Minidulla

[raybak]

So who won? What are the big stories?

Ray

[brad]

1.Forsyth
2.Fitzgerald
3.Barrett

[Miss]

Results attached

[LP555]

Congratulations and thanks to Lizzy, Pete and all those involved in organising the event . It was a great no-pressure event with some good fast roads (and quite affordable too!! ).

As for my event report - eased into this event (really only my second if I don't count my DNF at FNS2) and took all those corners with the drop on outside perhaps a little too cautiously (refer to FNS2 DNF ). We did have to overcome some adversity, with my nav not feeling 100% for a lot of the time and then losing the intercom - turns out there is a dry connection in the mic on the headset so I did the last two stages without notes. At least I'd had one run through already, so I did remember a few corners.

Anyway, it was a great atmosphere, with great people (officials and competitors alike) and I had a great time (did I mention it was great?). Finally, a BIG thanks to my service crew - Denis (who went above and beyond the call of duty), Josh and Matt - to Charles (my nav) for the company, the transport and the accomodation and to Mel, for being so tolerant while we were out in the forest playing and she was back in the service park listening to the talk of rally nuts.

[Stuart Walker]

We had a fun day sitting by the side of the road. Had a good road closure on the corner of Clyde Ridge Road & Mares Hill Road on stage 2/4, and managed to get photos of almost every car. There were quite a few cars going wide on the corner, & nudging the dirt piled up on the outside of the corner. LOTS of dust when they did, ended up deleting over 30 shots that were just dust clouds. (impressive, but ultimately doesn't show much)

Ended up taking about 120 shots, of varying quality (getting better I think though) and I have posted small versions HERE. If you see one (or more) you want a larger copy of (1984 x 1480 ) email or PM me and I can either email it or put it on a web site for you.

Tony - sorry, only got one blurry photo of the Lancer, as you were hot on the heels of Dominic in car 13 and I couldn't see you for the dust. (I did hear you coming, once Dominic had passed)

We enjoyed the Saturday night at the camp ground, got to meet a few people and put faces to names. Also discovered our reputation had preceded us (or perhaps the Excel's reputation had....) - but I guess if it's a choice between getting spectacularly bogged, and spectacularly DNF'ing another way, I'll stick with getting bogged!


We'll definately do that again!

[AV1611]

Stephen Mee : Driver ill/CV boot.

Nothing more painful than getting a CV boot up ya! Bound to make the best of men feel ill.

Bad luck big fella - holding down a solid 5th outright at the time...

[Mark]

Martino and I went down and serviced for Simey and Mikey. T'was good to catch up with some locals I hadn't seen for a few months and just talk cr.ap. No drama's seemed to be apparent before the event. Of note, was the relaxed atmosphere - a minimum of service crews was around. So we hung out with Ferret and Maddog, Simey and Mikey, Matty T and Tamsey, Bogan and Beth, GefGef and Glen. With a two hour service things were pretty relaxed.

8km drive up a dirt road to the spectator point which looked like a 'RGL tightens into a TL' with a gutter on the outside-at the head of the T. I spectated on the second run through the two stages.

Most people did really well on the spectator point - presumably as it was the second time through. I don't know what drugs Bogan was on though. He blew everyone away in terms of speed into the corner. Easily the best example of 'back it in and gas it' - just looked sideways the whole time as the corner tightened while on the throttle. His speed was so high I thought he was just going to keep sliding into the gutter and roll but the car just hooked up and took off much quicker than it should of. Nice job! I'm just sorry we didn't have video camera running!

Geoff Stewart's clutch destroyed itself on SS3 and Spac and one of his many Volvos got there first. The flat tow solution included what looked like a few strands of string. A few breaks but finally the tow job of the century got underway as we pushed the car uphill at the same time. Two of the pushers jumped on the boot of Geoff's boot while the other two of us ran back to my car to catch up (Names have been left out to protect the guilty) - surely towing with 3 pieces of string wouldn't mean you'd go very fast.
Well, we picked up the first boot surfer 200m down the road and the second another 300m down the road after some downhill - the dismount apparently involving a roll. Regardless, we didn't catch the Volvo or Celica at all! Got to the service park and they weren't there either. Boot surfer 2 thought this would be a good time to calm the nerves with a cigarette of a high speed bail so we went back to the spectator road to find Spac and the Celica surely in need of a push again.
Nope. The bloody Volvo came up tops again still towing the Celica. Comments from the car went:
"Geoff looked pissed..."
"Yeah, he's being beaten by Spac."

Mark

[MadDog]

Dave and I did sweep for the first two stages then 0 for the last two. I had a drive on SS2, and all I can say is that 4wd is cheating . At 140k the subie felt like I was doing about 80 in the frog.
A really well organised and run event, especially liked the camping/service park at shallow crossing, first class.

[rowdytoot]

fantastic event... we had a absolute ball..... great roads, great people, good laughs..

The Sydney -Goulburn - Braidwood route to The bay is massively faster and easier than the coast- 4:30 on the way down-cruisin' and through the fog down the Clyde and just over 4 hours on the way home...

Drove better than I think I ever have (which isn't too hard really), KT was on the money pretty much all day, the atmosphere in the car was great, I think I only got one "take it easy" all day

When the gemi is reading over 160 km/hr you know it's a straight long downhill bit o road! "WooHoo!"... came the call from the LH seat a few times- which is funny cos KT thinks jumping out of a plane @ 14000 ft is "OK, but not that exciting"

Car was no issue SS1-SS3; go the TTS between event support! thanks again boys- it's nice to have a car that's the same every event.

10- 12 km into SS4 the random electrical gremlin hit on an uphill section and killed all the power-switching everything off and back on did nothing.. I jumped out, sent KT down the road to put triangles out, popped the bonnet, shook the battery, swore at it, and when I reached in again and flicked the master all fired back to life. Yelled at KT for a while to run back, and just as she was getting back to the car Dom came past in car 13.

I reckon we lost about 3 minutes to that, given that Dom came past, we couldn't hear the next car when we took off, and the Excel was probably a minute behind into the finish control, where much confusion ensued as Boges was still in the control too. I suspect, but don't really care(cos it makes no difference O/all) that our time should have been 31:24 but no matter..

We had a great time, we'll be back next year, and I could almost be talked into camping - I could definately do with drinking more after than much fun.. I was still buzzing the next day!..

The SKDAC crew did a great job all day- thank!

Like I said.. run one 4 times a year and we'll turn up every time

Golden moments

Mick Ryan's how to count in base 60, and get it right most of the time lesson

KT realising the little black thing that flew in through the roof vent 100m off the start line was a bee which she sat on through all of SS1- it was still alive (just) at the end of the stage.

The TTS fire on Sat. night- any more wood you wanna find boys??

Guy telling me I have to get a locker, webers and a big cam in the gemini.... still not sure that's value for money in the end- probably will get another car instead at some point in the future, just a matter of what!

Given that Molly is a good 1- 2 sec/km faster than me.. there is more speed in the crew yet.

Cheers

Rowds

[legend]

[QUOTE=Q-Rex]Congratulations and thanks to Lizzy, Pete and all those involved in organising the event . It was a great no-pressure event with some good fast roads (and quite affordable too!! ).

QUOTE]

echo all of what you said.

well except the bit about the navigator feeling sick. that isn't part of our report. And i don't want to thank your service crew either. but other than that everything you said.

we only had one small issue, which was an engine that would just stop revving at 6500. so we short shifted most of the day, no big deal. it manifested itself at the turn right at T about 8 ks fromt he finish and we limped the rest of that stage with a hearty misfire, but other than that what a fab little event.

I took a little bet with myself that nobody would crash in this event, and I was right. not one off road. At narooma they run one 37k stage and it claims about 10 cars every year. but i reckon when you run long stages from the start of the rally everyone drives better. just a theory of mine.

oh and 'ted' the kangaroo we hit in stage one. nearly forgot about poor old ted. ( i know his name was ted because when we passed him again in stage 3, I took a look and confirmed that he was indeed roo-ted.)

MM

[mickjfawcett]

well what a great event

my day was mixed however to say the least

having not done an event since oberon we were keen to use this as a shakedown event and start of conservative and build speed on the second run through. i also had not driven with antilag before so we were experimenting with that thoughout some of the stages as well

stage 1 had no dramas and we were driving pretty conservative.

stage 2 however things started going pear shape. 1/3 the way through my fire extininguisher decided it would come undone and roll around the cabin, then my right bonnet pin came undone and we had to stop on one of the fastest sections of the stage to fix that (lossing about 1 1/2 mins) then greg got heat stress and got sick so there goes the notes, but we finnished and that was important.

2nd pass through felt much much better and i started to find some rythm in the car and push harder.

stage 3 felt heeps faster than first run but i set exact time (might have to check the video on that one) greg was still sick so 40% of 3 and 4 was without calls)

stage 4 was a blast and i still cant get the smile of my face. after being cautious through the first 1/2 of the stage we descided to go for it in the 2nd half and the car felt awesome. stage time was 2 1/2mins faster on 2nd pass and i think that was mainly in the last 20klm. its amazing what time in the car does for confidence.

only gripe for the event was the roadbook was pretty ordinary but otherwise a fantastic event and cant wait for next year, great work skdac

ps also more time between competitive stages for the navs may reduce the high sickness level in the crews.

[claude]

Originally Posted by Mick Fawcett

only gripe for the event was the roadbook was pretty ordinary

Dunno what road book you had Mick, ours was pretty good......

Maybe your naviguesser played a small part ?

[Miss]

Originally Posted by mickjfawcett

only gripe for the event was the roadbook was pretty ordinary but otherwise a fantastic event and cant wait for next year, great work skdac

Can't have been that bad if no one crashed... Never been to a rally, or even heard of one, where no one crashed...

[rowdytoot]

from where I was sitting the book was great.... Consistent, accurate etc

Rowds

[mattj]

WOW! Datto Stanza, 2.4lt, webbers, with ian driving = MAGIC! i loved it!

HUGE thankyou to eveyone involved, pete, lizzy, dave, boris, col, trev, al, etc everyone it was just the best day ever!

We need many more events like this short but bloody fun!.
Ian and i cruised down about 10ish to get ready, and with all the pre event bits and pieces out of the way time to get at it.

ss1: slippery to start with, but probably just after the spectator point was pretty good, set good time, compared to brad and the barrets ahead of us on the road, (missed seeing ted though!).

ss2: Sorry for farting before we started spac, didnt smell good did it! Anyway, magic stage as always doing 170kph at 6500rpm is always a blast, long but fun as!, with about 15km to go the reat tyres went off so it was pretty sidways for the remaining distance but ian held it all together nicely and finished with another good time, the temp gauge wasnt working so we hoped all was well.

Service was just a case of fuel, changing rear tyres and eating those steak sandwiches! drool!..... i think we were leading from brad by 1 second, pretty close after so many km's

ss3: second run through the stage and damn this was quick! 17 seconds quicker, which was awesome roads were in great nick, couldn't wait to hit the next stage again!

ss4: this was weird our pace felt quicker i was more on the ball with my calls, ian said he was driving better, the tyres didnt go off and we were 3 seconds slower?, oh well awesome fun regardless!

couldn't believe we won the event i think i was in shock more than anything, it was awesome (still cant really believe it!), oh man cant wait till the next one, bring it on!
BIG HUGE thank you to ian for the ride, i cant wait to be in datsun love again!

cheers
matt