Bathurst RSL Club Rally - 29th/30th May

[lxb02]

is that what that is, but I have changed the tyres.

[crowleyaj]

Bugger me, we're back on topic again. Thanks TKM.

[180b]

Bathurst AMSAG rally report from car 29 Matt Byron/Paul Fear

Stage 1, MT Panorama well this stage wile was fun, it was a bit of a test for nav Paul being his 1st time in a rally car. Also I didn’t go to well I don’t know what happened but I managed to miss just about every gear when attempting to change.

Stage 2, Hen and chicken Lane, the challenge for us in this stage was trying to find the start of the stage. After driving for a few minutes I released that we were way off the notes for the transport. Then when I probably should have turned around and gone back to the mountain and then got back on the transport notes, I decided that I could guess our way there, this did not work and we found our self more lost. Anyway that’s to the guy at BP Bathurst for drawing us a map we were on our way. But once finding the start of the stage we were told the sweep had just been through. We then drove through hen and chicken as a transport to get back on track to the next stage.

Stage 3, First stage in sunny corner forest, we planed to forget about the rest of the mornings drama and focus on the stages ahead. We were both happy with how we were going on this stage, Paul was had got the hang of reading the notes and I felt we were going well. We hit a couple triple caution humps in this stage way to fast, I don’t know what I was thinking when I hit them, bit I was very surprised to find the front end still intact after we nose dived badly off one. Then with a few km’s to the finish I couldn’t work it out but the car didn’t seem quite right and was a rater loud noise coming from the back, oh well only a few km and the car is still going so I will look at it after the stage. We pulled into control, jumped out to look at what was going on to the rear of the car. There was a rim on the rear right side but no tyre, well that would explain all that noise and poor handling, might also explain the burning rubber I could smell for the last few km of the stage.

Stage 4, The spare was put on all set now for the 40km stage. This stage was going well, then around 20km into the stage the car just died. We pulled over and after about 30 seconds of flicking the ignition switch the lights came on the car started and we set off again. Then 5 km or so later car dies some problem but then starts again after 30 seconds of flicking the ignition switch. Ok so we push on, then few km down the road car dies again this time doesn’t come good. After 5 minutes of running around the car in circles trying to find a lose wire it just comes good of its own accord again. So back in and the car makes it to the finish of the stage.

Stage 5, this was a great stage was the only stage in the rally where we had no problems. Was an awesome stage.

Stage 6, Last stage on Saturday, this stage started off well. There are 3 really big humps in this stage right after one another. We went over these fine, but there is another just after the 3 not as big but a hump nevertheless. I didn’t notice this until we were right on top of it, so we hit it far to fast. Car launched off the hump and landed half off the road. Straightened up and got it back on the road to hear very loud banging from the rear end. Jacked up the car got the wheel of to find a broken drive shaft. Lucky but on Friday I decided to bolt a spare drive shaft into the boot. So changed the drive shaft and we drove out. The sweep had been through so just drove out of the forest. The drive shaft took out the brake line so wasn’t game to drive into Bathurst without brakes so thanks to Peter Batt for coming with the car trailer to take us back into town.

Stage 7, Sunday the 40km stage. With the car all repaired thanks heaps to Brad Arnold for the loan of the brake line. Made it a few km’s into the stage before the clutch slave cylinder decided to stop doing its thing. So pushed on with out the clutch was all ok until got to hard right uphill that couldn’t make it around in second. Pushed the car round till we could turn it over on the starter in 1st. So we push on, only to get stuck a few km’s down the road on a corner much the same. This time couldn’t push it round so after getting some fluid from the brake reservoir into the clutch reservoir with a bit of fuel hose. Pumped the clutch up till I could we get it in first and let the clutch out. We were off again. Finished the stage

Stage 8, Last stage, decided just to finish the event and just drive it without a clutch. Had a few times where car got stuck but we got to the end and finished the event. We were happy with that.

Big thanks goes to My dad who helped heaps getting the car ready, Mick King who did a lot work putting the new motor together and getting it running, Peter Batt for towing the car to town and then back home again, Brad Arnold for the loan of a brake line, I cant remember his name but the guy who helped us changing the brake line (I think it was Paul Newman’s service crew) and Daniel Williams for going service crew.

[crowleyaj]

Originally posted by Drew
My faithful nav Andrew is able to recall stage times from a year ago from memory

Oops, I better study up a bit before Port Macquarie then mate.

Still got a lot to learn about navving, especially checking other people's times at controls.

Hen and Chicken was the only one I remembered because I wanted to compare times with what Scott and I did in the Lancer at the State Round in 2003.

Scott (Lancer) 2003 - 4:18 downhill
Drew (Sigma) 2003 - 4:25 uphill (raining + dodging the rolled LB)
Drew (Sigma) 2004 - 4:01 uphill

Bring on 2005 with some new rubber!

[crowleyaj]

Originally posted by 180b
Last stage on Saturday, this stage started off well. There are 3 really big humps in this stage right after one another. We went over these fine, but there is another just after the 3 not as big but a hump nevertheless. I didn’t notice this until we were right on top of it, so we hit it far to fast.

Matt,

I know the place you were talking about. Something like (Drew's got the road book, will edit distances later):

0.15 TL then !!! 4 Humps
0.29 !! Hump
0.15 TL Uphill, etc, etc

If you're busy counting the 4 humps to make sure you've got them all, you don't realise that you've almost travelled the 290 metres to the next hump. We had a huge jump off that one on Saturday arvo as well (thought Drew had stuffed his back, very annoyed with myself).

To make up for it (and save the car), I changed the instructions for the second run through the stage on Sunday:

0.15 TL then !!! FIVE humps
0.44 TL Uphill, etc, etc


Other than that the roadbook was perfect, I suppose it's my fault for counting the humps when I should have been checking the distance to the next instruction. The last hump was very well camouflaged compared to the others. Scared the poo out of me at the time, and I don't have any previous back injuries to worry about.

Was a good learning experience for me as a nav, bummer about the driveshaft in your case.

Andrew.

[Spac]

No Matt, that wasn't what I though. Just that I was disappointed in your retorts... I was kind of interested to see how long it would take for you to use "You know you are, you said you are, but what am I?", but I lost interest before you sank that low.

Nobody expects any more than simplistic beligerance from me, but everybody expects more from you.

PS: That's another point to Jen. I think she's winning by about 10,000 points now...

[Jme]

Originally posted by crowleyaj

Other than that the roadbook was perfect....

...... except for the "re-use" the same page/stage thing- that was crazy! I can get by without crossing out instructions, but for novices, without arrows and bunting I thought it was dumb to cut corners on the book. What's photocopying worth 5c a page.... so for a max of 10c a page- $5 per entry, less than $200- Ron could make the event easier and safer.

Sheesh.... he's giving all the AMSAG knockers who claim AMSAG is unsafe, and brings rallying into disripute (despite the fact they have never experienced AMSAG first hand!) cannon-fodder with that one!!!

[crowleyaj]

Yeah, I thought that was a bit weird and asked Drew about the best way to handle it. We decided to just use pencil on the first day for crossing off calls. I rubbed it all out at the end of the day before dinner, then went to pen on Sunday. Worked OK, but you're right it could have freaked out the newbies.

Was that the first time you'd seen pages getting re-used for the same stages?

[Lyndall]

Originally posted by crowleyaj
Was that the first time you'd seen pages getting re-used for the same stages?

An ARC about 5 years ago, that had identical stages and order for both Heat 1 and Heat 2, used just a single road book with only 1 copy of each common stage. Coffs Harbour, maybe? I do remember it was an A5-sized road book, so made writing notes on stopwatch times and official stage times pretty squeezy!

[tortfeaser]

I like to use the same pages again if the stage is repeated - you can make notes the first time around (where others went off, tricky bits not marked) and then call them the second time around.

Only trouble is when you come to the transport at the end - don't make the mistake I did once and use the wrong transport section pages! (Caught it within a couple of hundred metres though )

[lxb02]

so if your navigators really switched on you can have on the fly pace notes.

never thought of that

[Spac]

Originally posted by lxb02
so if your navigators really switched on.... Never thought of that

And for good reason - if they're switched on, they're not navigators!

[DaveTrees]

Originally posted by lxb02
so if your navigators really switched on you can have on the fly pace notes.

never thought of that

Which raises the question .....

given that in most events pacenotes "in any form" are banned ..... are you allowed to make "notations" in the road book the first time through a stage, then use them as pace notes on the 2nd run ??

[Jme]

technically- I guess the answer is no.

If the driver is keyed up before the stage it's easy to add info... all he has to be is say a word......

I have added "tightens" to a RG, or "care" etc to various calls, even changed the grading of cautions etc- much like someone would write "WRX corner from last year" on SS1 at Bega. I'd argue these aren't pacenotes... the intention isn't to go faster on them, they are more of a saftey note.

It's easy to add words like "cut", "keep in", "wide entry", "hug" etc ...... this is probably treading more dangerously as the team is gaining an advantage, but it's "acquired" during the event- and I don't have a problem with that- some people might- it's a grey area.

I'm thinking the trend now is to use shorter stages, often repeated, for many reasons. Firstly it's easier to control the area and keep it safe, which is a concern especially with more and more daylight being run. Gone are the days where rallies were held over large expanses in daylight..... too hard to control safety aspects, especially closer to populated area's.... which is where the "promotion" of our sport is pushing us.

Anyway.... a re-think can't be far off, for reasons like the "added notes" issue above.The death of "secret" rallies will be the in-car camera and shorter, repeated stages- too easy to know the roads..... and let's face it- many people go out of their way to learn them.

This is why I think pacenotes should be more widely used..... which will open another can of worms...

[Spac]

I've often wondered about this sort of thing... particularly after having run on pace notes, where we had corners called as "Bede's corner*", or "Dyno's hill**" or any of a million other things that demonstrate local knowledge.

Now that I know Bede's Lowden corner properly, it will be a real advantage is we can call it. It'd be called as "Bede's corner", not as a R3 or anything.

So... if I can recognise it on the stage map, and my MFB writes it in, is that a "pace note" of any sort, or not? Why?
When will they check for pace notes? If it's at the end of the stage, what's stopping us from claiming that we wrote it during the stage? If pace-notes are checked before the stage, what's stopping us from writing it in early in the stage/on the start line?

It's pretty well academic right now, but I can see it becoming an issue within the next few years.

*Where he slapped the bank in Caltex in the 1600. Not to be confused with the other Bede's Corner on the way to the mineshaft from Dell1.
**Where he DNF'd Fro's Tranbell, in the Liberty.