Repco Rally Aus Chatter

[razoo]

Originally Posted by Spac

His official capacity is three whole pigs, 15kg of sausage, 54 litres of soft drink, and 5kgs of cheese.
But I've seen him eat more.

[Kirrilee]

Originally Posted by Dweller

Does any one know what Fro's official capacity was, from what I saw it was pretty cushy.

Dam if you call 5kms of koala fencing a good job you should try it next time! The poor dude didn't get more then 3 hours sleep each night! But at least he made it look easy I guess...

I only helped with 500m and i got the ****s!

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Matt Dyne

Sweep 1 - I had a massive issue with this guy and anybody who knows me know I don't complain. I've been volunteering for rallies for nearly 20 years, and I've NEVER met more arrogant and rude people than them. Two old miserable guys who claimed to have experience, but spent each of their 4 times in my control, arguing, swearing at my officials, and then showering us with rocks as they departed. The issue centred around a procedure in our stage teams manual that said sweep couldn't start until the last car had passed the midpoint SOS. Who wants to be the last car on the road and have a wanker up your clacker as you try and finish the stage. But evidently, we were the only control in the rally that ever attempted to enforce it. We even got confirmation from base that we should follow the procedure as outlined in the manual. They sat and swore and abused my volunteer officials like you would not imagine. In the end, I showed them the page of the manual and they said the manual wasn't right...and then confirmed they'd written the manual (making them dumber than dumb). Unbelieveable. I didn't do an incident report as I understand the driver is the brother of the Clerk of Course so it would never go anywhere, but it really left a sour taste in my mouth...even to this day. Volunteers don't need to be abused for following a procedure that is in the manual and confirmed with base as the correct procedure. I'll step down now...no wait, apparently he also overtook a competing vehicle in a subsequent stage...waste of space...they are clearly not the right people for the job. Stepping down now.

Hi Matt

I have raised this matter with Garry Connelly today, who is chairman of the organising committee - He has confirmed that you are correct and that there is a requirement (confirmed in the training manual) that the Sweeper MUST wait until the last car reaches the SOS point and this is for safety reasons. Very rarely there might be an exception which would be requested by Rally Base on the Command Radio System, but no such request was made at this year's event.

This system has been in place since the first Rally Australia in Perth. It was not written by the driver of Sweep 1 but by the first Organising Committee of the WA event of which the driver of Sweep 1 was not a member.

The driver of Sweep 1 in not related to the Clerk of Course.
Garry also said that any abuse of volunteers is totally contrary to the culture of Rally Australia, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated and if this occurred as stated then he apologises to any official affected by it.
Interestingly Garry advised that they have also received an incident report from another source and will take the appropriate steps.

I took the opportunity to ask Garry about the event and feedback and he said that overall the information the organisers are receiving is that there were amazing relationships developed by people who travelled from all over Australia and even overseas to work on the event. They also have reports that the police and other authorities worked as part of the overall "team" and were completely supportive and cooperative with officials.
Garry also told me that he is writing to all officials today and that Michelle Gatton the Clerk of Course will be doing likewise shortly, to thank them for what is described as "an amazing effort". Garry also said that they will be emailing an on-line debrief form to each registered official in the next few weeks so that all feed back can be collated in a structured form in order to improve the event.

Seems to me like they recognise that there are some opportunities to learn and improve and are prepared to take the right steps.

To be fair to RRA and CAMS/FIA etc they had less than a year to pull this whole thing together, I suspect that planning for the next event will start about now, will have a lot of learned and established data and will provide for a much better event next time.

[Matt Dyne]

Thanks Andrew...I learned after I posted it that perhaps the driver is related to one of the Deputy Clerk's of Course.

I'm now a bit annoyed that I let him start twice without waiting...he even had the gaul to complain on the radio about us!

Oh well...some people.

And Andrew, you didn't look too pleased to not be allowed out the stage route on Saturday from the speccy point...sorry about that. Orders from rally base...you know.

Matt

[Dweller]

Originally Posted by Kirrilee

Dam if you call 5kms of koala fencing a good job you should try it next time! The poor dude didn't get more then 3 hours sleep each night! But at least he made it look easy I guess...

I only helped with 500m and i got the ****s!

On guard.

[MissJess]

One thing for the organisers...where was the merchandise?

Marcus had stuff from Finland last year - but only a couple of shirts (which I think were for the job he was doing) this year.

I got no cute teddy bears all dressed up in race suits!

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Matt Dyne

Thanks Andrew...I learned after I posted it that perhaps the driver is related to one of the Deputy Clerk's of Course.

Hi Matt

Further enquiries made and I can say that he wasn't realted to anyone on the organising committee or sporting council for the event. I think Garry's response to me was quick and decisive and I am confident he will follow this one through.

As you know I will give CAMS RallyCORP and the FIA and anyone else a smack if I think its warranted. On this issue I think they appear to be responding very very well.

I was initially on the organising committee and had to wirthdraw when it became apparrent that I wouldn't be around for the period leading up to the event. I giot back in time to see a couple of stages. I was awestruck by the WRC cars and overall I thought they did a magnificent job in a very short time. I hope to be able to committ better for the next one and contribute more than I could this time.

All I can say is send your feedback into the event when they issue the forms. The rally is here for the next 10 years so it will improve each time.

Personally I always had concerns about having to drive up and down Kyogle - Murwillimbah road - so much so that I came and went via lismore, which is why I wanted to exit down to Bentley Rd.

[Matt Dyne]

Well, seems I'm ill-informed.

I will provide the feedback.

Thanks,
Matt

[marc]

Hey Matt! It's been a while!

Originally Posted by Matt Dyne

• I don't share Marc's view about the organisation.

You do mean me? I didn't have one... I was just hearing/reflecting what seemed to be a lot of negative feedback form volunteer officials and encouraging people to not just vent here (which is fine) but to be sure that they let the organisation know where they feel the event could have been better run.

And Matt, make sure you raise the issue of the arrogant sweep personnel with the appropriate people. There is NO EXCUSE for being rude to volunteer officials, no matter who you are. I couldn't care less if you were the president of the FIA, you obey the officials or you go take a flying f***! It's hard enough finding sufficient willing people to do this job at the best of times without turning people off all together!





NOTE: I am particularly tetchy about big money-spinner events not looking after volunteer officials properly, having far too much first hand experience of it and having been responsible for getting teams of volunteers together for events, only to see them travel long distances, work hard and then find that after three of four days, they have a cap and one bottle of water to show for their efforts. On one such recent event that demanded multi-thousand dollar entry fees, I felt so bad for the lack of thanks paid to my team that I took all of them to cafe/pub lunches each day. It cost me a bloody fortune but at least they had some show of appreciation of their efforts.


EDIT: of course I posted this before I got to page 9

[Matt Dyne]

G'day Marc A-Z...no, not you, Marc Kelly (tortfeaser).

Cheers,
Matt

[Dweller]

We had a ball, worked in Team Delta. We met some incredibly wonderful people that have been volunteering for events such as these all round the world, 2 absolute rally whores that flew from Singapore for the Urbanville shakedown, flew home then flew back for RRA just to do a Time Control. We did Start Control for 5 stages (2 stages repeated twice), lived out of the back of our ute, spent a heap of money there, had a good nag to some locals, showed the kids what "ferals" looked like, got Greg Carr's autograph, had the occasional issue that we filled out incident reports on, took nothing personally, got excited every time the Cullen boys showed up willing them to finish,told everyone that we beat Brinkman the last time we raced, and drove home with a massive dose of the warm and fuzzies.
Come on 2011

[Miss]

So let me get this right... sweep isn't released into the stage until the last car reaches the SOS point...

So if the last car DOESN'T reach the SOS point then the sweep isn't released.... but if they haven't gotten that far surely that's an indicator that something's gone amiss and they really need the sweep behind them...

Huh???

[Dweller]

Originally Posted by Miss

So let me get this right... sweep isn't released into the stage until the last car reaches the SOS point...

So if the last car DOESN'T reach the SOS point then the sweep isn't released.... but if they haven't gotten that far surely that's an indicator that something's gone amiss and they really need the sweep behind them...

Huh???

Wendy had picked up on that as well, sweep 1 is the first to reach last car in an emergency if there was a serious incident you would want sweep to be as close as possible.

[Ian G.]

Just an aside,our group were with mostly aged 50 & over,have a Circuit background(no big names) and to be honest were more interested in the "Speed on Tweed" bit than the Rally but we all agreed that perhaps the WRC should do a "Caltex Chase" and have some rule changes as the KPH these Cars are going is just plain insanity when you have a Gum Tree on every corner.

[wagonist]

Originally Posted by BEN

DNF mechanical.
Car broke on 2nd stage on Sunday, which was always going to be the toughest day of the rally

Bottom bracket on rear strut parted company with strut. Tried to fix and limp out, but ran out of late time.

We were improving all weekend, ok on the twisty stuff, but notes completly wrong on the uber fast stuff (90% of the rally) but you live and learn.

pushed the car to the limit of the car on tweed 5 & 6 SS on saturday night and got some good times.

Rally was still Uber fun, awsome amount of spectators, and Pierelli WRC tires FTW

may or may not still have a set


Ill post a full report after sleep, and lots of it.

Ben.

Damn Ben, what time did you guys get up to be posting at 1:35pm
I didn't get home til 10:30pm.

Thanks for the opportunity to Service at a WRC event.
such a damn disappointment about the whole of Sunday...