Well, at long last the big event came off. Our involvement with the Golden Egg Farms Rally Team West helped in a big way, but the bottom line was that we ended up being competitors..
The event effectively began on the Monday 8th November. I had decided that I could still do a days work, but there was documentation to attend to and some final issues with the car to sort out. I dashed from morning surgery into the city to meet up with my co driver, Lee, and get our licenses sighted, forms signed and petrol paid for. Needless to say there were other competitors doing the same thing and so it all took longer than expected. But all part of the starting buzz.. I had had to have a seat changed in the car to comply with an international event criteria and had not yet sat in the seat.... After a rushed afternoon surgery, I dashed down to Fremantle to the workshop, to make sure that the seat was fine.
The car was still having some bits and pieces done to it and the first drive after the major service had left the car with an unusual noise. Dennis and Brent (two of the mechanics) had isolated the noise and it was going to be fixed the following day. We would have started recci by then, but that did not matter. The seat was fine, with the seats being rigidly fixed into the car, it is not easy to move them forward or backwards. The stickers had started to go on and the GPS tracking device (again necessary for International events) was yet to go in.. I headed back home, happy with the way the car was running and confident in the boys ability to have the car completely ready for the start of the event in a few days time.
Recci was to start on the Tuesday morning, bright and early, and so Lee had decided to stay over at our place to save some time the following morning. We went through the recci schedule and checked to ensure that there was plenty of leeway time. Recci is where we go over the same course that the rally is going to be run over, but we do so at a slow speed and take notes to describe all the corners and changes in the road. We would be taking our own pace notes. The notes basically grade a corner between 1 and 6, with 1 being a tight hairpin and 6 being just off straight. We also describe crests, jumps, gates and anything else that may be important when driving as fast as you can over the same bit of road in a Rally car, at full song....
With plenty of pencils, rubbers, empty books, maps, etc packed and ready we relaxed for the night. Cathy and the kids had put together a rally pack for us, including party poppers, energy bars, super strong deodorant!!, go faster socks, etc.. With Dad and Lindsay there as well it made for an entertaining supper. As always, with Cathy, it was a very touching gift and I guess it also brought everyone into the event.
Click Route
MapWe had to be on stage (i.e. at the start of the Recci) at 7 am and that meant driving 120 km to be there. We planned to leave at 5 ish.... We were going to be recci-ing in a rally car. I had leased an older car off Dennis, a Galant VR4. If possible it is always preferable to do recci in a similar car to the car that you will be doing the event in and it is also a good opportunity to “get into the groove” driving a rally car again.
We headed off as planned and drove down to the start of the Recci day. The drive down was an opportunity to get to know the car and to make sure that we had not forgotten anything. We arrived and there was already people waiting to start. Brief paperwork and we were off. The stages were great, the weather was cool and damp (very unusual for the time of year) and it was great to be in a rally car again. We get to go over every stage twice, once to take the notes and once to check that the notes do represent what we are driving on. We did four stages before lunch and everything was going well. I was happy with the notes, the car was fine and we were rallying....
We had arranged for Dad to come down to the area to be around in case we had any problems with the car and we met up with him briefly at our lunch break. One of the great advantages of having mobile phones.. The first two stages had been around Harvey and the Stirling dams and the next two where near Dwellingup. After lunch we headed north to do some of the stages around Mundaring. The first couple of these were fine, but at the end of the second, one of the officials noted that we had some smoke coming out of the car. Stopping to have a look there was some "hot sounds" coming from under the bonnet. It did not look good. As we were recci-ing and not driving at break neck pace, we decided to push on through the next stage and see how things went.
Well, they went from bad to worse, the car would occasionally cut out and not run as well. We were still calling the notes, but struggled to the end of the stage. The temperature gauge had not been doing anything sinister and had been were it had been all day, but clearly things were not right.
Arriving at the end of the stage it was clear that there was some serious problems with the car. Luckily the end of this particularly stage had us near the Mundaring Weir and a main road. We borrowed phones ‘til we had sufficient signal and spoke to Dennis and Cathy. Dad was called upon to come out to bring us another car and we had to wait. Recci is carried out on a very tight schedule and if something like this happens and you are not able to finish noting, then it will mean that you do not have pace notes for those effected stages, in the actual rally. Luckily for us we only live about 35 minutes away from Mundaring Weir and it was not long before Dad arrived.
We abandoned the VR 4 and continued in the trusty old Falcon. We added Dad to the passenger list and continued on with Recci. We had one more stage to recci and we had to check that the notes that we had taken were fine. As things turned out the notes seemed fine and the Falcon was able to cope with the dirt roads without any problems. So we were able to finish Recci and had secured the full days notes as needed. We still had a day to go, but we were relieved, to say the least.
We then dashed back home to get the Landcruiser and trailer to recover the VR4. I left Lee at home to tidy up the notes and Dad and I headed back to the bush. Apart from being a further extension to the day, it was an uneventful recovery and we were home and having some supper by about 7, I guess. Still it was a very long day.
Another early start and slight apprehension about whether the Falcon would be up to the task. Back out to Mundaring to do the Beraking stage first. This was a stage that I had been previously warned about. It is a bit of a car wrecker and here we were pace noting in a standard Falcon! Still we had a back up plan once again. Instead of Dad hanging around in the Falcon, he was now having to hang around in the Landcruiser! The roads were still a bit damp and this particular stage was set in some valleys and forest down near the Mundaring Weir. This meant that the roads would not be drying out in a hurry.
It certainly was muddy in places, but the Falcon managed it all, with some “tail wagging” exploits, it has to be said.. On our second run through Beraking we managed to pass someone else who had not been so lucky, parking their 4WD into a tree, mid stage.
A further two stages in the Mundaring area and we had done another section of the pacenoting. We only had the one section to do and that was down near Bannister, the Sotico stages. I have always liked that part of WA for Rallying and it is where the Sotico Rally is always held. It’s an hour and a half south of Perth, but well worth the trip.
The stages were great and in really good condition, they would not stay that way after 3 days of Rally Australia, but they looked great. The roads are much more open and flowing than in other sections of the event and very fast times will be expected. It is also the home of the famous Sotico jumps, these are a series of 3 jumps, one after the other, coming down hill. Then immediately followed by a water splash and tight corner.
Recci-ing was straight forward and the Falcon performed faultlessly. Dad and Lindsay got to sit around in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do. After our previous days experiences I was very glad that they were around.
Well, we had done the tedious bit, we had a complete set of pace notes and could relax a bit. The only stage that we had not driven over was the Super Special Stage at Gloucester Park. That was to be done later on Wednesday evening. We scooted off back to Perth, but not much of a break as the car had to go to Scrutineering (the Rally car that is) and we were also expected to do some work for our sponsors.
Scrutineering was carried out at Gloucester Park and took place after we had done our final piece of Recci work. We had also arranged to have a shake down lap of the Super Special Stage. This was were we were able to go around the stage, in the rally car, with a person from the sponsors.
At scrutineering the car was checked to make sure that it complied with all the necessary requirements, that our helmets, suits, etc, were all ok and that the car was correctly homologated to the necessary standards as set down by the FIA. We had a slight glitch, in that one of the seats appeared to be out of date and we had to make arrangements to have the seat changed and to represent to the scutineers by 11 am the following morning. To most of us this would have been the cause of great panic, but the crew took it all in their stride. Phone calls were made, deals done, and a seat was sourced from one of the other WA competitors. It is one of the advantages of being involved with a group of people who have been in the Rallying community in WA for such a long time, i.e. Dennis and the rest of the service crew.
I had gone off to bed, as the event starts proper tomorrow, but was later to discover that they had sorted the seat out and had had it rechecked by the scrutineers, by midnight that night!
This evening was to mark the official start of the event and so the early part of the day was spent relaxing and taking it easy. I went through some of the refueling points, that were going to be necessary during the rally, something that had been bugging me for a day or so and cleared that up, in my own mind. I gathered my gear together and packed an overnight bag. We had been advised that even though I live in Perth that you really need to be in the City if you are a competitor in the big event. We had managed to book an appartment in the City, only 15 minutes walk from Gloucester Park and also only 10 minutes walk from Rally Head Quarters. Perfect.
Dave Gould and Wayne Marshall, in car 87, the other car in being serviced by our team, and myself and Lee, would be staying at the appartment.
We checked in and dropped some stuff off. The excitement was certainly beginning to mount... The clock ticked by and we had to be at Gloucester Park late in the afternoon for the ceremonial start and drive through the start ramp. We wandered across to Gloucester Park and waited around. The crew was all present, even though they would not have a great deal to do on this first day.
One moment of light heartedness was when we all (the competitors) had to change in to our race gear. Being an international event, we had to wear full fireproof underwear, as well as our race suits. For this first day we had not changed at the appartments and so had to change in the Service Park. Needless to say we are not big professional teams and so had to change into the gear with the rest of the crew making appropriate comments and having a laugh at our expense... We wouldn’t be doing that again.
We had our moment of being introduced and then driving up and over the start ramp. Our country of origin being displayed, by one of the Rally Oz girls walking ahead of the car.
Then it was back to Parc Ferme to await our first Stage. The Super Special Stage at Gloucester Park. We were being run in reverse order and so would not have to wait too long.
My first run over the stage, as we would be doing the same stage 4 more times over the course of the event, was particularly slow, but there is a long way to go. Rally Australia involved 388 km of competitive stages, it would certainly not do to make a mistake on the first 2 km stage...
Dave also got through ok, then we parked the cars up and went to watch some of the big competitors strut their stuff. They are so quick it is embarrassing to watch their times be so much faster than ours. But not everyone finished. One of the WRC Fords had smoke pouring from its engine and that would be that for the night and weekend for them. The weather had started to turn wetter and wetter, but we were in the event and it had started.. There were even fireworks at the end of the evening. So off to bed..
The first proper day, we had a reasonably early start, but not too uncivilised. Getting up around 7 to get over to Parc Ferme and pick up the car. We all had our set start times, and all things being equal, it would be a case of following our start times and completing each task as it appeared, whether it be s Special Stage, a liaison between stages, or service..
Our first stages were Stirling West and Stirling Long. The roads were great and the weather cool and damp, perfect for rallying. In a car with no air conditioning and not even being able to have the windows open during a stage (due to safety reasons) we were all quite grateful for the unseasonal cooler weather. There were a couple of cars off the road in the first couple of stages, the attrition count had already started. I had elected to settle into things and so our pace was not electric, but was fair enough. The following two stages were Murray North and Murray South. We picked up fuel prior to these and came across one of our fellow competitors out of fuel and therefore out of the event... Someone had miscalculated.
Murray North and Murray South brought us to our first real exposure to plenty of spectators, we acquitted ourselves reasonably well, until the last few km of Murray South, where a tight right and then left corner saw me hit a bank reasonably hard and cause a puncture. There was still about 5 km to do in the stage and a whole lot of Rally Oz to go and so we elected to change this in mid stage. This is always a difficult decision as it means that you will loose a heap of time, but despite this we still changed the tyre. It took us about 5 minutes or so. Consequently adding 5 minutes to our stage time. Dennis had been spectating for this stage and had seen our little incident. He was more worried about our steering being knocked off or other suspension damage. There was no concern as the car was tracking fine and the steering was not knocking. Luckily we were off to a tyre fitting / flexi service and so the boys were able to swap the spare (flat) tyre, with a new spare and tyre. It is always a worry when you get a flat, that if you have further stages to go that you will suffer another flat and have to drive on a flat tyre, as you have no spare. But that was not a problem for us. The other issue when something like this happens is that you have to get back on the pace as quickly as you can. Another one of those little mind games to think about and consider.
We now had a long liaison back to the Hills, via Perth. But we had started the event, had now done 5 stages and were still going well. Some people had already fallen by the way side and it is as well to remember, that to finish first, you first have to finish...
The next stage was Beraking and it was definitely the lowest driving performance of the day for me (and also the rally). No excuses, but plenty of reasons. We were a bit rushed at the start of the stage, the liaison had been a bit tighter than we had expected and that always starts you on the wrong foot. We seemed to go off the notes very quickly, which effectively meant that we were having to drive the road as we saw it. The sun was also setting and that meant that it was low in the sky and shining through the windows, almost blinding us. Finally the flat in the previous stage had caused a little body work noise, we had another tight left hander and again hit a rock, no puncture this time, but there was some body work noise again. I did not think that it was anything serious, but it was off putting all the same. All of these “things” lead to a pretty slow time and that is always a little annoying...
We promptly followed it with easily the best stage of the day, in Helena South. Much more my type of stage and we really flew along. It was the last proper stage of the day, and it was good to finish on a higher note. We still had another couple of runs of the Gloucester Park stage to do and the main service of the day, but we were in good shape.
The service was pretty uneventful for us, no major problems with the car. The boys tidied up around the wheel arch were the flat was and there was nothing too serious, the inner arch guard always get ripped up a bit when you get a flat. The two stage runs at Gloucester Park were faster than the previous night, but not up to the pace of my contemporaries, but I have never liked that particular stage and nothing had changed so far.
More fireworks and off to bed, eventually getting there at about midnight. Big days and short nights...
Very pleasant start time today, not having to be back to Parc Ferme until 9.20 ish and so that helped a little. All the stages today would be around the Mundaring area and some are nicer than others, but all good fun.
We headed out to Beraking’s second run for the event. Having not done so well last time, I was keen to make some amends today. The weather had been improving through the course of the weekend and was likely to be hot tomorrow. The car was running fine. Our second run through Beraking was a big improvement. We managed to knock a minute and a half off our first run through time. Dave Gould was the other driver in our team and even though he was in a 2 Wheel Drive I was trying to keep up with his times. On and individual stage basis, we were having no problems, but our little puncture robbed us of over 5 minutes and my task was to get the time back. We were about 2 ½ to 3 minutes behind Dave.
Our second stage of the day was Helena East and still things were going well. The next stage saw us loose a fair degree of power. The car seemed to be running fine and once we had speed up, it was ok, it was just that we seemed to have lost significant amounts of torque. That crucial urge that pulls you out of a corner or up a slippery slope, had really gone. We had no service for 3 stages and so had little choice to drive within the problem. As I say, it was not terminal, but it made a big (and frustrating) difference. The mobile phone was used to excess, talking to Dennis and Brent, trying to solve the issue. After the first of these 3 stages the boys had a brief flexi service to have a look, but could not isolate a cause, hardly surprising as we had minimal gear and only 10 minutes. But the next service, in Perth City, was longer and we would have more to play with. We got through the 3 stages, our times were slower, but we were still in the event. We were not able to close that 3 minute gap on Dave, but it certainly was not blowing out. Our times were pretty close, despite the problem.
In the longer service, lots of discussion took place, various things were checked and the final decision was that it was an air flow meter. I guess that this meters and controls the air flow to the turbo, under different demands and situations. It seemed to be that there was some slight corrosion to the wiring to this and not that the meter itself was damaged. It seemed to improve with a bit of a clean up and we were given instructions to ring through with how we felt that the car was running on the way out to the final 3 forest stages of the day.
I guess that made it a slightly tense liaison, but only very briefly, as we soon realised that the car was back to its old self. Luckily. Some provision was being made to get hold of a replacement one, for the last long service of the day, but it was ok.
Our first run through Flynns and that saw us a few seconds faster than Dave, and we continued to pull back time for the remainder of the day. Our second run through Helena West was a few seconds faster than the first (with the problem), as was our second run through Atkins. Only a few seconds, so the problem seemed worse than it really was. The difficulty is always to try to get back into focus and to drive into the groove again. Unlike the big guns it is always a little slow for me to do this. After these three stages we were then back to the city again, for the big service of the day.
We discovered that Dave had had some far more serious dramas, he had had some clutch problems and there was plans a foot to change the clutch in his car, during the service. We had elected to take advantage of something called Flexi Service before the event had started, and this enabled the whole crew to work on Dave’s car, prior to working on mine.
It was a very impressive service, the guys worked really hard, the gearbox was dropped, the clutch fixed up and then all put back together again. This all took place in a 45 minute service, impressive stuff. The boys did it all just going over the 45 minutes, but impressive effort. Dave had his moment of TV exposure, as one of the crews (not sure which) came up and interviewed him. He tried to avoid them, but was not allowed to escape!
But that was not the only high light of the service. For some reason the Rally Australia girls were wandering around the service park, with numerous
photographers. They descended on our service area and by this stage, the boys were working on my car. It was a routine service for my car, with none
of the franticness that had been necessary on Dave’s. Brent in particular, being caught under the car, whilst a girl was leaning over the bonnet, had
a bit of a moment, you might say..
The final stages of the day, were our two runs through the Gloucester Park stage. My times improved again, but still not super quick and more amusingly was that I was up against a Chinese team. They were in a 2WD car and were expected to loose to my more powerful 4WD, but on this small circuit, that I was not too keen on, they just managed to pip me twice. Again, the more amusing side of things was that they were driven by a guy called Wang. Our two entertaining commentators for the crowd were Ross Dunkerton and Rob Herridge, who took every opportunity to use the inevitable fact that I was matched against the “Wang Car”. I could not hear any of it, but apparently it was very amusing.
By the time we got into the appartment, there was some more joking and puns on the Wang Cars, and so to bed for the final day tomorrow.
An early start to this last day, it was a day that I was really looking forward to, as I have always enjoyed the Sotico stages and I also felt that there would be ample opportunity to pull back the 3 minute deficit on Dave. We were off to Flynns and Helena East first, then to Sotico.
Our second run through Flynns saw us knock 30 seconds off yesterdays time and also take 30 seconds off our deficit to Dave. Our second run through Helena East saw us knock another 30 seconds off yesterdays time and again make some more time off Dave. Then it was back to Perth for the final proper service and so on to Sotico.
Bannister North Short was our first stage in the Sotico plantations and that was another good stage for us and we had pulled yet another 30 seconds off Dave’s time. Everything was all going to plan, with 3 more long stages to go before the end of the event, we should comfortably have our 3 minutes back and then some. But it was not to be...
Bannister Central was the next stage and as we went through the stage I hit a rock, this caused another puncture for us and it was only a few km into the stage and so it meant that, once again, we had to change the tyre in the middle of the stage. Again it lost us another 5 minutes and so that was effectively that. It was the old story (in rallying anyway) if you look at the rock, you will hit it. Always try to look at the gap, or away from the item that you don’t want to hit... That’s rallying!!
We fixed up the puncture, then went into a Remote Tyre service, so was able to get a new spare, but less than happy campers.. The next stage was Bannister North Long and it was one of the best stages of the event for us. Dave had been taking things easy, as much as Dave ever does... but we managed to pass him on this 35 km stage, despite starting 2 minutes behind him. It is the Sotico stage with jumps coming down the hill, into the water splash at the bottom. From a spectators point of view it was interesting as Dave entered the water as we appeared at the top of the hill, we careered down the hill, but Dave had had a problem in the water and had stalled just out of sight to us, after the water, only a hundred meters from the end of the stage.
All of our service crew were watching this part of the stage and Dennis in particular could see disaster about to happen, as both of his team were about to be involved in an accident that would probably see us both out, with only one more stage to go before the end of the event. Lots of frantic waving was noticed by Lee, and we were going slow enough to be able to avoid Dave and finish the stage ahead of him.
The last stage of the day saw another run through Bannister Central and this confirmed that it had taken just under 5 minutes to change our tyre, as we were 5 minutes faster than the previous run through.
We had almost done it, no more special stages left to run and only the liaison to go through. That was tedious and completed. We had a brief service and then up to the official finish and collect the Finishers Medal and so to the final Parc Ferme. We had done it. 25th outright, not a bad effort for a first time run.
There was a barbie in the service area after the event. Cathy came along with Jack. I then went home to see the girls and Dad and Lindsay, then back out to party the remainder of the night away, eventually falling asleep, shattered but happy..... When’s the next one...
