Guys, The Safari Rally is desperately short of road closure officials. If they don't get more people they will have to shorten the event, and we don't want that. If you have some time available this Saturday to drive up to Mundaring area and watch some top level state rallying while making sure no mountain bikers stray onto the course please let them know. Contact is Wendy Walker from the Light Car club, 0409 315 683 and she will get you a top spot to watch the rally. You can win great prizes as a volunteer official as well thanks to sponsors Western Caravans.
All those people who say "tell me when the next rally is on and I'll come and watch" here's your chance!

Sorry to anyone who rang the incorrect number I listed. Corrected now.

Can't go, absolutely spewin

Already promised i'd help setup for my girlfriends b'day party.

Tom asked if i could pit for him too, ah well.

Best of luck to all competitors (especially the Wildes, Nannup represent!!)

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Fiorious

Strange things did happen. Lee McIllroy had a slight points lead going into this final round over Leigh Hynes. A couple of other drivers were long shots if both didn't finish. Lee McIllroy clipped something and the steering wheel came out of his hands on SS6 and he clouted a bank destroying the front RH suspension of his '05 spec C and his chances of winning the WA Rally Championship.
Leigh Hynes only had to finish in the points to grab his second WARC. For the second time in 3 years his Safari came to a crushing premature end. Mid way through the final test of the rally while running a very conservative pace his clutch failed leaving him stranded. With both the leading drivers out of the running, John Macara was able to secure a 5th state championship in his Evo9.
I had plenty of troubles as well. They cancelled the first stage due to insufficient road closure officials, I scored 3rd fastest on SS2, and was getting right into it on SS3 when the wipers and indicators started randomly coming on after a hard landing. Another hard landing 400m from the end of the stage saw the engine cut completely. I soon found the main fusible link blown, fixed it and finished the stage 3 mins slower than we should have.

Into service and my crew found the main wiring loom in the left wheel arch had dropped down onto the tyre and half the wires had been severed or completely ringbarked. They MacGuyver'd it back together using 8 mins of late time and we continued. We had both front windows stuck down and minimal electrics working, but it still was performing ok and I scored 3rd on SS4. I cut a corner on SS5 and got mud on the 'screen and had no wipers to clear it for the stage, so the best I could do was 5th. The heat and the dust was a real problem but we knew that it was an endurance rally and we just had to keep going as best we could.

Sorted out some of the issues at the halfway service and changed 2 tyres I had damaged. 6th on SS6 then we caught the car in front while he was limping out of stage with a flat front, I could see him, but just couldn't get through the dust to pass him. The heat, dust and smell of burning tyre was too much for my navigator who deposited the contents of his stomach all over his suit, books, window and belts. no better than 7th on that one.
We got him cleaned up in service, fitted the light pods and headed back out for the final two stages.
The GC8 light pods make the bonnet pins very difficult to get in, and we had one pop out in SS8 and the RH side of the bonnet started to lift. I didn't want the other side to stress out and break as they're alloy pins so I kept it real on the fast and rough stuff and settled for 5th. We were coming nowhere so when I saw Leigh Hynes stranded in he last stage I stopped and asked if I could help, he just said "Fckin' CLUTCH!!" and waved us through. He must have been gutted. After all that we 3rd on the last stage and finished 6th overall.

I was very happy with the feel of the new car and it was good to get some stuff ironed out before next season kicks off. I need a navigator with some sponsorship contacts or some cash to kick the tin and some enthusiasm for next years WA rally championship if anyone is keen. Someone with a few years experience would be good, and under 80kg is preferred.

I was a road closure official on stages 2 and 6. Managed to take some snaps:






Got heaps more too which I can post up when I can be bothered scaling them all!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/D...powertoys.mspx

Image resize tool ftw. :-)

Nice shots!

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Geoff

APCV-R
AutoPro Canning Vale Racing

Haha, thanks for the tip but I should have said crop rather scale. No point having pictures of bush with a tiny little rally car in the middle. I have the tools, just takes about a minute a photo and i'm lazy.