Events - 2005

26th-27th Mar - Hyden (long course)

Entire event was broken into three separate races, 2 x 3laps and 1 x 2laps (only for AORC entrants) of a 50km course. About 60 entrants all told.

Sat:

0600-0800: Getting car ready for race (wheel nuts tight, correct tyre pressures, drink bottles full, washer bottles full, tools onboard, all engine bay fluid levels ok, fuel load correct, etc, etc, etc).
0800: 1st driver's briefing.
0830-0900: Start of prologue (10k cut-down loop of the course used to seed the start order of cars for the main race). 1/3 way thru the prologue Jez tells me the rear brakes are still locking up; after we've had both master cylinders rebuilt and replaced the entire back-end brake package with VT front discs and callipers. I grab some pliers out of the onboard toolkit and loosen one of the connections leading to the rear brakes (there's a hydraulic handbrake and bias valve in the cabin). The rear brakes instantly unlock and the car gains another 50HP. Thru the rest of the prologue the rear line is weeping (to allow the brakes to unlock) and the cabin is full of brake fluid fumes.
0900-1200: Decide that the rebuilt rear master cylinder is stuffed and replace it with a slightly larger bored spare. Also do a nut-and-bolt check on the rest of the car.
1200-1315: Lunch and lots of water.
1315: 2nd driver's briefing, official opening and lengthy speech by a Kondinin councillor (did you know the shire of Kondinin has over 1400km of sealed road?).
1330: Start of race 1 (of 3), 3 laps of the 50km circuit (by competitors in both the WA and Aust Off-road Championships). Cars started at 30sec intervals and we're number 32 off the line. 1/4 of the way thru the first lap we come across another car throwing up some dust and rear-end them. I had heard the other car in the dust and said to Jez "I think I can hear Dobbsy ahead", Jez had screamed back "What?" and then we hit them. Because the other car is really a truck, we slide under its back end till we hit the diff. Their spare tyre smashes our windscreen, and our front right bonnet pin takes out their fuel tank. They take off and we stop to inspect the damage. Nothing too serious (nudge bar has been pushed back 20cm, front right h/light smashed, bonnet mangled, windscreen smashed, fuel all over bonnet). We continue racing, going to tell the next checkpoint they should stop the other competitor because of the fuel leak. Didn't need to as he had already stopped at the next checkpoint. Finished the remaining laps averaging a reasonable time. Pulled into pits, stopped car only to see water spraying out from near the bottom radiator hose connection. Decided to look at this after dinner.
1600: Sat down outside campsite and drank lots of water. Packed up the tent (decided to sleep in the truck as it was going to rain). Had dinner (whilst it was raining outside).
1800: Went to work on the car. Replaced the smashed windscreen with a spare we had and broke it in the process (doh!). Found the leak in the cooling system was a worn radiator hose (the radiator had jumped from its mounts during the collision and the hose had been rubbing against the chassis); couldn't find the right size hose to fix it (because there was nobody in the pits) and left it till morning. Noticed the brand new front left z-bar nolethane bush had already been destroyed, and decided we wouldn't do anything about it (as we didn't have a spare).
2300: Went to bed.

Sun:

0645: Got up quite a bit too late. Went straight to the car to finish fixing it. Managed to find a radiator hose, installed it and rebolted everything in the front-end back together. Jez found one of the rear axle upper control arm rose ball mounts was coming loose and spent 1/2hr trying to fix it.
0800: 3rd driver's briefing.
0830-1100: Start of race 2 (of 3), 3 laps of the 50km circuit (by competitors in both the WA and Aust Off-road Championships). Get to start line with about 30s to spare; didn't have enough time to eat the bacon/egg sandwich for breakfast. Brakes are finally not locking up and with a bit of biasing are now working well. Finish all three laps in good time and have our sights set on a second in class finish. Finished the race and car goes into parc ferme for a while (until other cars have finished).
1100-1330: Lunch and lots of water, trying to cool down. Get car back into pits when parc ferme finishes and check everything is still bolted on.
1330: Start of race 3 (of 3), 2 laps of the 50km circuit (by competitors in only the Aust Off-road Championship). 1/2 way thru the first lap the car's back-end flicks out down a straight (still can't figure out why, but it may have something to do with the LHS z-bar bush) and we spear off in the bush at >100kph. About 30 trees later (luckily they weren't big trees) we stop, and the engine has died. I ask Jez if the engine will start, it does and we drive out thru some bushes back onto the track. We pull over a bit further down the course in a safe spot and inspect the damage. The nudge bar is thru the front grill but appears to have protected the radiator. The front grill is a mess, both fenders are pretty smashed up, the left headlight has now been smashed (as well as the RHS), and the windscreen is a mess. We pull the front right fender off the tyre, jump back into the car and continue. Half way back to the start/finish line we decide the windscreen has to go (as it's collapsing and only hasn't because I'm holding it together with the pad the pace notes are on). We get back to the pits and kick out the windscreen, then continue on. It starts raining; rain hurts when it hits your face when you're doing over 100kph. Pretty glad both of us were wearing goggles (with all the glass shards, dirt and rain flying around). Finished the 2nd lap and pulled into the 'finishers' line up.
1600-1900: Got semi clean (had a shower under a tap (there are good things about having short hair), packed up the race car gear, syphoned some fuel out of the race car and into the rex, had dinner with a million flies, then left for Perth.

Summary:

14th outright in our first Aust. Off-road Championship round and 2nd in class (only beaten by the +$60k Hilux).
I don't have a single picture, but I'm sure some others got a few and hopefully we might get some video off my mate Gordy (who was also there).
I am now very sore and really want to have a car with more suspension travel...

29th Apr-1st May - Brookton (long course)

9th-10th Jul - Yealering (long course)

20th-21st Aug - Mogumber (long course)

(Navigator's seat filled by Dave Rolach; I betcha he's used to a smoother ride than the Commodore!)