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Lets hear some Baie stories! This was our first baie but we do not want it to be our last! Fabulous roads and hordes of spectators!! I do need hard compound tires next year though, those roads ate my mediums for breakfast!!
We had a great event. The result was a finish a little lower than we had hoped but all of our competition finished which is a rare thing. Most of the rally we were going fast but not really pushing the limit too far to ensure we would finish the event in one piece.
That being said we did have a few minor offs which warrant some comment. The 5th stage of the event on friday night saw us carry a bit too much speed into a L2 and we slid to the exit of the corner and I promptly stalled it in the panic stop. Unfortunately it took me about 30 secs. to get the car started again, and then I had to wait for Alan to belt in again before we set off, I bet we lost a minute there. Saturday did not have much drama except for the last 4 stages. The 4th last stage I misunderstood a note on a very quick downhill section with a big bilnd jump. The note was !jump stay centre. I stayed rightish instead which resulted in us getting big air and landing with our right tires in the ditch. A bit scary!
On the last stage (Camp Brule) we had a very close call. There is a section with a 1km straight into a L2 into R2. We got up to ~170km/h on that straight which was a little scary. We hauled the car down in time but due to my exuberance trying to put a show on for the spectators I got on the gas too early in the R2 and slid wide at about 60km/h into the bank on the outside of the turn. This impact put us on 2 wheels and slammed us back down while still moving. We bent at least the lateral links there, we must check to see what if anything else. We continued the rest of the stage at about 75% speed to ensure we made it. Stupid mistake on my part, but hey, it was only my 2nd rally!
Only mechanical problem we had was we lost our exhaust from the flexpipe back on stage A6. Our service guys went out to retrieve it at about 1:30am and with the help of the guys in the MR2 we welded it back together and got it on the car for saturday.
We ended up 14th OA in the national which means we move up to a seed 5a which is nice. Loved the stages, lots of technical sections interspersed with hugely fast pieces. Congrats to all who finished and in particular Randy Zimmer for schooling all us p4 guys!
Thanks to Iain at Planet Motorsport for giving us a dead reliable car, my codriver Alan Ockwell for being a fantastic guide for me and for not yelling at me when I hit the bank and my service crew Brent Moyer and Adrian Wintle.
See you all at Black bear and Defi!
John
We had a great event. The result was a finish a little lower than we had hoped but all of our competition finished which is a rare thing. Most of the rally we were going fast but not really pushing the limit too far to ensure we would finish the event in one piece.
That being said we did have a few minor offs which warrant some comment. The 5th stage of the event on friday night saw us carry a bit too much speed into a L2 and we slid to the exit of the corner and I promptly stalled it in the panic stop. Unfortunately it took me about 30 secs. to get the car started again, and then I had to wait for Alan to belt in again before we set off, I bet we lost a minute there. Saturday did not have much drama except for the last 4 stages. The 4th last stage I misunderstood a note on a very quick downhill section with a big bilnd jump. The note was !jump stay centre. I stayed rightish instead which resulted in us getting big air and landing with our right tires in the ditch. A bit scary!
On the last stage (Camp Brule) we had a very close call. There is a section with a 1km straight into a L2 into R2. We got up to ~170km/h on that straight which was a little scary. We hauled the car down in time but due to my exuberance trying to put a show on for the spectators I got on the gas too early in the R2 and slid wide at about 60km/h into the bank on the outside of the turn. This impact put us on 2 wheels and slammed us back down while still moving. We bent at least the lateral links there, we must check to see what if anything else. We continued the rest of the stage at about 75% speed to ensure we made it. Stupid mistake on my part, but hey, it was only my 2nd rally!
Only mechanical problem we had was we lost our exhaust from the flexpipe back on stage A6. Our service guys went out to retrieve it at about 1:30am and with the help of the guys in the MR2 we welded it back together and got it on the car for saturday.
We ended up 14th OA in the national which means we move up to a seed 5a which is nice. Loved the stages, lots of technical sections interspersed with hugely fast pieces. Congrats to all who finished and in particular Randy Zimmer for schooling all us p4 guys!
Thanks to Iain at Planet Motorsport for giving us a dead reliable car, my codriver Alan Ockwell for being a fantastic guide for me and for not yelling at me when I hit the bank and my service crew Brent Moyer and Adrian Wintle.
See you all at Black bear and Defi!
John