Bega 2003 - long report, thought I'd keep it seperate

[fullysick]

jem and I went down to Bega - my first time, jem's 2nd time hoping we would beat his last year effort of 16km and quietly hoping (well he was anyway) that we would come home with a trophy...

Pre Event

Wednesday - famous last words #1:

Jem: The car is ready, there's bugger all to do, this has been the best prep ever for the Lancer.

... and it was. The Barrets had had a play with it, and it just sounded like it was ready.

Saturday - picked up Paul (our service crew) and met the convoy down to Bega on the Monaro highway. 20, if not 30 cars and trailers all lined up by the side of the road ready for the haul down to Bega. Some thought it was cold... jem and I were in shorts and tshirt and had no idea why every one else was wrapped up in about 4 layers of clothing.... I think Matty Harriott must have made a killing on those beanies...

Scruitineering - passed, flying colours and jem bought 2 brand new super soft yokahama tyres for the front of the car... we had a beer and some help from Lyndal, Girlie and Marc with my road book.Should have looked at that other thread about packing for bega... would have realised I left my pens and hilighters back in Canberra. Made fro very jealous of our new tyres, but he resisted and we headed over to Tathra to check in to our motor village.

Fro, Marc, Jem and Paul played with the cars a little.. we had a small oil leak... we'd get that fixed tomorrow. Fro and I went to get meat for the bbq and hilighters for me. After asking where the best place for hilighters and meat would be, we were directed into Tathra proper and to start at the newsagent. Perhaps the only newsagent in the world where you can ask for a hilighter and a steak and they'll point you to two different corners of the shop.

BBQ was good... a lot of relaxed people... noone stressing too much a part from the Walther camp who were left at our van park fixing brakes...

Event Day
Left a wee bit late from the van park and ended up at Bega without time for a halda check or to fix the oil leak.

Famous last words #2:
The start is not a parc ferme

followed by What if moment #1:
If Jem hadn't removed the dizzy, the car would have run just how the Barrets left it

Let's face it... if someone isn't under the bonnet at the start, it isn't a rally... so Jem and I got someone from just about every ACT crew under our bonnet trying to fix the timing because something must have been knocked 1/10th of a poofteenth mm. Car wouldn't start when we tried to fix it, or Luke from the Solartint team tried, or a couple of the Barrets guys tried, or Spac, or Sam... the list is endless... as I said, just about every ACT crew had a go. Borrowed a dizzy cap from Raymond, never used it, gave that back... ran across the road for a new dizzy - no go..., used a spare coil from fro - even worse (don't forget to check that fro!!!) It was about now that the other crews had to go back to their own service area. Fro starts and Marc and Fro yell out:

Famous Last Words #3:
You have half an hour late time

Start Time

By now, Jem is pissed off, and I reckon almost in tears... we put the rocker cover back on and disconnect fro's coil and reconnect our own.. he has a last attempt at turning it over before he sends it down a hill in neutral... and what do you know, it starts. He has no idea what he has done, but why question it when you are meant to be on the road. We put the car bits back together, and get the car to the time control. 9 mins late... nice start... but better than the all to often DNS.But the car can't climb over 2000rpm... so I push it up the hill to chuck a u turn to make it official, that we are now starting...

5m into the liason... pop the bonnet, move dizzy around, sounds good enough lets go.

Of course - I jump into the car after the first left turn out of the control, but I completely forget to take that into account... so the 3 left turns at the start, that would get you onto the highway, has turned us off the highway as soon as we get on it. Someone in a 4 x 4 says:

Famous last words #4
where are you going? you were supposed to go straight there

back on the highway and we're off... and so's the car - by a fair bit still... it farted and burped and **** itself all the way to the first stage. We've kind of dodgied a halda check by the road book which was adjusted numerous times throughout the day. It seemed spot on by the last stage though.

SS1
Cars not fast enough... terratrip is all wrong, but with 8 calls about 1km apart... no idea exactly how far... I guess about 10% and we increase it at the end of the stage. We saw the Willet and Hughes cars who gave us a big wave... trundled on - finished the stage... feeling good we got 1 stage down.

SS2
More of the same really... the shire roads are fantastic... it's a pity we were so slow. I think Jem was happy enough though... flashing his lights and ttoting the horn at spectators. There was no way we were in it to win it now, we would just have to be happy with fun.
Saw Fro and Marc up on a ditch... we actually thought they had a flat because they had the jack out. Later we found out it was balancing on a hill and wouldn't come off. Fro and Marc gave us a huge cheer as we drove by - I think they had decided we were a DNS.... but now that we had passed them... the race was on. I told Jem you just passed the guys who will probably get the novice points. Not sure if he was driving harder after that or not... I think he might have been.

SS3
more of the same.... fast beauiful wide roads... and a car with flatulence.
500m from the finish I have my head in the road book, and I hear Jem say "that 4wd better not pull out in front of me." My head snaps up and sure enough - a 4wd heading towards the track. No chance of him coming onto the road in front of us though, we pull into the stop control and as I get my time card back, the 4wd overtakes us and waves. Odd...


10 min Service

Jem jumps out an has a fiddle with the car - we decide we are a ttoth out - not much time to do anything. We grab a drink and Fro pulls in... share some stories and we head off

SS 4 & 5

the timing is still way out - but better... more slow times. Can't wait for the 20 min service... Plenty of tail wagging and horn tooting at spectators... 30km/hr on avg. slower than the top cars, but more importantly about 15km/hr slower than where we were guessing we would be.

20 min service
Sam Austin and his mate (sorry, never got your name... Plasto???) get the timing light out and have a fiddle. Cars running better - and we enter regroup - lunchtime

SS 6- Speedway
Jem says the car is still wrong - butheaps better... I didn't call any corners... just sat in for the ride. Was hoping to get a bit more sideways than we did. I think we pulled the slowest time on the speedway...

SS 7
Fast, short stage... and the last of the shire roads. Pretty fun stage.

SS8
lots of uphills... the lancer wasn't into it.

SS9

my favourite stage. we were still quite slow... but Jem was used to the car and he was pushing it harder. A lot more windy so top speed wasn't a big issue here. Although it felt like we were going harder, our avg. speed din't really improve.

20 min Service

SS10
Famous last words #5
Caution Bridge

They might as well rename the stage Caution Bridge. First bridge - we took slow. Hit the bridge and ended up almost into a bush. Jem tells me we need more caution on the bridges. Had no hassles with any of the other marked bridges, and we thought we were doing quite well until about 7km from the end where there was an unmarked bridge in the middle of a 1km call... Hit the bridge and end up shooting off into a ditch. As we are driving out of the ditch - we see the tail lights of a car and we think - we might catch them. And as Jem turns the wheel, the car turns the other way. Jem knew instantly what it was - the bolt in the lower control arm had snapped. I told him to nurse it to the end and we'll talk to the service guys from there.

7km takes a long time when you have no steering.

Stop Point - we have finished the competitive part of the rally, just gotta get the car to Bega. We talk to Paul and we tell him that we will try to get to service, if not - come get us. The controllies had some fencing wire and Jem did some bush mechanic thing and tied the control arm back together. Paulie finished behind us and gets out for a stretch and sees what we are up to, and we send him off to Bega with the instruction that he had not finished yet and to keep going. :p

The wire suspension did the trick. About 6 km up the highway - the steering gives and we think the fencing had snapped, but the fencing was all good - it would have made it to Eden, if not Bega - had the tyre not been rubbing against the guard and turned it into one of those tyres you see at tyre shops with a before and after side. Raybak has a picture of it - it's pretty weird. Perfect tyre on one half - absolutely nothing on the other.

Matt and Paul come to meet us outside a motel where we spent about an hour changing the control arm bolt. None of us are sure whether the bolt was made the wrong way or we were just turning the bolt the wrong way, but after some jacking and pushing and kicking and screaming - we can't get the bolt on and start to undo it... sure enough, as we undo it - it screws right in. No time to ponder, we finish off the job wheel back on, and left the mess for the boys to clean up while we flew home to Bega through Eden.

Along the trip home, Jem kept asking me how long we had left - I told him not to worry about it and keep driving. We were well and truly late - and I wasn't sure of how much late time exactly we had anyway, so the quicker we got there the better. At this stage we were a little upset at maybe getting excluded due to late time, but still glad we were still in one piece again. Jem said the car hadn't felt better all day than the last highway bit of road to Bega.

We pulled into parc ferme and headed to the RSL. Fro, Marc Girlie et. al. were all out side... and great big cheers were let off and then we drank beer.

We were all buggered, so we left just after the results came out. Some more beer and celebrations back in Tathra.

There are a long list of thank yous we have - when Jem does his report, we'll put them all in there. But thanks to everyone who helped - you know who you are.

[MattHarriott]

On the way home we saw you and redbull on the side of the road and redbull was under his ford. What was the problem there??

Matt

[tortfeaser]

Transmission leaking ATF. Had to juggle trailers. I think they got home? We saw them at the top of the hill in Nimitabel, so here's hoping.

Sosi - you got my radio?

[Matt Sosi]

Transmission leaking ATF. Had to juggle trailers. I think they got home? We saw them at the top of the hill in Nimitabel, so here's hoping.

Got home safely although myself was feeling preety dizzy and crook. Must of been the fumes I suppose.

When we were at Nimatabel, met up with John Green who towed the box trailer. PJ towed the trailer with the car on it. Brett drove the Falcon without problems.

Sosi - you got my radio?

Yep I still have it. Might pop around in the next few days to drop it into you at home.

Matt

[tortfeaser]

Thanks for that.

[jem]

Pretty much the same as what Jon said...

I was stressing before we got going... Last time I try and fix something that close to the start of the race... The Barretts out at Total Traction were fantastic! They had the car set up as well as it could ever be, then I decided to "fix" it... Next time I promise I won't bugger it up!


The thank you list is long, so if I miss out on someone, I am very sorry.

Thank you to...

Thomas and Michael Barrett. You guys rock!

Paul M, Matt Harriott, Sam Austin, Plasto

JW, Beb, Dave and the rest of the people who were involved with the regional scruitineering. Saved me lots of hassle.

Rod Kilby from Locleigh Enterprises... I've got no idea about welding, but he certainly does.

All the people that helped out at the start... I'm sure I'm not going to name everyone, I don't even know who half the people were...

Luke, Spac, The guy servicing for the Barretts (sorry don't know your name), Paul M, Ray Day, Fro, Marc and the numerous people I don't know/have forgotten.

The people that let me borrow a timing light at the speedway

Fro, Marc and Naomi...

That whole team feel was cool... I'm going to have to get quicker so we can do it again.

All the people who got out there and helped out and gave up some of their time so I could have a day of fun. Especially the girl at doco/start/finish (I've been told her name was Monique Roser). I didn't make your day any easier, I'll try and be better next year.

And all the people that gave me words of encouragement...