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<Woof>Tailwag</Woof>
Join Date: 03-11-2003
Location: Sydney
Posts: 357
Rep Power: 11
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SigRally Report - long post
Bathurst RSL Club Rally - 29th & 30th May
Round 1 AMSAG Southern Cross Rally Series
SigRally Report by Drew McPhee
I am known for my last minute preparation before a rally, well not this time. I don’t think the Sigma has ever been this ready. Most of the carnage caused at the last round at Bathurst last year had been fixed, which included the following:
* Replaced very bent engine cross member from hitting rock in middle of road left by another competitor.
* Replaced very bent sump guard from hitting rock in middle of road left by another competitor.
* Replaced rear screen, lost on first run through the 40km stage. I also took the time to clean up rust and crap from around the rear screen which Sigmas are fairly notorious for.
* Rebuilt the rear brakes.
* Fitted new rear disc rotors.
* Replaced bent front left strut.
* Sorted out ignition problem so the car can now do 7500 rpm - it was not revving past 5500 rpm previously.
The brakes were the biggest issue last year, having lost the rears after a bleed nipple came loose and then the master cylinder packed it in due to the hammering it got, trying to pull up the 1300kg blue beast on the fronts with no or minimal pressure. Thanks to my Dad, Ian, and Matt Hunter at Project Racing who rebuilt the 4 pot Wilwoods for me. New seals and 8 new pistons later.
The other thing I guess I did a bit differently since Bathurst last year, is practice in club events, with my navigator Andrew Crowley, and our new service guy Glenn Inkster. Both are members of Thornleigh Car Club, which I have been a member of (on and off) since the early 90’s. We have done a series of motorkhanas on all surfaces, khanacrosses and speed events over the last few months. Then 4 weeks before the rally, we booked out the Hampton grounds behind the Halfway House, owned by Hills District Car Club, for the weekend to practice and test the car. So not only was the car prepared, but the crew was too. I was determined to get through a rally with nothing going wrong. It’s the ultimate in rallying, and has never happened to me before.
The main problem for the weekend was a lack of decent tyres. As I am on a limited budget, tyres are always the last thing I think about as I have had a cache of 2nd hand tyres for a while now, left over from my Dad’s Celica GT4. However he had that car 9 years ago, and the tyres were starting to go “a little” hard, and now they are getting less plentiful as the 2.6 chews rear tyres like nothing else on gravel. Perhaps not as bad as a dunnydoor, but it was going to require careful tyre management all weekend.
The weekend started very well, with fine weather greeting us in the morning, a great contrast to the snow and sleet that we usually see this time of year at Bathurst/Sunny Corner. 36 starters lined up at the Bathurst RSL on the Saturday morning, waved off by the Australian flag, and an “Axe the Tax” banner. The drought has been hitting the country towns hard, and the proposed additional taxes on the local clubs will not help. I’m very glad we can be of assistance to each of the communities we visit.
Next thing you know, you are into the stages. My very first Tarmac Rally stage, and it just happened to be Mount Panorama!!! Well, not the circuit itself, but the first stage was the run up to McPhillamy Park from behind the mountain, which is all tarmac now. Basically it was quite a big hill climb, which the Siggy loves, and then a run through the camping area of McPhillamy Park. It was excellent fun, and it seemed slow to me until you come up on a corner, and boy do they come up quick! I had to adjust my timing from gravel mode, but at the spectator point, I guess I was in gravel mode, scando-flicking into the 2nd right hander around the tyres on the handbrake, and getting on the power a bit too early. This resulted in going a little short on the apex, and onto the grass. Unlike many other cars, we had rally rubber on, so we kept the boot in, and slid back onto the road after hamming it up on the grass for a bit of sideways action for the speccies. Great fun!
Next up was the famous Hen and Chicken Lane. This is probably one of the quickest stages in the Bathurst Area, where a rally car can average well over 100kph for the stage, and reach full noise in top gear on several occasions. My faithful nav Andrew is able to recall stage times from a year ago from memory, and informed us that we went 24 seconds quicker than last year, and averaged just under 110 km/h for the stage. It felt very slippery to me on the old rubber, but the car has handling well after a wheel alignment at Coltspeed, after much friendly debate with Ron Masing about steering geometry for rallying on a Sigma.
We were then into the forest proper. Big time. First stage was the first run through the one we know as “The Gulf”, or as others may know it, “Macabees Road.” 22.99 km long, starts off like a roller coaster ride, down to the first forest spectator point, a “road goes left” at the bottom of a long winding descent. But in the middle is also the first of the “Rough Stuff.” This was a rock/rut combo, and if you hit it, would cost you more than $4.95 to fix the damage. Well, we hit it, and hit it HARD! The front of the car jumped off the rock and into the scrub. I pulled the car up in amongst the shrubbery, backed up, and then drove over the small saplings to get back to the road. Hidden in the undergrowth were some fairly major rocks of football size which we luckily missed. First incident of the rally, and we survived with about 20mm extra toe out on the front left wheel and the wheel alignment shot. I don’t think I have ever got through a rally without knocking the wheel alignment out; I don’t think I will get another one as it seems to be a waste of money!
Stage 4, the beast. First run through the “Back Creek” stage. At 41.15 km long, and with 2 goes at it, this was to form the bulk of the stage time in the rally. It’s a very interesting stage, it has some very rough roads, but it also has some fast bits. The surface changes more times that you can keep count of. Basically you hammer when there are no rocks in the road, and when there are rocks, it’s up to the driver to push hard enough to be quick, but not so quick that you puncture a tyre. This is a very easy thing to do in this stage, as some would find out.
We came across the first cars in trouble in this monster of a stage. Brad Arnold from Hills was having a real go in here. Brad apexed one of the many corners, and hit a hidden rock jutting out of the bank that formed the inside of the corner, at a fair speed. This instantly steered the car to the outside of the corner, and down a ravine that formed the other side of the road. We chatted to Brad later that day…he felt it going over into a big sideways roll, so he steered down into the ravine to avoid it. Unfortunately he was still travelling a bit quick, and ended up rolling end for end after the nose dug in. The car landed upside down on a large log which tried very hard to make contact with Brad’s face, but was stopped by the roll cage. The car was not so lucky, and is pretty much a write-off.
Alas, we had our own problems. Not long into the stage, the brake pedal started dropping to the firewall again, pretty much the same symptoms as last year. I was struggling to pull the car up again, and thought the worst. We managed to push on to finish the stage, and make it to the next service. I had a good look around the master cylinder, where we still had full fluid, so I went to the back to look at the pads. Pads were fine, but the brake lights were on. Strange, as I didn’t have my foot on the brake at the time. I had a look at the brake pedal, and it felt very weird. I checked the floor under the pedal and there was the pin that holds the master cylinder rod to the brake pedal, on the floor. Every brake application was merely pushing the rod down instead of forwards. Popped the pin back in, wired it up, lo and behold, we have brakes again! I love those easy fix problems……
Moving on, Stage 5 was the Battery Road Stage, positively my favourite stage of all time. I don’t recall there being a corner in the stage, and if there is, it’s taken flat chat! We had a real go in this stage; I figured it was only 12.67 km so we may as well. I should take my own advice more often as we set 4th fastest stage time, which was by far my best stage finish. Thanks to Andrew for the spotless calls – they were coming thick and fast.
Onto the last stage of the day, Stage 6 was a repeat of Stage 3, The Gulf or Macabees Road, but in reverse. The uphill run is just as thrilling, as you come into the speccie point doing full noise in 5th gear, on the pegs, and throw it into the corner for the uphill blast. Well that’s the plan anyway. We kind of stuffed it up, coming in a bit hot, and getting on the anchors a tad late. It’s somewhat like the marbles that form on a race track, off line on a rally course is not the place to be. There are sharp rocks that can puncture your tyres if you’re not careful, and if you get on the brakes and lock up, its game over, you will just keep going and going until you get back off the brakes and onto the power. Just a quick hard dab on the brakes, throw the thing into the corner, and get the power on. We felt very slow through that corner but the spectators didn’t seem to mind a bit of extra action.
Back to the motel room, and our trusty service crew, John Crowley, Glenn Inkster and Bill Mooney changed tyres so we (um, I mean they!) didn’t have to do it in the freezing cold the next morning. Off to the RSL, dinner was served after a few drinks to get the dust out of the lungs. It was one of the best dinners we have had, there was such a buzz in the air as everyone was stoked to get back into the series for the year. The social side of AMSAG is one of the key reasons I am competing with this club, everyone chats to each other, there are no major egos to contend with, and you can always find someone to sit with over dinner and talk about the great day that we all had.
The highlight would have to be the reading of the results in reverse order. You sit there with butterflies in your stomach, hands clenched in nervous anticipation. You cross your fingers and toes, and wait to hear your name not read out! We had to wait a while for ours to get read out, which is always a good feeling. After starting the day as Car 22, we were 10th outright on Saturday night, our best effort yet at that point in a rally, so we were chuffed! It’s always very enjoyable, but as the night gets on, and after a long day, it’s off to bed we go for the early start the next morning, 7am at Sunny Corner Hall for breakfast.
3 stages were planned for Sunday, Stages 7, 8 and 9 all repeats of the last 3 stages of Saturday. First up, the second run through the beast, 41.15 km of “Back Creek”. After a few discussions with the service crew, and with hardly any tyres left, Andrew and I decided the best approach to this stage was to just take is easy, as we had quite a big 4 minute gap to the car behind (a Galant VR4 Turbo with Peter Batt navigating, no less!), and a 50 odd second gap to our friend Mr Morrison and Mr Grey in the red 200B, who we always seem to battle with nowadays. We were delighted to come across them changing a tyre in the middle of the stage, so we knew we had just jumped up a spot.
However, with about 3 km to go, I spotted some headlights in the rear vision mirror to see the flying black Datsun 1600 of the Dubbo crew Stuart Lobsey and Dianne Sharkey, old friends who I know to be indecently quick, especially when they have not had a very good run. We were lucky in that there was a small clearing just down the road, and I didn’t even have to come to a stop, we slid sideways into the clearing and Stu shot past, and then sideways back out onto the road behind them. Then the dust hit. I tried to keep right up Stu’s tailpipe, but there were too many rocks flying at us, so I backed right off and let him get in front by a few hundred metres until the dust cleared enough to be able to see him and the road. We both finished the stage unharmed, and at service I apologized to Stu for possibly holding him up. They were not back there for too long, so they were quite cool with the situation.
There was a problem with stage 8 as some campers had come out saying that some mates had gotten lost 4WDing in the general area where the stage was, so Event Director Ron Moore made a very quick and decisive call to cancel the stage, which turned out to be spot on. We only lost 12.7 km of the 186 km competitive, but it was the stage we did well in the day before so I was a little disappointed.
The last stage was the Uphill Gulf run again, and this time we were determined to nail the right hand turn at the spectator point. This time we made it to full noise in 5th gear, 7500 rpm equates to about 180 km/h before you slow down for the turn into the corner. I kept it very tight this time so we didn’t wash out on the loose stuff off line, and kept correcting through the corner to keep it on line. It seemed to work as we didn’t have to grab first this time and it felt much quicker. By this last stage of the rally, the diff had copped a fair bit, and at some point during the day, the LSD had stopped locking up. It made the car a bit hard to handle, and a little bit unpredictable to what I am used to, especially on the fast stuff. Time to rebuild it I guess.
It was a great relief to make the finish with hardly anything going wrong, and to finish up 8th outright and 2nd in class was an unexpected bonus, as we would have been just as happy with our 10th outright from the night before. Huge thanks goes out to John, Glenn and Bill who got us through the weekend again with no major dramas, and also massive thanks go out to the new AMSAG executive and steering committee who run a fantastic rally. Seeing how they only had a few months to get their stuff together after taking on the top jobs, it’s a credit to them to pull off such a smooth running rally.
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, I'm just a mod still I think.....which reminds me I should have a look at that again.
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