The
event started out well, a media day was held on the Friday, our car
was used, as well as Tony Sullen's Subaru WRX and John Mitchell's Mitsubishi
EVO, it allowed us to give a couple of the event's sponsors a ride in
the cars, this was great for them as they had never experienced anything
like it, other than playing Playstation,
the smiles on their faces as they exited the cars was well worth the
effort of holding the day. It also allowed us a short stint in the car
to see if it was going to be ok for the weekends event, the car had
not been driven competitively since Port Panthers, so we were going
into the weekend without any on road testing . The car felt good, the
rear shocks had been replace with Proflex to match the front and it
felt so much better to drive, all was looking well for the rally ahead.
Saturday
Heat 1 - SS1.
The first stage........it started well, then it all went wrong, the
shocks failed half way through the stage and the alternator light was
glowing red and to top it off, the car had massive fuel surge even though
the tank was full, we still managed a good time being 10th fastest.
SS2.
We had a bit of a moment during this stage, the car had no handling
ability at all and was all over the place, so rather than risk damaging
the car we decided to pull out at the end of this stage and use that
time to fix the car ready for the following days heat. We were disappointed
that we couldn't continue but determined to come backing fighting in
Heat 2 on Sunday.
We
drove the car to Tony Sullen's and put it on the hoist, our trusty service
crew pulled all the broken bits out while we drove home to get the replacement
shocks, we replaced the alternator, replaced the shocks and tried to
work out where the fuel surge was coming from, within a few hours the
car was back together and ready for round 2.
Sunday
Heat 2.
The
car was running great, the mysterious fuel surge problem didn't show
itself all day, so we had nothing to stop us !!!
The
day
started with rain, and we made the decision NOT to run wets, we thought
it was going to clear up and the sun would shine, this was where we
were wrong, it rained for most of the day, so after the 2nd stage we
changed the tyre's to mud's and we were on a mission again. We continued
through the day getting fast times, Stage 3 Middle ridge we were 4th
fastest, and 1st 2WD, we didn't think we could do much better until
we came to the last stage the Famous "Watagan Forest Drive"
I drove this with nothing to lose, the car felt good, the road felt
good, I was on a charge, we ended up 1st equal fast with Peter Roberts,
this was the highlight of the weekend, having never driven the road
at speed before it was good to get out there and give it a go.
The
overall results for
the weekend gave us a finishing place of 5th on sunday (1st 2wd) and
11th over the weekend, because we did not finish on the Saturday, we
were unable to get a high result overall but we know the car is fast,
and after a few modifications we will be ready for the next round at
Bathurst in April.
