2003 Forest Classic Rally - Wyong

Round 4 State/Round 5 Clubman

The 2003 2GO Forest Classic Rally was held in the Wyong shire on very dry and dusty roads.

Saturday Heat 1 - SS1. This was the most slippery stage I have ever driven, it hadn't’t been used for many years and wasn't’t open to regular traffic due to recent logging, so there was a very dusty loose layer on top, that had us with a few heart in mouth moments, but we still set 10th fastest time and 1st 2wd with 14:40, it also claimed my nearest 2wd competitor, and this made a huge change to our class championship.

SS2. I backed off a bit after SS1, but maybe too much as we were only 14th fastest (2nd 2wd), but all was well with an 11:38.

SS3. This was a rough as guts road to start with, with a heap of jumps, the car seems to have a weak point here and lands nose first, something I will try to sort before the next rally. We pushed and yet we were only 12th fastest and 3rd 2wd….

SS4. This was a road I knew bits of from my younger days bike riding, not that it counted for much. I had been to spectate at the ARC in July on this stage and I had been able to see how the pros took the triangle speci point, this gave me a good idea about what to expect from the corners. It was very slippery and there were two deep wheel ruts to follow which didn’t suit my driving style of backing it in, but I pushed without taking big risks and set a very fast time with a 5:56, only 20 seconds of fastest, giving us 5th fastest. This stage gave us the lead in clubman and we were on track for an outright win in this class.

SS5. This was a repeat of SS1, I wasn't’t looking forward to this stage and tried to be quick, but tidy, we took 4 seconds off our time with a 14:36 giving us 8th fastest, the road was now one of the better roads as it was swept the most, with a good clean line in some spots.

 

SS6. Not sure what went wrong here, the sun was getting very low, we were following in some very thick dust and lost a heap of time on our rivals with only an 11th fastest.

 

Sunday Heat 2.

 

SS8. This was a repeat of SS1 & SS5, I had a fair idea of the 20km stage now, rough as it was, I pushed 100%, as both my rivals had fixed there cars overnight and rejoined. It was very fast with only one moment, which we got out of with no real dramas, the time we did was one of only a handful to go under the 14min bracket, and we set a 13:57 taking 39 seconds off our best run yesterday, also making us 4th fastest & 1st 2WD, it was one that turned a few heads.

SS9. This was a repeat of SS6 from Saturday, it had two very deep wheel ruts and was still quite slippery, we still took 33seconds off our time from yesterday and after our first stage today and the time we set which was 47 seconds faster than our rivals I eased up just a bit.

 

SS10. This was SS4 & SS7 repeated, I had a very good idea on the road now and I pushed to see what time I could do, we took 3 seconds off our best time with a 5:53 which gave us 7th fastest.

SS11. Here we go again, a re run of SS1, 5 & 8, so we were on auto pilot by now, and pushed hard again only to match our fastest time in the morning with 13:57 again J This gave us 6th fastest, I guess the others remembered a bit more ;)

 

SS12. This was SS2 repeated, we took 11 seconds off this run through, and took no risks but kept it fast with 10th fastest.

 

SS13. Last stage of the rally and 4th run through SS4, SS7 & SS10, so this too was on auto pilot, it must have been, as we set the same time again as the morning run with 5:53 giving us 4th fastest.

Heat two we finished with 6th outright and 1st 2WD, this was a great results and netted us 5th outright over the two heats and 1st 2WD.

 

We are leading our class in the state championship and coming a respectable 4th outright also 1st 2wd, we only need 7 points to secure our class for the year with 10 points for 1st at each of the two final round left it is looking very good for our first year.

The clubman class we are also leading our class and 2nd outright, just 2 points behind 1st and with only one clubman round left it makes it hard to win that outright, but not impossible.

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