra set of hands made a big difference at times, cheers dude.

[Glen]

Originally Posted by Nate

yes correct ... herridge had pulled a wheel off the car was the last i heard ... bates is back in the rally ... no word on simon

our cars (smart and knowles) are running well so far!

Dean didn't pull a wheel off. The clutch centre failed.

[DAT610_WA]

Rally Angel, you have PM. Anyone else want photo's of their car, I was taking shots Saturday morning for part of Kinky's and all of Healthways (first round), then I had to go
PM with your e-mail addy.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by Glen

Dean didn't pull a wheel off. The clutch centre failed.

sorry about that ... just going off the rumour train lol

[Rally Angel]

Well, obviously, I took part in the Forest Rally over the weekend. I navigated for a guy by the name of Craig Richardson. Craig rallied about 15 years ago in a Hyundai Elantra. I was also feeling a little rusty as the last event I competed in was Forest Rally last year! Any who, thanks to Lisa Read-White who put me onto Craig as I had an absolute ball over the weekend and hope to be able to do the next WA state round with Craig at the beginning of May. We entered the weekend in the ex Denis Dunlop VR4 in the WARC (Western Australian Rally Championship). Craig has owned the car for 6 weeks now and this was the first time he had really driven it. So, we started the weekend with an unknown car and a new crew combination and the aim to finish.

Forest Rally starts on the Friday night with 2 “super special” stages (2.16km each) in Busselton on the foreshore. This seemed to go off without a hitch even though our tyre pressures were massively high!!! We took it fairly easily for both our runs which got us into a good groove. Actually, all weekend we took the pace fairly easy. The aim of the weekend was for Craig to learn the VR4 and get back into rally driving and I guess to get use to each other. In some stages, we could have pushed harder but there was nothing really to gain from that. A finish was more important and if we finished well in the results, that was an added bonus.

Saturday morning, crews headed from Busselton to Nannup which is approximately 60km south. Here we did a service (change of tyres, remove spot lights) and then head to our first 2 forest stages which were Kinky (12.60km) and Ferndale (24.40km). We thought Kinky was quite a nice little stage (apart from the drop off in the first 500m which Craig happened to look at as he went around). It was a nice warm up stage to the rest of the weekend. We weren’t too sure about the Ferndale stage. We just could not get a good rhythm up in it and thought it was quite slippery. For some reason, neither of us really liked the stage.

The next set of stages were Ellis (14.29) and Healthway (10.67km). We enjoyed both of these stages and did not have any issues at all. The terrain in the Nannup forests changes regularly. You get some smooth roads which are access for logging trucks etc and then some rough, rocky roads and then some smooth roads which are covered in ball bearing stones and if you get off of the swept line, watch out!

The next set of stages consisted of Kinky 2, Ferndale 2, a couple of shorts blasts around Nannup Oval (0.85m each) and then back to Busselton for the Super Special stages. Once again, we had a good run through Kinky. Our second pass through Ferndale was not much better than our first. We also felt an awesome vibration for a period of a kilometer. We could not ascertain what the issue was and it went away. While I understand Nannup is good for the spectators, it felt completely pointless for the whole 50 seconds we were competing. It was over before we knew it. The other issue I had with this stage is that we had a certain window of opportunity to pace note it. When we came around one corner, we found the carpark full of vehicles!!! That made it interesting. We loved the Busselton stages and knocked 5-6 seconds off of our times from Friday night. That was a fantastic achievement and meant we were starting Sunday morning in 8th (for the state championship).

The first stages for Sunday were Brockman (19.12km) and Folly (8.87km). We loved the Brockman stage. We also had a big grin on our faces when we went past the GT4 Celica early on in the stage. They were not too far behind us time wise and for them to get a flat tyre, was a huge advantage for us! Folly was not too bad but it was quite a rocky/rough short blast type of stage. We took it a bit easier on this stage as it was the first one we had pace noted on Thursday (first thing in the morning so still waking up and the first time Craig had done notes in 15 years) so we wanted to make sure our notes were still ok at speed.

The second set of stages for the day included Healthway Loop (10.88km), Ellis 2 and Brockman 2. Healthway Loop used some new roads and also parts of the Healthway Stage. We had a good run through here and the same again through Ellis. Our second run through Brockman was fantastic. We took 11 seconds off of our first pass through and had an overshoot and couldn’t get reverse so probably wasted about 5 seconds.

The final group of stages for the event was Healthway Loop 2, Folly 2 and Helium (15.73km). Once again, we had a good run through Healthway Loop and a reasonable run through Folly. We pushed harder on Folly but only took a second off of our previous time through. At the beginning of Helium, we decided to take it easy as the back tyres were pretty shagged and we only needed to make it to the finish. We were not going to catch the other VR4 which was leading the class and there was a fair gap to the car behind us in P4. Helium would have been a great stage to push harder.

Our services just consisted of tyre changes, fluid level checks, washing the car, fixing the dust holes, putting the spot lights on/off and topping up the drinking bottles. They were really non-eventful which was great for a non-stressful weekend. We did a bit of experimenting with the tyres we had. We use some Silverstone’s on Saturday and then Pirelli’s on Sunday. We found that the Pirelli’s held together much better and even when they had lost their edges; they stayed on the road pretty well. Once again, thank you to Wayne, Chris and Ethan for the service crewage.

I found that I really enjoyed this rally on a whole (a good finish is an awesome bonus). The morale within our team was good and just everything actually went right for us. The only real issue we had was selecting gears all weekend. Something is not right but we knew this before the event and had to drive around it. Sometimes gears could be selected, sometimes, they could not. Anyway, the mechanicals (motor and box) are coming out of the car now for a look-see and a freshen up in preparation for the next event which I hope Craig will want me to jump back in the car for.

I have got the bug back now so bring it on!!! Hopefully I can get a lot more of “bum in seat” time before Alpine comes around!!! Woot, woot!!!

[lisalex]

Thanks to Lisi, Ethan, Nate, Steve, Belinda, and the apprentice for their help in service, despite me being a control freak who tries to do it all anyway.

We started off slow, with the rear stepping out a few times on Kinky and Ferndale. After Ellis (which scares the ***** out of me, so I'll always be slow), and dropping the rear tyre pressures a bit more, we started getting into the groove on Healthway.

Coolant temperatures were ok in the morning, but had started to rise by the afternoon stages, hitting nearly 120 by the second run through Ferndale.

(oh, and Lisi is wrong. Ferndale is the best stage ever!! How can something that long, with so many twisty corners in succession be bad?!)

At the final service, we put in some "bars leaks" type stuff, which seemed to completely block the radiator, with obvious results.

We managed to make it back to Busselton to start heat 2 slowly enough not to do damage, and then took the car away to find out what went wrong.

Hours later, after removing and testing the thermostat (thanks Raz!), we reverse flushed the radiator, put it all back together and took it for a test drive. Seemed ok, so we got some sleep.

Sunday we started pushing harder and harder, really getting into the stages and having a great time.
Unfortunately, in Brockman 2, we were caught in someone's dust, and not able to get close enough to get ahead of them. Near the end, the front diff pinion lost a few teeth, which seemed like a flat tyre at first (without the scary handling), but we kept going to the end.

Turning onto the main road on liasion, the gearbox ate a few more teeth, and we limped back to time control, but it was all over with only 3 stages to go.

All in all, it was a good weekend, but it would have been a lot better to have finished.