Go for it.

Ok update at the end of day three and about half race distance.....

First the good news.... I spoke to the girlfriend of the navigator in the Porsche this morning and he stood up yesterday. Not for very long but everything works and he is expected to make a full recovery. A fantastic result given such a shit situation.

Now there was absolute carnage out there today. Thankfully (as far as I am aware) no one was hurt. At least 6 cars off on the 2nd stage alone.

We were two cars behind Millar and they were waving like all shit to slow down but I could see both the cars and they weren't on the line so I didn't slow too much. It didn't even occur to me that there was oil there. I sure couldn't see it. I am not for one second saying it wasn't there because Millar is a great driver and ended up pointing right on a left hand corner. i.e. he must of hit oil to spin him around like that. Good news is I saw his car in Strahan tonight so I would suggest he is going to restart tomorrow.

Dave Heaton came off in his Evo. It was about 500m into the stage and was at the end of the straight. It looked like the rear brakes locked up and it swapped ends on him rather quickly. I got a text from Bobo that they are restarting tomorrow.

Two 996 porsches met their demise. 1 understeered into a cliff face on a very tight right 2 uphill in the same spot someone always goes off. I am pretty sure Paul Summers went off on that same corner in his GT3 years ago. Then another one understeered out of a right 3 or 4 (cant remember) and centred a light pole.

One of the Renault Meganes that was leading 2WD showroom had a monumental shit mixer on the last stage and is now round. Everyone is ok.

Matt Close blew up a turbo in his Audi on the last stage but doesn't have a spare so he will be sitting out the weekend.

One of the toranas that was leading classic shat a gearbox so he will be at the pub in Strahan right about now drowning his sorrows.

We have seen the photo of Rex's Porsche. I don't know what happened to that other than he tripped over.

Both the Maloo and the SS ute ran out of road (the maloo yesterday and the ss today) and ended up in a ditch.

An Evo 1 lancer (felt sorry for the guys as they were only very young and had put a whole heap of effort and all their money into it) rolled just around from the corner of where the driver lives. Apparently it happens all the time. People think they know the road, switch off from the notes and then bang. upside down. Everyone was fine.

There were plenty more crashes and breakdowns but these are the only ones that we either saw or heard about.

As for us Chudleigh had a go at me for driving like a girl. I went straight on at a road when I should have turned left. I pulled the handbrake, swung it around and it probably cost us 10 seconds. No big deal. Anyways it was the spark I needed. We went a bit faster the next stage but the last stage of the day is this awesome 33 km run into Strahan. Lots of long sweeping corners over crests, a few decent straights and some nice tight stuff. Anyways I don't know what really happened but our pace just kept building and building. By about 3/4 of the way through we had caught the car in front (a 997.2 GT3 Porka) and I knew we must have been going alright. Had 1 oh shit moment but in hindsight there was plenty of road left. Anyways we got to the end, high 5'd and waited for the results to come in. The tyres had gone off, the brake pedal was a little longer but thanks to no booster there was still plenty there.

There have been a few changes with derived times because of the crashes but after 33km's we were only 5 seconds off winning the stage. Ended up 5th. Beat Jim Richards by 14 seconds. It was a great feeling because we know the car can do it. We know we can do it. It is just whether you want to live that close to the edge for 600 km's for the whole rally. At the end of the day this is just my 6th pace noted rally and my 2nd time here. The last thing I want is to end up in the scenery again. It was worth coming here just for that stage.

Anyways we are currently sitting in 9th. The guy ahead of us has a 2.3 stroker in his evo and was meant to be in demonstration class. If he is still ahead of us on Sunday I will lodge a protest.

We came here wanting to a) finish without dramas b) end up better than last year. So far the car feels awesome and we are considerably faster than last year. We have only covered half race distance so far so anything can happen over the weekend.

Brendon

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