[Morison]

OK, there has to be a TON of stories out there ... so let's get the ball rolling!

I had a really heave workload leading into the event, and we were running around trying to get our act together. We were lucky to have the car still in great shape after Cochrane and the test day, and we finally had our brakes sorted out. Our race pads and fresh rotors lasted all day, even as I got into the rythm and started to LFB more on the stages. I faded out the brakes at cochrane so I was more than a bit careful at the start of this event.

We were lucky again to have the guys from Tech Works Engineering as our service crew. They did a kick-hiney job of making sure we were together and ready to roll - er - run.

On the stages ...
The spectator park offered a good chance to go play in the dirt AND have a chance to do some spectating as well. - always fun.

In the porkies ...
I had no idea the roads were that fast !!
Great weather and good road conditions most of the day were definately welcome.

we had a couple of 'gas gas gas' moments on the event.

on SS5, beaver to burke, a BAD entry into the left just after the spectator area had us hugging the wall on the outside ... no body damage we just knocked the bumper cover loose.

on both beaver-heath runs Colin managed to read L3 as L5 ... which led to some spirited corrections. on taht same corner going the other direction, a bad set-up let to photog Warwick Patterson and his new Digi camera eating some gravel ... sorry.

The only other 'moment' was when Colin got lost in the book and we used a L2 after some 5 and 6 corners to find our place. We both were thinking 'TREE!!!!'

For the last leg we changed tires and picked up a ton of speed and confidence ...

It was the first time on Jemba notes for me, and once I got a feel fo the consistancy an style of the notes I was able to push a bit more. I do think that recce has HUGE advantages over jemba for sure.

It was the 47th event for the car, and it still has some 'go' left in it!

A huge thanks to the Tech Works crew, MyTires for mounting our Michelins and Silverstiones, and of course to Tracey Cryderman and Teresa Walker for helping crew for us.

 

[Easy Rider]

Okay - First off I want to say thanks to my co driver, Robin, for keeping me in line, to my lone crew, Gary, for knowing what to tighten, and when to tighten it, and to Andy and Chris for helping to build a car that made it through our 1st event.

As for stories - no major ones, we drove to finish.
BUT - since Keith asked -
On the first time through Burke to Heath (ss8) "we" were a little to excited to finish and didn't see or call the - ! bmp/Texas Gate 50 - AFTER the finish - so we skyed it out and put our 1/4" skid plate to very good use.

Then on the second time through Burke to Heath (ss10) we missed a L3 call as an L5 and slid into the ditch sidways - no harm - no damage - grabbed 1st and powered out - BUT it was right infront of the TV camera so I may get my 15 seconds of fame!

Thanks to all!
WRC

 

[Jorge]

>The only other 'moment' was when Colin got lost in the book
>and we used a L2 after some 5 and 6 corners to find our
>place. We both were thinking 'TREE!!!!'

Keith,

You were not the only one that got cought by surprise at that corner, we were suffering brake problems all day Saturday and that L2 just came too quick after all those 5s and 6s.
We went 4 or 5 feet off the road in that same corner but we recovered immediately, first time through there we saw the Suzuki changing a tire a few feet further, second time we got cought again overcooking the same corner with equal results....

of curse that was nothing in comparison to the way we run out of brakes coming down from Skyline into the Sharples Right hairpin, we went straight off the road down about 3 or 4 carlengths in to a a raveen over some trees, (we now have a custom spoiler that weights less:+ )I could not believe the spectators, they actually pulled us out and onto the road from that steep enbankment, but we did loose about 2 minutes.x(

Keith, I have some great roof cam and hood cam shots I have to show you.

Jorge

 

[Tmachnik]

We had a fantastic time running Jemba notes for the first time, having done the recce and pace notes in Cochrane I?m sure really helped with the learning curve. Amy got tripped up a few times, but it only took a couple of corners to find her place again. We weren?t trying to set any records since we?re still working on trusting the notes and our methods of communication on stage, but I wasn?t out for a Sunday drive either. Unfortunately I bent the right front suspension on SS6 and ended up with a good 10 degrees positive camber on that wheel with 3 more stages until service. Braking power was significantly reduced as well as cornering grip on left handers, and it showed in our times for the remaining 8 stages of the day. I was only able to adjust the alignment to around 5 degrees positive camber at service, something got tweaked quite a bit, not sure what yet. I found the roads very very fast in places and saw Amy reaching for the Oh Jesus! handle out of corner of my eye a few times?.. . Those roads have some sweet sections and some tremedously fun corners. We had one or two ?pucker? moments caused by various mistakes by both driver and co-driver, a late call for an R4 into L2 resulted in an excursion through a ditch, but luckily no major encounter with scenery. Our biggest goof of the day came when we forgot to check in to the MTC at finish, drove the car straight onto the trailer and started packing up, then realized we forgot the check in and hand in our time card, Doh! We ended up checking in 7 minutes late and received a 1:10 penalty. This dropped us from 10th overall to 13th. Oh well, I have to screw up every once in a while or else my head swells too much? When we arrived back at the hotel in Calgary at midnight we found they had given away our room even though I had a guaranteed late check in held with my credit card, all the guy behind the counter would say was ?sorry sir, I don?t know why your room was given away but we don?t have anything else available, I can?t help you?. It was taking every ounce of self control for me not to come unglued on that guy, so we decided just to leave, skip the awards dinner and make the 3 hour trek back home to Edmonton. I was pretty cranky about the things that occurred during the last few hours of the day, and I must apologize to any one I may have snapped at in my fatigued/hunger induced/bumbling hotel clerk aggravated state.

 

[Lancia037Rally]

Nichols?

What happened to Nichols?

 

[John Cassidy]

RE: Nichols?

I heard it was an input or output shaft on the tranny. Heard that second hand though.

John

 

[randyzimmer]

RE: cassidy

John, nothing to report?

 

[John Cassidy]

RE: cassidy

Not enough time yet to sit down and compose! I'll post something tonight.

Cheers! John

 

[hayward]

RE: Nichols?

>What happened to Nichols?
I was course closing (car 98)and stopped to see if we could help. John informed us that his day was finished due to a sheared axle shaft. It would be nice to see an event that both Nichols and Olsen finish. I think that it would make the group 2 fight even more exciting.
Andy
Cookie anyone??:9