Bega 2004

[Bogan]

So we headed out to the forest, and joined the queue at the start. I let some air out of the tyres (four new ones went on at the last service for the first time ever ) and we started off. Up the hill and around a few corners and boy is this rough. 4 stages of shire roads and not running since Oberon had me used to the smooth stuff. The Terratrip is out because the diameter of the new steers is about 7 inches more than the crapped out old Silverstones we shagged in the first 4 stages, so Anna is doing some creative accounting to get us through. I find that the car seems to be pivoting around the centre point instead of over or understeering and it feels quite nice. I also find that I'm holding third through corners where I'd usually be back to second. I put it all down to the new tyres and I'm getting quite excited. This was where we saw the pretty yellow Subaru with no triangles. Anna was very animated and quite angry at the end of the stage, and when the controllie said something about it being on a straight I replied that I didn't care, it still should have had triangles out. I hope the people waiting around were their crew, and that they gave them some feedback when they went to collect the car.

We tried to recalibrate the Terratrip on the fly on the 38km transport back to service and I think we got it pretty well right.

SS6 was OK, but this was where the sun was going down and being a ba$tard peeking through the trees straight into my face. Too dark for sunnies so I did some head tilting to use the little strip on the helmet visor to good effect.

SS7 was very dusty, very very dusty. It took me quite some time to get used to driving in the dark with lights again, and I probably lost a bit of time in the beginning of the stage, but then found a rhythm and started punting along again. The new tyres were really coming into their own, with the car behaving quite nicely. It didn't feel as fast but that's probably because up until now sideways=fast. Maybe this was where Paul Bennett was at the stop control, and when he told us we took 53 seconds off the car in front of us we nearly wet ourselves. Good news is good, especially that late in the event. Thanks Paul.

SS8 was when the gremlin appeared. Voltage dropped to under 12, then under 10, then the alternator light in the dash came on. Why oh why did I ever hook it up? You know when you can see something in your peripheral vision and you try not to look at it and it distracts you even more? Yeah, we were there. We had a bit of a lose coming around a right hander and the car was sliding sideways and Pete E or Spac or JW would have just kept the boot in, but I'm not them so I backed off a little and wound on more oppy lock and selected 2nd, and we continued forwards. No spin, no stall, didn't have any of them all day. I turned off the spots to try to nurse the battery a bit, and would have really liked to put them back on in some of the long straight bits but wasn't game and just didn't use as much throttle as I maybe would have otherwise. Saw Sophia and Mel and was sad, saw the Datto about 200m from the finish and was sadder for them, then we were over the line and all excited. Kewl, we finished Bega!!!

This was where the fun began . We got back to the splash and dash service and I didn't want to turn the car off. We did so to refuel and had something to eat and assisted with packing stuff into the service truck, and then the car started. Yay! We did the u-turn regroup and then headed off for Bega. The dash light went out when we got to about 80km/h and I was pretty happy. Then the volts dropped below 10. Then to 8. Then below 8. Headlights weren't doing much and we were in a queue of four rally cars and so I decided to run on parking lights only to conserve charge. We followed a Datto 1600 and then Jamar and then a Charade all the way from the service park back to Bega. Thanks to those we followed for doing reasonable speeds, I didn't want to use headlights until absolutely necessary. Off with the Terratrip, off with the Terraphone. We didn't turn the gauges off because they don't drain much (we hope). All the way home I kept thinking "What would be worse, being the Datto off the road 200m from SS8 flying finish or being us, stopped 5km from Bega on the last transport with no amps left?" I didn't speak it out loud and so it didn't happen. When I turned it off in Parc Ferme and then turned it back on again the alternator light didn't even want to play. Phew. This is the only thing we have to fix before the bay. It seems like being fanatical about the car is paying off, so while the enthusiasm is still there for car preparation I'll continue to do it. If anyone has any brilliant ideas as to whether a 12V flouro light could be counteracting the alternator or stuffing with the regulator or what else could be draining the battery feel free to offer advice.

Thank yous:

Bede Austin, for servicing and putting up with me all weekend. It's not easy but you did it. Nice work. Shame we didn't give you more to do but that's the way we like it. And thanks for the tyre and tube deal too.
Russell Battisson at Carco for control arm making, steering arm shortening and alternator modifications. And for the lend of some stuff. Go team!!!
John Mills from FSPORT for a couple of great Kumho steer tyres. I don't know how many seconds per km they were worth but it had to be significant.
Lizzy for organising accommodation.
Brett Wheeler at Trend Trailers for the sponsorship and the trailer and the assistance with the seats.
Kylie for almost servicing and thinking of us all weekend.
David Nutter for delivering more rims for us. He probably doesn't frequent here but he did good by us.
Everyone else who stayed with us or talked to us or encouraged us or anything else.
The dudes who push started us so we could get on the trailer when the cars were released.
And last, but most, thanks to Anna. You did tops. I'm glad I got you a finish for your birthday, I'm glad you had fun and I'm glad you put up with all the sheet between Oberon and Bega. I'm sorry for peesing you off when I did, I promise to try harder not to do that in future.

Ends.

T.

[tortfeaser]

The Terratrip gave me the sh*ts all day, but then Fro couldn't hear me most of the time anyway. My throat is stuffed after yelling calls for 100km competitive. There was some dodgy controllie action going on, just one example was the time we booked in to a TC at the same time as the car ahead of us, 'cos he apparently started the stage previous at the same time. I don't remember seeing him on the line though.

And what's with the Victorian codrivers who don't have a clue about A to A timing? You'd go to call Fro into control only to find some Victorian sitting outside the boards with some stupid look on his face. Weird. No beige boards either - who knows where the control ended.

Bah. So I sound grumpy, but I had a ball. I love the roads down there, those new forest stages are fantastic. Top stages in good condition. Its great rallying. What's not to like?

Fro had issues with our pace, but I don't think being 0.7s/km behind Spac (our ACT clubman benchmark) for the shire stages was too bad. I haven't thought about our pace in the forests. We tried to have a more neat rally, staying on line and with less of the lairy sideways action. That and pulling the next gear wherever possible. It made for less spectacular rallying but was faster. Less fun though. Maybe that's why Fro's so grumpy. Some of our times were slower than last year, but it felt more slippy. I dunno really - more risks need taking maybe. We didn't have one spin all day.

Thanks to the cars around us for some fun. Harbers and Johanson behind were good value, and Walther and Buerckner good competition. Sorry about your troubles.

Thanks to Naomi, Dyno and Andrew for servicing. Top job all day long. And to Simon and the Spac crew for exhaust wiring assistance. And to Amanda and Lucy for putting up without me for a weekend.

[DaveTrees]

Originally posted by tortfeaser
And what's with the Victorian codrivers who don't have a clue about A to A timing?

I suspect that there would maybe be some Vic crews running down the tail end of the field that aren't regular state championship competitors , and therefore have limited experience of A-A timing ?

No excuse though - they should have brushed up on it. ..... or asked someone if they didn't know.

[DaveTrees]

Originally posted by Karl Willett
Bah... bloody mexicans hangin' around in the teens... sneaking up on us honest punters from behind. It's just not cricket. Even tried to camouflage his car as JS's to confuse us simple pointy enders.

[mattlee75]

Originally posted by Karl Willett
Bah... bloody mexicans hangin' around in the teens... sneaking up on us honest punters from behind. It's just not cricket. Even tried to camouflage his car as JS's to confuse us simple pointy enders.

Sorry Karl, we were just as suprised as you guys!

Matt

[DaveTrees]

Originally posted by mattlee75
Sorry Karl, we were just as suprised as you guys!

Matt

G'day Matt !! Good to see another HRA "lurker" in here ....

Top effort on the weekend guys .......

Cheers

Dave G

[DaveTrees]

Originally posted by Karl Willett
And that Justin and Matt.... just sitting back there.... We hammered the Vics in front of us, so what you guys were doing back at 15 I have no idea.

Karl

Justin & Matt have stepped up to the Evo6 this year from their "old' P6 GT4 ....... and I guess the increased pace hasn't been reflected in their seeding position .... YET !!

[Factor]

SUMMARY – Great FUN and there is still a fair bit left in the new car. A pretty impressive run I thought for the 7/4 out of the box (and JW can still drive damn good).


Pre Rally

Arrived in Canberra on the 10 o’clock large silver bird from Brisbane. Once was flying to a rally was decadent, now it is the way cheapest part of the exercise.

Did the usual last minute jobs on the car Thursday and Friday and departed with Hooters Brookhouse in the towing Triton. I must admit to being very impressed with the new RX7, looked very good. Still not quite finished, but legal and close enough to go rallying. Good trip down, with JS also in the group and into the motel and an early night.

SATURDAY

Up early and do the whole docco and scrutineering thing. Pretty painless and all finished in quick time. Off to testing, using the lizard stage. First time at noise in the car and first time for JW on the dirt in the car. HOLY CR@P!!! This thing is scary there is that much grunt. JW gets out and says, that he cant walk close to it. It might bite. Seriously it wasn’t much of a prep but at least with two runs over a 4K stretch it gave Jon some idea how it would work.

SUNDAY

SS1 Greendale: I am not all that enamoured with the brutally fast shire stages, that isn’t a criticism, just a personal observation – something to do with staying alive I guess. None the less the first full noise effort in the 7/4 was fairly exciting. We started directly behind Pete Ewing and although it was pretty much a development rally it was good to have Pete and Jeremy there to do some comparison. We picked up Pete by a couple of seconds which was good considering the fairly tentative start. (4.54)

SS2 Upper Cobargo Rd Usually a firm favourite of mine and JW, but I’m not sure we got the rhythm in the 7/4 as well as we do in the 7/1. Had a couple of big skids. (6.15)

SS3 – Buckajo (7.51) Good and again a consistent, see how it goes approach

SS4 Cooper Gully (4.15) started to feel pretty good.

SHIRE summary – started quietly, but started to feel good and the car was pulling like a train, in all stages we managed to pick up a few seconds on Pete and Wayne Elven

SS5 - (9.57) Broadwater – finally in the forest and it was great fun. The torque of the 7/4 was just fantastic. Car felt great and we pulled a bit bigger lump out of Pete and Wayne.

SS6 Stoney Creek (14.25) Great Stage though we gave the sump guard a work out. Again felt good and we continued to build the lead on Pete and Wayne, though we were a bit behind Dave King etc.

SS7 Anteater – (16.51) My favourite stage of the weekend, was very good and felt great. By now I had been watching the temp and other gauges almost non stop, and was very pleased to see everything operating just spot on, in fact it was probably running 10 degrees cooler that was expected, it would approach 100 but then as soon as a flat or downhill section occurred it dropped almost straight back to 85-90. JW certainly knows how to build a rotary.

SS8 Tmibillica, also good fun (12.50) and also instructive in terms of how the 7/4 was going to work. By this stage the rear tyres were toast.

Ss9 – Snake Track – (19.04) Didn’t have a lot of fun in there but the time was very acceptable. Was very rough I thought. Also the dust was a major problem, we swere stopped more than once. Still that is a part of rallying and I make no complaint. One of the casualties in the pre rally was effective light setup, and we certainly felt it –I am sure that they will be better in both clear and dusty conditions come the Bay.

SS 10 Myriall ( 21.37) Though the controllies suggested we did a 19.37 I had to disagree with them. SO I handed back the two minutes, but 21.37 was still okay. This stage would have been magic if we had a little less dust. As it was, JW was driving into the dust when I couldn’t see ****. He is still a master of the forest.

[Factor]

Originally posted by Bogantastic
. This was where we saw the pretty yellow Subaru with no triangles. Anna was very animated and quite angry at the end of the stage, and when the controllie said something about it being on a straight I replied that I didn't care, it still should have had triangles out. I hope the people waiting around were their crew, and that they gave them some feedback when they went to collect the car.

I too did say nasty things about a lack of triangles, but I must apologise, They had them out at one stage, cause I watched some video from JS and you could clearly see tem then, so I suspect that they got cleaned up by someone after JS.

[Shorty]

GIRL POWER ROCKS!

It was the first time competing at Bega for both of us and after all the hype we had heard from everyone else we were sitting around at the start just wanting to get out there and experience it for ourselves.

SS1: Sophia put the foot down and I knew I was going to have a great time. Everything was working well and the times were showing it. Saw Phil at the specie point with the camera just as Sophia lined up and she took it like a pro.

SS2: We were both really looking forward to this one. Sophia put the foot down again and everything fell into place. Had a ball on this one. Got to have a look a few times and saw the BMSC banner and Peter at the specie point. Got into the time control to see familiar faces smiling at us with the comment made that we had done a lot better than teams ahead of us.

SS3: Was all power again. The smiles on our faces were now planted on our faces.

SS4: Sophia had the car going from one side to the other the whole way with this growing grin on her face.

Came into service and let Phil know our times. He was blown away by how we were doing.

SS5: Car and crew were one and nothing was going wrong.

SS6: Sophia was giving the car a pounding but it kept responding.

SS7: Another great stage. I couldn't believe we only had one to go.

SS8: We sat on the start thinking we are going to do this. Then Sophia put the foot down and everything felt good until the call for turn left at SP about 3km in (approx). We line up for the corner and Sophia put the foot down and yelled 'the pedals gone flat to the floor!'. We knew what had happened so we jumped out of the car set up the triangles and ok sign, then grabed the torch and toolkit and got the bonnet up. Sure enough the accelerator cable had snapped so we looked in the bag to find a replacement (of some description). We managed to find some electrical cable and figure out where it needed to go (Sophia knows how to do a great granny knot in a hurry). While trying to secure everything Sweep arrived to a kind "Go away we are not finished yet" from Sophia. I grabbed the triangles, the roadbook and the toolbox and threw them back in the car just as the engine came to life. Sophia then proceded threw the rest of the stage as if nothing had happened with the foot planted. She was on a mission! We made it to the stop control to then get delayed because "we weren't expecting you".

We pulled out of the control to have the cable snap again so out we jumped but luckily we saw that the electrical cable had come away due to the engine heat so we grabbed a cable tie and fixed it up again.

We then raced down to the regroup who also weren't expecting us but one look at the clock and I knew we still had over ten minutes of late time left.

Jumped into the car for the last 80 kms back and with fingers crossed we managed to make it back to parc ferme with a 6 minutes to spare.

We parked the car and turned off the engine, opened the door and WOOHOO! we had finished!!!

After walking into the club to comments of "we heard you'd rolled" numerous times and then much later seeing 'EXCLUDED OUT OF LATE TIME' being written up on the board I asked straight away who to speak to and walked into HQ on a mission. We came across Paul Bennett and explained the situation. Paul then did an amazing job of getting our time card, tracking the CoC down and getting a decision on our fate before the presentations.

Thanks must go to:

Phil - Our man of strength who told me many times "If she isn't pushing it, just tell her to put the foot down". Well Phil even you saw how that foot was well and truly planted!

Paul Bennett - You are a true hero for that effort. I still think you should consider a career as a CRO because your experience is valuable not just to us recent additions but everyone else!

The Caruana Clan - For looking after not only Sophia and myself but Phil as well. The soup you gave us hit the spot right when we needed it!

Brett & crew - For insisting on the place to put down our weary heads. And giving us a laugh too.

All the officials out there! (We even had a cheer squad at the start of SS8 who had been waiting all day for us). I'm glad the weather was good for you.

And finally Sophia! You drove like a woman possessed and it was great!

Can't wait til next year!

Mel 8)

[Factor]

Originally posted by Karl Willett



4th was a good result, but I'm a bit annoyed at myself for throwing it away in Snake Track. That road definitely didn't suit the Subaru while the Lancers and their better low down torque revelled in it by the looks. It certainly wasn't all the car though, I went to sleep after the ACT event and I'm not fit these days.. you definitely need some good match fitness to put in a good Snake Track time. I basically drove it like a girl (sorry girls) and it cost us a podium. End of story.

I thought you had a very good rally, and indeed are having a very good year. Well done.

[Tweety]

Originally posted by Karl Willett
I basically drove it like a girl

I know exactly how you feel Karl. Happens to me quite regularly .

[Spac]

And here I was, wondering what he drives girls like...

(With apologies to Girlie, who is either rolling her eyes at me, or spluttering in mock shock).

[Matt Dyne]

Originally posted by Hagar
Justin & Matt have stepped up to the Evo6 this year from their "old' P6 GT4 .....

Watch this space...it will be back.

[smee]

Hopefully in some colour other than purple.....

Tuner is locked in for all 3 vehicles, so look out....