Bathurst

[Ric Cary]

Unofficial Results

Keogh
Croker
Sandy

Michael South was leading at the meal break and stuck it off/hit something in the First Sunny Corner stage, Kelvin Crocker had problems with a flat as did Michael Boaden,Kelvin Crocker Hit a Roo in the First Sunny corner stage Miles Sandy had an intercooler pipe come loose in Hen and Chicken, Chris Judson was also up there with the leaders until he broke a front lower control arm.Chris Giddens had a gearbox selector problem and withdrew


" some or all of the above may be true some might be complete BS but its the info I managed to find"For a while it looked like we might have had the first 2wd State round winner for many a year!!

[AussieNav]

I was under the impression that Gav Croker came second to Mal and I know that Kelvin hit a big Roo while coming back from an earlier flat tyre.

I believe this was near the speccy point in the Sunny Corner night stage. Southy's incident was only around the corner as well.

[Matt Sosi]

The provisional results is:
1st: Mal keogh
2nd: Gavin Croker
3rd: Miles Sandy

It was Kelvin who had problems in the first night time stage in Sunny Corner after hitting a roo.

Matt

[AussieNav]

You will have to learn to type just that little bit quicker there young Matt!

Unless you left early I guess you were didn't make it to Bathurst Matt?

It will be interesting to hear the reports, that event always seems to have a sting in its tail. I can't remember there ever being a start to finish victory in the years that I have been going there.

[Matt Sosi]

Dale

Left Bathurst at 7.30am and at my parents place by 10.15am in Sydney. Not bad going I suppose.

Regarding the event, I really enjoyed it. A bit rough in spots but that the typical nature of the area. Had to do 13km in dust in Arkstone dropping about 1 minute to our main contenders. I thought the road book was good and controllies were useful, in some areas.

Matt

[justinb]

I'd like to say that for the 4 stages that we did, the road book was fantastic!!! very accurate...

Thanks to all the controllies that were out there getting cold for us to have some fun..

and thanks to the guys at the end of stage 4 keeping me entertained and offering me a cuppa whilst our crew were in recovery mode.

Thanks for the event BLCC


Justin

[kam_baker]

Mal's the man!!!

In regard to the road book, at the front of the field there was many complaints, inaccurate and a few calls that should have been but weren't.

As for rough, yes it was but that in the main is attributed to the lack of rain.

[tulipharvester]

I have to agree that road book was pretty good... and busy enough to keep us navigators entertained!

Pity the transport to Black springs wasn't a tarmac special stage though. The weather was perfect for scenic high speed drive.

Go the 2wds - Southy you should have finished damn you!!!

[Martino]

Very Short version.

Boss Hair, seeded 17 finished 6..

A couple of serious attempts to damage car, one involved lining up a reflector picket with the Oil cooler (stage 10), the other was some indecision on whether to roll the car over on its left hand or right hand side (think it was stage 7).

I almost lost my voice on stage 9 when I got excited, because I could only just read my road book with the way I had set the light up and started shouting down the terra-phone.

We did have a fastest stage time for stage 6 (from memory), which was very amusing as we were having quite bad break knock off. Until someone corrected their maths mistake.

Thanks to
Gemma, Jilly, Mark, Martin, Simon and Tamsey

[Annatastic]

My first Bathurst couldn't have been more fun.....or should I say Excellent!
I was really looking forward to getting out there and experiencing some FWD action.
First off Glenn is a absolute champ. Completely relaxed and out there primarily to have fun (which we had bucketloads of). He's a fantastic driver who pulled things out of that Excel that I didn't think were possible

I'm not real great at event reports, but having a run in that car has certainly changed my perception of what these little FWD cars are capeable of.

Panorama was a hoot. Didn't glance at the speedo, but Glenn told me at the stop point that it read about 185. Cool. We beat the other Excel by a few seconds and the Mirage as well.
Excellent fact number 1 - those little engines can take alot of punishment.

Hen and Chicken lane was great fun as well. Pretty fast, but not much for me to do other than sit back and enjoy, which was fine with me as I got to have a look at some left foot braking and how to get a FWD sideways, bringing me to...
Excellent fact number 2 - These cars can get sideways with the best of them, it kind of caught me out, but there would be plenty more of it.

Other than losing time on the 4th (?) stage due to a flat, we were on pace with the Mirage of Peter Jerie and were hoping to be on pace with him for the rest of the event.

By far the best stage of the day was the longest SS5. Glenn was having a big go, and it was great. There were a few rocky bits and pieces, but hey, the Excel was up to it. The stage was reasonably flowing and pretty fast in some parts. I think there might have even been a couple of jumps in there that we got air off! At the end of the stage I know I was grinning like a cheshire cat, pretty sure Glenn was too.
Excellent fact number 3 - The car was running standard brakes, absolutely standard, and they were amazing. They are probably the thing I was most impressed by, well that and Glenns ability to use them!

Unfortunately in the 6th stage we hit a bit of a bank on the inside of a reasonably tight right hander, and broke the steering rack, buggar. Managed to drive out the last 6-8 kms with the steering getting progressively worse. Then we had to park it. Once stopped the bonnet was popped and inspection of the damage meant that our event was looking grim. The panel damage didn't look all that bad surprisingly. I tried to turn the steering wheel to the left, all kinds of bad noises followed so out went the ok sign and Bathurst was over for us.

Massive thanks to Glenn for the ride, loved it! And to his service crew who did a great job all day and to his wife Jess, who brought us warm Pizza after we'd DNF'd

I'm so thankful for being given the opportunity to have a ride in one of these cars. They are such a good thing. Almost hard to believe that I was in a Excel!
FWD, filthy and a bit wrong, yes, Excel's possibly even more so...... but I was blown away by that little car and find myself spreading the word.... 'Don't bother with a Datsun, get yourself and Excel' Scary isn't it


A.

[Spac]

Went up and serviced for Pete and Matt J in the Stanza.

Seemed to be a short service break after every stage... The newly-EFI'd Stanza had an issue with the throttle linkages sticking open, early in the day, and that cost them about 90 seconds.
Then they had a flat tyre, which seems to have cost 'em about seven and a half minutes (!).
Then they had a spin and bent a rear quarter panel nad pushed the rear bumper over by about 150mm (but the bumper itself is still straight!).

Pete was pretty pi55ed off, and wanted to withdraw. Fro and I talked him out of it, based on the lack of 2WDs still running, particularly as it looked like Southy was going to DNF - this meant Pete was definitely going to score some State P4 points, provided they made it to the finish.
So he was sent back out with strict instructions to "just drive around and get to the end".

Next service, he and Matt are both a lot happier with theselves, the car, the roads, the roadbook and (most importantly) their speed.

So, in the end, they finished 4th 2WD, second P4, which sounds a lot better than it was (given Southy's DNF, Inall only doing the short event, and the absence of King, Lettuce, Elven, Waterhouse etc etc).

We then had a few beers, ate some dodgy left over pizza, which upset my stomach, and I couldn't get to sleep. Then got up at some stupid time in an attempt to get back to Harrison Borough's christening at 11:15am (and was only 45 minutes late...).

[Jme]

.... I picked the winner right- Mal Keogh was the man, but Southy surprised me early- for sure Oberon is the place to be quick in a 2wd, it's been proven many times before- I'd have thought top 5 maybe in that field, but to be leading was a top effort. Gerald Schofield was on it- a huge form reversal that I didn't see coming either. Anyways..

Gav and I ended up 9th 0/R and 2nd Clubman. We had a pretty good run with the exception of following in Opie's dust (flat) for 15k before passing him in Arkstone, which cost us a ridiculous amount of time... at least 1m 20 maybe even more. Most stage times were in the top ten or close to it... a couple of 6th fatsest in Sunny Corner. Tanked into trees coming out of the Speccie point at the bottom of Macabee's Rd and belted in the drivers door... which cost us any chance of 8th. We had to take about 10 seconds out of Plenderleith on his own driveway pretty much. Knew it was next to hopeless, but we just had to have a dig. Got dust when we caught the Celica in front near the end and Ian busted a huge time as expected....(3rd O/R I think)

The first 2 stages are pretend rallying and the plan was to just get through... which we did. Hen and Chicken is just a stupid stage in my opinion... it's fast, slippery and doesn't read very well at all. Gav saw 205 on the Beemerang stage, so got knows what we had on Hen and Chicken or Conrod!

I reckon the roadbook was OK. You've got to read the road still, you can't expect everything to be called. My only gripe is that the caution's weren't consistant. !! Cautions that you can take flat, and then a ! Caution that will break the car. Sunny Corner would be a bloody hard place to write a book for.....

Dingo was exactly the same as Oberon. I think the fastest times in Oberon were Mitch at 9.05, Kari at 9.08 (2nd pass) and Gee 9.11. At Bathurst Gav Croker busted an 8.30!!! Gav (Neale) was pissed off after loosing time in the previous stage and put down an 8.56 which felt pretty damn quick- but was only about 10th fastest. Schofield was at 8.53 which would be the best part of a minute faster as well... Brendan Thomas 8.57, Mel Mazzei 8.59, Session's 9.00.... interesting formline methinks.

[Haggers]

Glenn

With PR like this you know I will have to get one !

Haggers

Originally Posted by Annatastic

FWD, filthy and a bit wrong, yes, Excel's possibly even more so...... but I was blown away by that little car and find myself spreading the word.... 'Don't bother with a Datsun, get yourself and Excel' Scary isn't it


A.

[The Fazz]

Originally Posted by Haggers

Glenn

With PR like this you know I will have to get one !

Haggers

Haggers,

You absolutely have to. It still surprises me how good it is out of the box

Anna,

Thanks for kind words. We did have a huge amount of fun which offset any disappointment in the DNF. You did an impeccable job in the silly seat.


Anna's comments about our progress are pretty much spot on. We had enough speed when we needed it and the car is very strong. Our time in SS3, which is the roughest in the event, was particularly competitive.

The breakage that caused us to stop (broken steering rack housing) was completely my fault and I'm surprised there wasn't much more damage.

Mental note for next time: When you're the only one left in the series and you therefore look like extending your lead by 22 points....slow down

See you all at the Canberra Rally Experience!
Who's up for some Dirty and Wrong FWD action?

[Corty]

Sounds Like these Excel jiggers are a good thing.

Hagger do i smell a plan forming, or did u just remove your shoes LOL

Hagger could u handle the throbbing grunt of the Excel.

How did you finish up at the dirt circuit, no more carnage ????


Matt