Just a few words on our 3rd rally ... who am I kidding ! WE WON! The rally was run at Oberon in the pine forests on a damp/dry rocky surface with the sun shining. First stage we came out with smiles from ear to ear , the roads were fantastic and very rocky and hard on the cars . I worked on better lines and better braking technique and concentrating on the notes being given to me.

 

After the first 4 stages we were leading to my surprise, by 5 seconds, then they decided to cancel stage 4 due to someone getting totally bogged and holding up a few cars , this put us back down to 2nd, 3 seconds behind the leader. After lunch we ran another 4 stages and took the lead again with a 17 second gap before meal break . The next two stages were to be run in the dark , this was the first time I had every driven in the dark in my rally car on dirt , oh and what an eye opener ! We were re-seeded as car 1 , good for dust , maybe not for roos, lucky Skippy that ran out in front of us decided to retreat back to the bush!

A weekend of learning and getting into the groove was what it was all about.

The surface was dry as the Nullarbor in summer and as powdery as the fresh snow in the alps, grip was about the same as an ice skating rink, give me mud any day!
We started off ok with some heart in the mouth stuff on corners that I felt should have been marked as did others, but weren't, but that is what it is all about.
We were coming to terms with the notes being very close together on some sections that was very fast, that could bring you undone, we over shot two corners on junctions that required 180's to rejoin, two off roads that required a down change and more throttle to access the road again and we ended day one in 5th place with some good times. One was equal 3nd, 4 seconds off the fastest time. We were 2 min down on the leader and 30 odd seconds on the next car.

By day two I was comfortable with the car again (2 months no dirt you see) and came to terms with the grip and not locking the brakes and sliding wide. We set out on stage one on the pipe, nailed the first half which felt like 11/10's, and was spot on as it was a repeat stage still fresh in my mind ....until we missed a caution jump and launched the car where one would reach for oxygen ;)
We landed flat on the belly and instantly got a miss fire, we lost 1 min + as we were at idle the rest of the way out of the stage.

 

The rotor button had collected two pins in the Dizzy cap and ripped them out. We then fitted a spare cap and all was good for the next stage.

The stages were very loose and rocky , and using them many times both ways leaves a hump in the middle of the road, many jumps later the sub frame had bent at the rear and twisted the steering rack forwards, this then gave too much angle in the steering shaft uni joints so they were almost unable to turn more than 90deg.
We did the last stage which was very fast and flowing (best one all weekend) and kept it neat and tidy as I had no steering lock, we set 3rd fastest time, 8 seconds off the pace.

The end result was 6th outright, 3rd in our class, 1 min 33 sec behind the outright leader. Once I got in the groove I was happy to push hard without mistakes. That's what rallying is all about.
The engine power from my fresh motor was incredible, and with more experience on notes and driving it will happen!

The picture is of day two on the first stage where we were on song, it was a fast up hill into a 45deg right then straight into a 160deg hair pin. My service crew say that we looked the fastest through here out of the top 5 cars,
bias maybe ...:)

Where can I start :) What a weekend !!! It was as wet as Tropical Darwin in the middle of Cyclone Tracy, first stage was a taste of mud, mud and more mud, 15 K's into the first stage we got a punture and with 10k's to go we had to stop and change it, too easy ... I thought, the scissor jack thread seized on the way up which made it the longest tyre change in history, two cars went past before we got back on track. We caught the last one that went past and came out of that stage that claimed at least 6 cars off the road including Burke & Moore team partners.
I now had an idea how much grip rally tyres give, even though they were not so new, the grip in the mud was like road tyres on the wet grass, and with the idea of only rear wheel drive was a taily one at that !
There was some very quick stages with 2-3 k's of straight road over blind crests that I wasn't keen to hold on, as you didn't know if the road was going left or right. We ended day 1 in 18th position and the last 3 stages were top 10 times including my two half spins on slippery hairpins (bloody rear wheel drive), with the last stage being 5th fastest on tyres that were so worn I swore to Owen that we had a flat.
We ended the weekend in 15th.