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Again, another enjoyable event.
With more knowledge in hand, Fiona was sure she could get most of it right. But, it was going to be a long evening looking at the maps we were being issued and some of the instructions. For this event I had hooked up the spare nav light to help Fiona, and also so I could see without being blinded from inside the car. Time did not permit the fitting of the spots. Maybe in time for the next event.
The events start location was down south near Sellicks Beach. The sky was clear and it was windy, but over the sea you could see something coming in. On our journey down a mini twister/water spout had hit at a sporting event near the start sending cars and anything not tied down floating around the place.
The drivers briefing was basically to warn us of the sticky/slippery yellow clay. And was it slippy when you hit it, but also about a tree down across the road just after a crest.
We started off as car 3, and within 2k we were into some nice twisty bits on an uphill run. We caught car 2 on this stage. They kindly pulled over and we continued on. There was a fine use of Geoff’s best Louis 14th crockery painted with the appropriate markings for the observation part of the trial. Some of the road sign posts seem to point in directions that do not really represent the road direction. At one stage we went up the right road, did a u turn, came back to look at the sign only to do another U-turn and head on out again.
Part of the course took us up the Mount Alma hill climb. At 17% it is quite steep in places.
We seemed to be trundling along ok getting most of the observation letters and numbers. We came across a number of passage controls, one of which had Ed Ordynski managing. Had a little chat and continued on and commented we would see him again soon as the route had us come from a side road to the T-Junction he was at.
The letter box drop proved a little bit messy. It was on a downhill stretch of corrugated road. Not trying to lock up, the ABS kicked in and sent us probably 20 metres past the drop off point.
One of the stages took us down an old ARC stage. This was quite good, but at night in the wet and slippery conditions, would have seen you spear off if you were not careful.
At TC8, a storm hit. We decided to get into the back of the ute and plan the last part of the run. As we got in, the rain was sideways. The ute was moving about (no not like that) but it made a good are to lay the maps out. At this point the time control rolled up. ???? A little overlap saw a previous bunch of controllies get there a little late. Still we presented our road card and were given a time out. Fiona had managed to sort out where we were going and the last stage was quite long.
There were some nice slippery bits in here, but the forest roads were generally very good. There would be some excellent stages around there with wide open roads, but they would be very fast. We drove out of the last stage to come to a via point which was just a bog. There was no way we would get the ute into there. The Pajero had made it through, and talking to most at the finish they had made a similar decision not to go in. Oh well, one missed control may not hurt us. And so, it was onto the finish at a shed somewhere along the main road. Not having a good trip meter made it a little hard. Also, the wind had moved the sign pointing into the finish. We went a couple of hundred metres past, stopped surveyed our maps turn around and saw it.
We rocked into the finish to have a Pale and a sausage sandwich. Happy with the progress and much improved performance over the previous event. When we arrived home, we had done almost 500k for the entire night starting and finishing at home.
A big thanks to all who stood out in the cold, wet, sleet, and wind to do controls etc, and again Fiona for doing an excellent job with the navigation. I think we only had one discussion about direction and what should have been where.
Also again, thanks to Autosport for providing prizes for the place getters. (We await the results) and to Razoo for the organization.
Will be back for the next one when it is run. With better lights.
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