So my abbreviated event reports goes like this:
Pre event:
Start building car about 10 weeks before start of event.
Three weeks before the Alpine, we DNF Batemans 6kms into the first stage, with a broken diff.
Get 'secksy-time' cylinder head from Munyard the Saturday before the event.
With Boormat's help, fit the head on the Sunday before the event.
Put car on dyno on the Tuesday, have it over heat and then break a tail-shaft well before the tuning is done.
Take car to Simey's place on Thursday, swap trailers and tow vehicles, leave for Lakes.
With Ethan's, Simon's and Boormat's help, finish a lot of little jobs on Thursday evening/Friday morning.
Friday:
My driving is more than just rusty - I think that maybe the 6kms at Batemans hasn't helped at all, except maybe a bit of practice listening to the nav.
Car seems OK, brake pedal ordinary, gearbox has more gaps than gears, power delivery is awful.
Lisi doing a good job, despite a badly calibrated trip meter.
We end up 86th, from a start position of 79, but know that we can improve a huge amount.
More work on the car that night - finishing the build, rather than maintainence!
Saturday Pt1:
Jebus there are some deep, sandy ruts! First one was on the wrong side of a blind crest, and was 'interesting' enough to slow me down for the rest of the stage...
Some of the cobwebs are being swept away, others need a lot more time - I'm uber cautious and taking zero risks. Although I do create a couple of moments by misreading the roads - the worst was over a fast, uncalled RGR over crest, with banks on both sides - I had a mild panic and braked heavily, putting the car far too sideways. This meant that I had a lot more to panic about... Kept it off the banks though.
The hills are killing us - take it to the rev limiter in second, hit third and it dies. Its more frustrating than in a Gemini, because a Gemi has no power. The Volvo has power but you just can't use it.
Am gutted to see Stewy and Anna, and then Fazz and Matty out with bent cars - but got shown body parts by both crews... Lisi and I joke about which body parts we'll see next.
Felt like I drove Fazz' crash stage quite well - drifting through fast third gear corners with the foot flat to the floor feels great, if nothing else.
We didn't know it at the time, but we were up to 62nd place at this point in the rally.
Saturday Pt2:
Finished the last gravel stage before the tarmac, and was about halfway back to service when the diff locked up. Stood around stressing for a while, before trying again - ended up limping back to service at 30kph. Funnily enough, I'm staring a DNF in the face - all of that time and effort for nothing - and yet I don't feel the emotion rising as I expected.
Couldn't really find anything wrong at service, although there's clearly some issues - after using some late time, we eventually decide to put it back together and try our luck.
Only manage to fit the road tyres to the rear of the car.
As we're leaving the service park, Ethan points out the the RHR wheel is wobbling badly. So we use more late time sorting out a spacer issue.
Eventually we get to the start of the tarmac, just in time to see the FIV entering the stage. Eventually, the stage is cancelled and we transport though - most people are disappointed but I am not one of them! The diff is making awful noises, and I'm keen to get a proper look at it before the next gravel stage.
Back at service, we discover that there's issues with the LHR wheel - basically the wrong nuts have been fitted, and the studs are loose in the axles. We faff around for a while, before borrowing a generator, and we cut the wheel off the car....
After all that, we still haven't had time to look at the diff properly, and we leave service quite close to our late time limit.
At this point, we've lost a ton of road positions, and are near the end of the field - so we're instantly in slower car's dust. To compound the problem, the driving lights are so poorly aimed that I disconnect one of them after the first night gravel stage.
The remaining three stages are slow and cautious, with a diff that sounds awful. The plan is to survive the evening, and swap the diff with the road car's diff after the last stage.
At 3am Ethan informs me that there's been a change of plan: "We'll go to bed now, get up at 6am and swap diffs then. You need sleep more than we do, don't worry about it". Got to bed at 3:30am.
Sunday Pt1:
I'd figured that Ethan's 6am would blow out to 7:30 at least, but I was briefly woken by the rally car being started and driven down away at exactly 6:00am...
At ~8:30, Lisi ventured a SMS to Boormat, as to the progress. "Going OK, but extra pairs of hands would be good" - so we went down to discover that they were 95% done. The rally car went together no worries, but the road car was sad - not only the awful sounding diff, but the already suspect brake master cylinder didn't handle the bleeding process and now the pedal goes to the floor. This was a major drama, as we were supposed to be driving it back to Wollongong to pick up The Boy on Monday morning.
Lisi's driving suit went AWOL for a while here - it was in a car that had been driven away to places unknown. She was quite emotional, and understandably so - we'd gone through way too much to be screwed over by a technicality now! It later turned up, with plenty of time to spare.
Our start time was around 12:30pm. Jebus! We'd counted on losing some positions due to driving slowly at night, but that time put us waaaay back at around 87th! We've since discovered that somehow, our times for the evening had all disappeared, so the scorers thought we'd missed a stack of controls, and seeded us accordingly. With the benefit of hindsight, we should have questioned it straight away as the lousy road position hurt our times later in the day.
But we were too sleep deprived and too relieve to still be in the event to worry at the time.
Sunday Pt2:
Into the stages, the first discovery is that the difference between the welded 4.56 diff and the open 3.7 diff is remarkably small. With the open diff, the car is a lot harder to flick around without spending time setting it up for the corner, but once its sliding, you can't feel the difference.
The taller ratio is murder, although it now means that some corners can be taken in second gear (at a decent speed), rather than bogging in third or simply being too slow in second.
We started the long stage behind the Golf (great blokes, from my chats with them), after quickly comparing our times on the previous stage. Only after they'd started the stage, I did the maths properly and realised that it was basically certain that we would catch them...
Anyhow, about 10kms in, we caught dust.
"See", I said confidantly "I knew we'd catch the Golf". Turns out it was a 180B limping out of the stage. A few frustrating kays later they realised we were there, and let us past.
About 10kms later, we caught the Golf, but just couldn't get close enough for him to see us - and they weren't looking because some idiot Volvo driver had assured them they the idiot Volvo driver wouldn't catch them in stage...
So that burned a heap of time, but whatever.
In the last stage, we got to see the body part trifecta - teets and arts on Saturday, tackle on Sunday. Superb, just superb...
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, really - Drove very cautiously, and made sure we got to the end.
The last stage was pretty chopped up, but I just didn't care...
Getting to the end of the last stage was mostly about relief. Relief that the rushed build and lack of prep didn't come and bite us on the asre (well, not too hard anyhow). Relief that we'd made it to the end of a long hard rally.
Post event:
Fazz/Matty's second DNF was disappointing, but Fro & Paulie crashing out of an awesome 13th(?) place 10kms from the end was awful - but not awful enough to prevent me from ragging on him for being such a muppet.
Off to the presso, have a few beers, find out who owned the tackle (damn - we thought the tackle was Lisi's fault, but it turns out it was one of my "mates"...
), and round up people for a second diff swap.
And that's what Ethan's photo of a bunch of us in the Safeway carpark at 11:30pm on Sunday was about.
The road car did the ~700kms to Wollongong and the ~250kms back home without drama - in fact, with the rally car's master cylinder in it, the brake pedal is far better than ever before.
In case I didn't make it clear before, the help we got from the Service Crew and other random helpers was just awesome. You know who you are, and I thank you all. Again.
This is not the perfect event. There are some issues that erode the brilliance of the concept and the greatness of the execution - but they all appear to be human issues that shouldn't be impossible to rectify...
But overall, this is easily the Best Rally of The Year, IMHO.
Bring on 2011!
, got it right 
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