Oberon was cool. Despite sticking it off on SS5 and DNF'ing, purely to brain fade/concentration/not listening, I was pretty damn happy. 3rd after 48kms competitive, probably around 30seconds clear of Kari and the Barretts - probably due to the road being swept a fair bit as we were back at 22 on the road
Thanks to:
-Martino, for putting up with me sticking it off again.
-The service crew that jumped into action at first service: Paulie, Simon, Gemma, Darren and my parents. You guys (and girls) worked well and fast. I could barely keep up with the answers to your questions.... Sorry for giving you the ***** job, Paulie, and not being able to decide which tyres go where
And thanks all of the above - and Fro- for coming to get us after I punted it off.
-Ben Ruggles, for the advice on Silverstones and pointing out the bleeding obvious - that I missed - just before the start!
-Frinky, for the patience and engineering prowess.
-Bede, for the suspension explanation, settings and advice in the last month. Bede's guesses on the settings were on the money and just need a small tweak after the first stage.
-The Barrett's. For me coming up, jabbering cr.ap and annoying the ***** out of them with questions when they were at work but leaving like I learnt something!
I could write a pretty damn big load of junk on the last six months etc. Short end of the stick: got car, tested four times and broke stuff three times. Got educated by Rob Ogilvie one afternoon about what the car should be doing from a theoretical point of view and that opened my eyes immensely. Then trying to make that knowledge work was the hard bit and I could go do it on some corners which I knew immensely well on a test track but didn't really have the faith that I could do it on corners I didn't know. We had only timed a few runs and the times were about the same as the Trueno but the track changes quite a lot so did it mean a lot or nothing? We didn't know.
Did the alternator on the startline of SS1 at Narooma. RoC Media day, the car held together until the end, when a canister came loose and emptied and was down on boost pressure driving home. Just doing short stuff like testing and the media day allowed me to take in small doses of an awesome ride and then think about what I had done wrong and right and think about how I can drive the car in an optimum manner.
Sent the Proflex off to Murray Coote - I got some damn good service from him. It turned up last Thursday, two days before Oberon, luckily, converted from only adjustable bump, to adjustable bump and rebound for the fronts. About a week ago, I was trying to figure out where the boost might be leaking from - with the car on stands. Checking piping and stuff, finally discovered there was a big leak between the exhaust manifold and turbocharger. Again, got great service from Steve Bell, Ralliart guy in Sydney and parts turned up overnight like new gasket and bolts. Ben "Frinky" and I tried drilling holes in the heads of the grade 11 bolts -for lock wiring- and drilled about 13mm (1 and 1/2 bolts) all up with 3 broken drill bits to show for it. The leak was/is still there just a lot smaller and I didn't want to risk running out of time to get a new gasket for the manifold before the event so I just decided to put up with it.
Normally I'm always stressed before a rally but I just relaxed and I figured the car was going to break and there wasn't much I could do about it, if the suspension turned up - which it did. Took the car off the trailer for the dirt section and mega-hills between Goulbourn and Oberon, and noticed the car was down on power. The SuperWatch said that the altitude was over 1000m and at Blacksprings it was 1200m. Frinky lent me a book on turbocharging last night and 1200m - 4000 feet means atmospheric pressure has dropped from 14.7psi at sea level to, around 12.7psi. In layman's terms, each 1000feet increase in altitude means a 3% drop in power, 12% there alone, and for each 7 degrees increase in temperature was a 1% drop in power. So all up, we were ALL around 15% down on power!
Anyway, to the stages.
At the start of the first stage, I decided not to launch the car with the anti-lag on to reduce the shock. I just dropped the clutch from 3 1/2 - 4K rpm and trundled off. Used the intercooler spray for the first minute - all it lasts for. First stages was typically windy and stop, turn, stop, turn. Almost ****ed up about ten times and I learnt to turn brake or turn not both at the last minute. The first few km's made me think we had the wrong setup, just from the amount of understeer. Also the car didn't seem to stop very well. Turned out at service there was too much neg. camber - a guess on my behalf with the eccentric washers. Didn't really check the times, just that we were in the ballpark of the car ahead of us, Gerald Schofield.
Stage 2, changed the suspension settings all around, kept lowering the tyre pressures...but ran out of time to fill up the intercooler/windscreen spray bottle so no intercooler spray. The first few turns reminded me of how to drive from the farm and I just continued the method from there for the rest of the stage. Figured the service crew would be at the spectator point so let the car rev a bit more to give them a good show. The car got a bit hot, water-wise, but I had seen this problem out at the farm and then got the radiator cleaned, put a new thermostat in and a new radiator hose. The media day also was hot ambient temperature and showed the same symptoms and as everyone else had the same problem just turned on the heater and got on with the stage. Towards the end, there was the WRX of Joe Chapman that had come a cropper. I thought I saw a little bit of smoke from under the bonnet and still mindful of Neil Roediger a few years back we stopped and gave them one of our two fire extinguishers. Ultimately, Martino went and got some compassionate time back from the CoC but I think we only lost closer to 20 seconds there rather than 30 so our SS2 should really read around 9.25 rather than 9.15 - in my mind!
SS3 - Long but we took some notes on what not to cut in spots and whether there was a particular line over a hump as I figured we'd be doing it in dark later on...I had Martino writing this down when I came across the spectator point and was probably very ordinary through there. Regarding the humps, the Proflex is a wonderful thing but I tried looking after the car. One thing I suffered on in this stage was generally going in 4th or 5th gear (like 3rd or 4th in any car as the Evo's seem to have really short gearing) over crests and not knowing what was on the other side so I'd naturally lift off. After being out of the drivers seat for a year it is definately something that I am going to have to grow some balls again regarding. One of the aspects of the turbo 4WD's have that makes life easier here is when I wuss out on these crests: driving range of the engine is 3,500 - 5,500 rpm. Say going over the crest at anywhere in the power curve i.e. 4,500. When I turn into a wuss on the crest, I lift off, bleeding about 10 - 20kph off which is 1,000 rpm. When I see where I am going I plant it again, and the engine is now at 3,500 rpm - right at max.boost, max torque, max power. Where as in the Trueno, I'd often drop out of the power band by a few hundred revs and you lose precious time getting it back there.
At service, looked like the tyres had only been working on the inside half of the tyre due to the camber of the tyre. Also picked up a slow flat at some point from a nail!
SS5, I think this was an indication of things to come as the dust was pretty stupid. It doesn't have our time on this stage on the results but I think Martino said it was half a minute slower than the first pass and I had a better setup and driving this time. We crawled sometimes so slowwwwwly. But I figured it was probably the same as for everyone.
SS6, I just started missing things. Notes we had put in from the first run such as 'Don't Cut', I still cut. Just unintentionally. So the signs were there. Not thinking - kind of like this post - it came to a crux on a !!RGR and as I can't remember anything in particular about the preceeding 5 seconds or so, I presume I was just driving to what I could see not what I was being told. The tyre marks show that I only responded when I had gone past the apex!!! Very impressive indeed, not. I threw it sideways to try and make it as I had pulled that off a few times earlier on! As the car was out on the loose stuff, 4WD's still seem to obey the same form of physics and we just kept going off deeper. We were about to go off the edge when I saw the field ahead was full of fallen trees and stumps preceeded by a drop, so I straightened the car and went in straight rather than rolling it as the drop was probably about a meter.
All good, I selected reverse and almost made it to the road before jamming the car on a fallen tree stump with a wheel or two up in the air. It may seem hard to believe but we were laughing while we were waiting - Gemma later said to me that we sounded pretty happy on the radio, whether because of our performance straight out of the blocks or the fact that the car was probably going to roll going off the side of the road sideways -.
Recovery came along eventually - I apologise for not getting their names - Hippensteels maybe? - normally Gemini crew. They tried pulling us off the log(s) but we just kind of turned on the spot, 90 degrees. All we were missing was the whale moan. Realising that people power, or high lift jack, was necessary, we figured that was 'game over' and our flotilla of service crew were on its way so we left it there. Eventually with the service crew we lifted the car with sticks, stones and rocks and jacks and pulled the stump out. Looks like the car has some funny toe-out angles and the front right wheel is back about 10mm too far possibly due to the jumps with the cross member spreading etc. Martino has photos of the stump under the car etc so I'll see if we can wack them somewhere to point and laugh at.
So, it was a privilege to run at the pointy end of the field on our first decent attempt in the new car. Mitch Heffernan & Renee was obviously in a league of his own and gives us something to aim for...and good to see Darren Gee and Jamie at their 2004 RoC best!
Probably got a bit lucky with the swept roads but I wanted to end up within a second of a kilometer best case of the front runners in the ACT Series, at best, before the rally and I think we achieved that! We're going to try and make it for Bathurst, 9th May, as the ACT Series chances are a bit root-ied at the moment.
Thanks for reading!
Mark
A good couple of minutes lost there....
Linear Mode
