Latest Results from Myall Stages

[Rus]

Wow, the Sos-man just gave you a thorough ripping Matt. Matt.. Matt....

For the record (and keeping somewhat on topic) Micky Rourke is an absolute nutter!

I would've thought he'd have backed off a bit after putting it off the road at Taree, but he had fairly a big moment in SS5, and spun after the bunting at the speccie point, hanging one wheel over the edge of a rather nasty drop on the right side of the road. Second pass wasn't much better either, and he nearly lost it again, this time with the back of the car dancing on the edge of the road.

Not sure how many herbs that VN's got; but it seems to have an on-on switch for a throttle!

[Barry]

Car 23 - Woollam / Sky

What a great event. The plan originally was to use the road book, as neither myself or nav had written or driven on pace notes before. However when we saw the limited number of calls in the road book, we decided to give notes a go.

Saturday recce was all good. Did our 2 passess over the roads and checked out notes. Quick spanners on the datto Saturday night and we were all ready for Sunday.

SS1 was pretty slow as we both got used to reading / hearing / driving on notes. However, once I started to trust them, our speed started to pick up quickly.

SS2 was a great short blast of a stage. I decided to pull my finger out and commit to the notes. My confidence in the car and my driving was coming back and we were setting times above our seeding. Our goal was to try and match the pace of the car around us, so we were happy with our efforts.

SS3/4/5 we had an absolute ball. Each of the stages had a good mix of roads and we really started to push. I was abolutely loving the notes. Being able to commit on corners and crests was a really blast.

Into service saw a quick refuel and a once over the car, then head back out into the stages.

SS6 and 7 saw us take nearly 20 seconds out of our first run on SS6 and about 5 seconds in SS7, so we were happy with how we were progressing.

When we came in for the last 15min service, we decided to rotate the tyres front to back and put 2 new dunlops on the front. This was the first time i had driven in a rally with new tyres. What a difference! I was able to hold the datto into the long fast corners without it wanting to move about.

SS8 and 9 saw us pushing hard. It was the quickest I had had the datto going and was loving being able to commit to the pace notes. All was going great until......

SS10 - with only 8kms to go in the rally (500m after the speccy point in SS10), I missed a 3R call and carried way to much speed into the corner. Unfortunately i wasnt able to bring it around in time and we launched off the side of the road. The car did a piroutte / roll on the boot and finally stopped on its side.

We were lucky that there were plenty of spectators close by who were able to help us out of the car and also recover the car out of the ditch. The best part was that as soon as we got out of the car, there were about 5 people willing to show us footage of the accident on their iphones!

Wasnt the way i (or anyone) wanted to finish the rally, however that is the great sport we all enjoy. The only damage is to boot / rear of the car. It appears all the rails, etc. are all straight. The are only a couple of scratches on the rest of the car. Stewart Wilkins has been a great help in assisting with panels and panel beaters to get us back out there asap. Hopefully we wont be out of action for too long.

Big thanks goes to all the organisers, GH / JH / Sos, to all the officials standing in the forest all day, the spectators who helped myself and Adz out of the car and also right it back onto its wheels and also assist pulling it out when recovery came along. Also Frank Neale for scrutineering all the cars. Adz for writing and calling all the pace notes. Awesome effort, absolutely love the pace notes and cant wait to do them again! My parents for servicing for me. Dad you are an absolute champion and do so much on the car. Sorry it didnt come back in one piece. And finally Tracy for being so understanding as to where our tax cheque is going to go!

Cheers,
Barry

p.s. if there are any photo's or footage of Car 23, i would love to see them!

[Haggers]

Originally Posted by Barry

Car 23 - Woollam / Sky

What a great event. The plan originally was to use the road book, as neither myself or nav had written or driven on pace notes before. However when we saw the limited number of calls in the road book, we decided to give notes a go.

Saturday recce was all good. Did our 2 passess over the roads and checked out notes. Quick spanners on the datto Saturday night and we were all ready for Sunday.

SS1 was pretty slow as we both got used to reading / hearing / driving on notes. However, once I started to trust them, our speed started to pick up quickly.

SS2 was a great short blast of a stage. I decided to pull my finger out and commit to the notes. My confidence in the car and my driving was coming back and we were setting times above our seeding. Our goal was to try and match the pace of the car around us, so we were happy with our efforts.

SS3/4/5 we had an absolute ball. Each of the stages had a good mix of roads and we really started to push. I was abolutely loving the notes. Being able to commit on corners and crests was a really blast.

Into service saw a quick refuel and a once over the car, then head back out into the stages.

SS6 and 7 saw us take nearly 20 seconds out of our first run on SS6 and about 5 seconds in SS7, so we were happy with how we were progressing.

When we came in for the last 15min service, we decided to rotate the tyres front to back and put 2 new dunlops on the front. This was the first time i had driven in a rally with new tyres. What a difference! I was able to hold the datto into the long fast corners without it wanting to move about.

SS8 and 9 saw us pushing hard. It was the quickest I had had the datto going and was loving being able to commit to the pace notes. All was going great until......

SS10 - with only 8kms to go in the rally (500m after the speccy point in SS10), I missed a 3R call and carried way to much speed into the corner. Unfortunately i wasnt able to bring it around in time and we launched off the side of the road. The car did a piroutte / roll on the boot and finally stopped on its side.

We were lucky that there were plenty of spectators close by who were able to help us out of the car and also recover the car out of the ditch. The best part was that as soon as we got out of the car, there were about 5 people willing to show us footage of the accident on their iphones!

Wasnt the way i (or anyone) wanted to finish the rally, however that is the great sport we all enjoy. The only damage is to boot / rear of the car. It appears all the rails, etc. are all straight. The are only a couple of scratches on the rest of the car. Stewart Wilkins has been a great help in assisting with panels and panel beaters to get us back out there asap. Hopefully we wont be out of action for too long.

Big thanks goes to all the organisers, GH / JH / Sos, to all the officials standing in the forest all day, the spectators who helped myself and Adz out of the car and also right it back onto its wheels and also assist pulling it out when recovery came along. Also Frank Neale for scrutineering all the cars. Adz for writing and calling all the pace notes. Awesome effort, absolutely love the pace notes and cant wait to do them again! My parents for servicing for me. Dad you are an absolute champion and do so much on the car. Sorry it didnt come back in one piece. And finally Tracy for being so understanding as to where our tax cheque is going to go!

Cheers,
Barry

p.s. if there are any photo's or footage of Car 23, i would love to see them!

Barry

Bugger mate.

Haggers

[Nigel_Bland]

Originally Posted by Rus

For the record (and keeping somewhat on topic) Micky Rourke is an absolute nutter!

Not sure how many herbs that VN's got; but it seems to have an on-on switch for a throttle!

Nothing like facts:

1. I was driving and put it off in Taree.
   
2. This is the first time Micky has driven a rally in more than 15 years and after this event I'm still happy to sit next to Mick.

The spin on the first pass through the speccy point was unfortunate and the second pass went without incident.

Further, for the record, the car is a VP V8 Executive with the air conditioning removed.

[Griffo]

Originally Posted by Nigel_Bland

Nothing like facts:

1. I was driving and put it off in Taree.
   
2. This is the first time Micky has driven a rally in more than 15 years and after this event I'm still happy to sit next to Mick.

The spin on the first pass through the speccy point was unfortunate and the second pass went without incident.

Further, for the record, the car is a VP V8 Executive with the air conditioning removed.

[Rus]

Originally Posted by Nigel_Bland

Nothing like facts:

1. I was driving and put it off in Taree.
   
2. This is the first time Micky has driven a rally in more than 15 years and after this event I'm still happy to sit next to Mick.

The spin on the first pass through the speccy point was unfortunate and the second pass went without incident.

Further, for the record, the car is a VP V8 Executive with the air conditioning removed.

Sorry Nige, I wasn't having a crack Micky's integrity as a driver. I was merely pointing out that the VP ran past at what looked like (to myself and a few spectators) 11/10ths on both speccie passes, and looked rather unsettled. Quite obviously, it was a committed drive on Mickeys behalf.

Nnot knowing you were actually driving at Taree, is just a f$*k up in my part!

VN-VP?! Meh! I've never claimed to being a connoisseur of the Commodore family, and I guess this is proof. I can only tell by the front blinkers, and it wasn't going slow enough for me to check those!


Barry, we heard you guys go off the road, but we never heard a bang, or got word how bad it was. The guys in the red RX-7 went off somewhere there early in the day, but managed to get the car back on the road unscathed. We'd assumed you'd done a similar thing. I hope you can get the Datto back out there real soon!

[mickeyrourke]

What a top event!

In the weeks leading up to the event I did absolutely no preparation on the car. Didn't even fill in the entry - this was all done by Nigel. All I did was play golf and wait to get chauffeured to the event, so I felt like a real works driver. All I needed was the services of a couple of grid girls and the weekend would have been complete!

Got off to a shaky start on Sat as the fuel filter clogged on first pass of stage 2 during the recce. Car spluttered to a grinding halt and I thought it was all over before we'd even started the event. Managed to get going again - back to service to wash the filter out.
Washed it out again on Sat arvo after recce finished.

Having not driven in a long time I was a little nervous and wanted good tyres on the front. Started with half worn rears and almost new fronts. Not long into the first stage and I thought we were headed straight for the lumber yard. Braking from flat in fourth on a fast downhill left and suddenly the car snapped sideways unexpectedly. Fortunately Commodores have a great lock on them so managed to save it, but it wasn't looking good there for a moment. Exercised a little more caution under brakes after that. It is a heavy car at 1640kgs with us in it and it is hard to wash the speed off. That was the only time I thought it was going to end in tears during the entire event. Nigel might have thought otherwise but it always feels different from the wrong side of the car. He kept reminding me "Our goal is to finish this event you know Mick!" I think he was mindful of the fact that we needed the car in one piece for Cowra in a few weeks.

Stage 4 was eventful for us. At the start of stage 4 and Nigel told me to turn the engine off, but I had an Evgney Novikov moment and didn't hear him / wasn't listening. Immediately upon starting the stage the car coughed and spluttered due to fuel starvation. Our filter was blocked again. Drove a little way and pulled off to the side of the road so as to not impede the next car. Nigel didn't tell me that the reason I needed to turn the car off was to let the filter clear itself. We have a vertically mounted 85micron mesh pre-pump filter and when the pump is off the foreign matter falls back into the tank. Restarted the car and the filter had cleared itself but now we were bogged! Took a little while to get out of that. Then about halfway through the stage we lost further time because of cattle on the road. Cows are dopey animals. Think they might be deaf. Certainly they had trouble hearing our horn. Got past the main herd and then had to follow a stray calf running up the middle of the road for a couple of hundred metres. Silly thing just wouldn't move over! Could have used one of those rodeo clowns to get it out of the way. Guess it was too young to realise that horsepower trumps cowpower.

Got to end of stage 5 and it was Peter Neal at the control. Now I know where all the cows came from!

Back to service at the end of stage 5 to clean out the filter. The rears were completely shredded. Put new fronts on and swapped the fronts to the back for the second run through. Funny thing is that I thought the car with the worn rears had a lot better turn in than with good rears.

Stage 6 and my right ankle was cramping up from pressing too hard on the throttle switch. Need some of those grid girls to give it a massage next time. (Note to Nigel... Get on the case!)

At service after stage 7 Nigel washed his contacts out with fuel from the filter. Oops! Put some colour in his cheeks!

Car is real good fun to drive and now that I know how safe it feels I won't be so nervous in the nav seat. I'm usually a bit uncomfortable as a passenger.
I just love those pacenotes! I've naved in a few noted rallies but this is the first time I've driven on them and I feel spoiled.
Got to fix that fuel problem before Cowra. Hopefully a POR15 kit will do the trick.
Car has plenty of power for the time being but a T56 six speed gearbox would make the gear ratios a bit better.
Finished 21st of 31 cars. Pretty happy with that result. There is more speed in the car. Just need more experience and bigger balls.

Thanks to-
* Nigel for doing all the hard work prepping the car and for stepping into the silly seat.
* Nathan & Carolina for servicing.
* Chris & Ben at Murphy's Motorsport for their ongoing support and assistance - you can find the boys at Hi-Tech 4x4 Unit 1/ 29 Coombes Drive, Penrith (02) 4721 7783.
* The event organisers and officials for putting on another terrific event.

[Barry]

Originally Posted by Rus

Barry, we heard you guys go off the road, but we never heard a bang, or got word how bad it was. The guys in the red RX-7 went off somewhere there early in the day, but managed to get the car back on the road unscathed. We'd assumed you'd done a similar thing. I hope you can get the Datto back out there real soon!

Cheers Rus. Yes we went off on the same corner as the RX-7, however i think they managed to keep it on its wheels.

We pick up a donor shell on Tuesday and then head out to the panel beaters to let them work their magic and cut the rear end out of it and weld it onto the datto. Then it will be back into the shed for a coat of paint and hopefully be ready for another rally before the end of the year.

[southautos]

car 33 Patton/Collison.

firstly many thanks for everyones help and support for our first event in a new car. It was unreal very very happy with the car and everything worked really well. The result was not expected but we were very happy indeed. The roads were great and the event was run really well, a great way to start rallying. Stu and i wish it was on every weekend. We will be back next year and hopefully bring some more crews up from canberra to experiance rallying with pacenotes and a great formatted evnet. Well done to the winners and finishers and it was great to meet so many nice people who clearly love the sport and welcome new comers.

[Ernie Dingo]

Barry, we heard you guys go off the road, but we never heard a bang, or got word how bad it was. The guys in the red RX-7 went off somewhere there early in the day, but managed to get the car back on the road unscathed. We'd assumed you'd done a similar thing. I hope you can get the Datto back out there real soon![/QUOTE]

It looked something like this

[RAL13Y]

Once again, thankyou NDDC, and thankyou to all the volunteers and officials, who helped to make the 2010 Myall Rally such a well organised and fun event to be involved in.
It was such a great weekend, and I'm looking forward to the next NDDC event.
Toby and I really enjoyed our first real rally together and the Silvia performed like a Nissan should

Regards
Craig

[Steven Fraser]

Congratulations must go to the NDDC for continuing a long history of events in the forests around Buladelah.

[BEN]

I havnt seen any photo's of us
anyone ???? Car 9 ???

Thanks
Ben.

[Brendan Mulhearn]

Found Myall Stages photos on rallysportmag web site here - inc. the blue datto 1600 going over the edge.. :

RallySport Magazine - Gallery - Category: 2010 Myall Stages

[John G M]

Great event again from GH and his team, and a good result for us getting the points. It has been a nightmare getting the car back together after Coffs. In the end I used our old motor that was in the car in 2005 and put my better head on it. New fuel pump, and had the injectors done. One and three were down on flow a fair bit. Could not get parts for our gearbox in time, but were saved buy our good friend Kevin Shaw who lent us a box. On Southy's dyno on Thursday, tune done but spat the main seal in the center diff. Straight on the phone to Steve Bell, who had a complete unit only available so off to Sydney Friday. Got the car 85% finished by Friday night and that's as good as it got.
In the end the car done it's job, the only real scare for us was smashing the rim halfway through the third last stage, and then hopping for no flates in the last two.
Was pretty happy with how I was driving but ran out of steam by lunch time, and no one was going to get near Nathen.
Lucky for me again so many people help us -
Thanks to Gary's Motorsport Tyres
Specialised Brake and Clutch
Australian Wharf and Bridge
Colin Hill
Paul Andrews
Michael South
Kevin Shaw
Steve Bell
My service crew
Mum
And to Jo, both of us had the flu bad and she did a great job to still get the notes out.
Look forward to the next rally, been a long time since having to read the road though!
Thanks, John M