^^^ Steel rope...faark!

__________________
No Subarus currently owned

Yeah - Ive met one of them before. Funnily enough the car didnt appreciate it. But they are designed to bounce the car off to so suck it in like that it must of hit near side on and embedded it then dragged along?

Wierd.

__________________
I am only an asshole on the internet :)

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

Is it car, is it a plane,






Not its a car, glad all are well.

__________________
Race Torque Dyno 399 NM, 248Kw @ 20PSI

Straight roads are for fast cars, twisty roads are for fast drivers. I have or am neither.

http://tttmsp.smugmug.com/

And the normally unflappable Rex Broadbent puts his porka on its lid spelling the end to his chase for a 7th successive classic outright victory. Amazing effort up until this point. The pace was certainly very hot among the leading classic cars.

__________________
Rotor of Fail
Ducati 998s
Ducati Streetfighter S
496 CI Injected Big Block. Carbon positive???

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

__________________
Losing is worse than death. You have to live with losing....

Keep it going mate...fantastic effort...and great report too!

__________________
No Subarus currently owned

Recap? What's with the 20min penalty?

__________________
MY09 Evo X - 1.6bar@3500rpm - got lag?
Barbagallo - 56.03 (S); 1:08.09 (L)
Collie - 50.77
Possibly the most under-driven Evo X in the world??

Ok. Back home safely.

I am still pissed about what happened. We went out on Saturday morning and it was damp. We hit 246 and then there was an almighty bang. Fgured it was the limiter and lifted. Went around the corner and got back into it. Had a massive miss above 4500rpm. Very surprisingly we were one of only 7 people to clear the stage under the base time so no time lost.

Got out and had a look to see if i could see anything and there was a pin prick in the fuel surge tank. Nothing major but hardly ideal. Did the next stage short shifting a little and only had a few misses. Was 7th through there aswell. Stopped at the re fueling place and looked at the tank. It was a hell of a lot more than a pin prick. You could shower under it. We had 1 more stage till lunch / service. Figured we could fill up. Transport the 20km's to the next stage. Fill up again and do the stage..... Needless to say we used 65 litres to do 25km's of transport.... We stopped at the fuel service and ripped the surge tank out and re plumbed it ghetto style into the original tank. Unfortunately the 999 car passed us as we were pretty close to the last car and we missed a stage. We still drove through the stage (as an open road) and made it to lunch. Walkdens tidied up our hose job etc and we made the first stage after lunch. The thing that pissed me off was that the reason it leaked was simply a shit weld that cracked. No penetration. If you had of slipped off into a tree and cracked it then sure. No issue. It wasnt china. Anyways that night we re welded the same tank, re fitted it and it ran faultlessly... Again.

We copped a 10 minute penalty for each of the two time controls we missed. I.e the one at the start and at the end of the 1 stage. They gave us a derived time for the stage that was fair.

Anyways we decided to take it easy in the afternoon for a couple of stages which in hindsight was unecessary.

With the exception of the fuel tank the car was absolutely faultless all week.

The event is absolutely amazing. I cant speak highly enough of it. It is considerably different to something like targa west because there is no service park, no refuel zones etc. just peeps on the side of the road or in a lay by.

By the end of it though you are absolutely stuffed.

Tyre wear was very interesting. We did not get 1 drop of rain all week which is only the 2nd time in 22 years. On a couple of days the first stage was a bit damp from overnight dew but otherwise everything was dry. We took 8 yokohamas however given the events of staurday morning we elected just to run with those 4 and see what happens. We had already swapped them on the rim and front to rear but they still have heaps of tread left. If we were well inside the top 10 we probably would have taken the other 4 new ones but i thought it was great they held together so well. The guys running dunlops had massive issues. Aout half and half between dunlops and yokohamas. Rattray was running the dunlops and all 8 of his are absolutely fingered. Kennard wanted to take another 2 new ones on saturday night but the dunlop guy only had 1 so he effectively went through 9 tyres. Jim Richards went through all 8 of his michelins in his porka. Glenney went through 6 in his r35. White went through all 8 in his lambo.

A few other observations. There were 6 r35 gtr's entered. 1 is legitimately standard with a hisband wife team. They didnt put a spanner near it all week. Werent quick but probably an awesome car to do it in. The red just jap v -spec blew up. Purdey put his on its roof. Glenney was nursed through with no brakes. Sims had a few issues but nothing a trip to rullo's part bin couldnt fix. Quinn pulled out when john died. And then was Rullo.... Hell of a nice guy but reckons he spent enough on parts this week to buy another one.... He already has 5....

Our top speed from the gps was 247 all week. White in his lambo is adamant that he put a shorter ratio box in the tops out at 260. Obviously gets there a lot faster than us though.... The gtr's saw early 290's which is just silly.

Unless the lambo blows up it is unbeatable. I had a long talk with glnney who came 2nd and they were less than 1/10th of a second per k behind but imho White just goes as fast as he needs to. I saw some of his incar. Say what you want about the car but he is a sensational steerer.

Brendon

__________________
Losing is worse than death. You have to live with losing....