Latest News
11th Mar '08 - Stats Update
Fixed a few excessively fast times for the 2006 Gascoyne Dash. Thanks Kev.
1st Feb '08 - Stats Update
Finished processing the stats for the last two AORC rounds for 2007. Also put up a few pictures taken at Harvey (Nov 2007) here. Sorry Jak; couldn't wait any longer. Maybe if you stopped mucking around with those pictures of China... :)
1st Jan '08 - Stats Update
Happy New Year! Hopefully this year will be a bit more productive than last year... The new car certainly can handle the rough stuff, but the engine is causing some grief. Something obviously needs to be done about it before the next event.
On another note, the stats have been updated for the last Harvey round; with the exception that the script simply doesn't handle those little Edge buggies; even though they were part of the main event. My apologies to any of the guys who are interested in their overall times compared with other cars, but the fix isn't a simple one.
20th Dec '07 - New Video Added
Dropped in the latest video from the onboard camera, taken at Harvey late last month. Unfortunately the car decided to develop a healthy miss (bad enough to kill the engine), and so the vid. is "highlights only". Something obviously needs to be done with the engine before the next event...
20th Oct '07 - Stats Update
Finally had a break in work and managed to update the stats. That said, there hasn't been any time to work on or race the car; so it's sitting quite dejectedly in the factory. Maybe after either Jez or myself stops doing 80hr weeks, we'll be able to get to the next race... Anyway, the stats for Mogumber and Hyden are here.
9th Jul '07 - Harvey Rollover Video
Posted a video of the rollover taken from the in-car camera at the last Harvey short-course. Things were going well until, slightly unexpectedly, the car flipped over.
19th Jun '07 - Brookton In-Car Video
Posted a small section of footage taken during the Brookton King of the Hill 260, held a couple of weeks ago. The ChaseCam PDR100 recorder ran well through both sections of the race (the car didn't fair so well...) and the footage is quite good; given that a lens full of mud will degrade most recorder's video quite badly. Jaw (of jaw.iinet.net.au fame) kindly provided the music for the clip; now that he's too old to run around on two wheels and use the stuff for his own motorcross videos... :)
13th Jun '07 - Stolen!
Well, not really... I've been looking for a simple photo viewing application, to embed within the normal template for a while. The majority are either over-the-top for just a couple of pics, or lack certain features. Jak's website (www.angstrom.com.au) has always used a 'nice' viewer, but I was under the impression he'd paid for it. Turns out I was wrong; and as a result the photos page has been given a birthday with SimpleViewer.
9th Jun '07 - Brookton King Of The Hill 260
Lots of updates... including the stats from Brookton, another swag of photos (both in the stats and on the photos page)- thanks to Jak and Murray, and a lengthy race report from Jez. Jak's website (www.angstrom.com) has a few more pics of the action, and there's a heap more over at OffroadOz.
5th May '07 - Links Update
Flash (aka. Bruce Russell), of FlashFotos, has setup a new website to showcase his motorsport, and in particular offroad, photography at fotos.flash.id.au. There's obviously quite a bit of work involved in organising and posting the hundreds of pictures taken at each event, but I'm hoping that some of the older stuff might appear.
22nd Apr '07 - (Another) Stats Update
Somehow the WAORC competitors managed to get a mention in the AORC stats for Hyden. Their subsequent removal hasn't really changed much at the top-end (apart from the overall event DNF % increasing slightly; which is pretty much expected given the WAORC course was about 100km shorter than the AORC course). In addition to this, the last 3 WAORC rounds at Hyden have also had their last section removed to align with what WAORC competitors were actually asked to cover.
20th Apr '07 - Hyden Stats Fix
Fixed a couple of minor distance inconsistencies in the recent Hyden 400 stats that were providing some rather high top speeds.
19th Apr '07 - WAORC Stats Update (or 'Geez, I'm glad that's done')
Updated all the WAORC stats, plus added around 90 new pictures of the cars (mostly taken at Hyden), so there's a few shots of AORC cars in there as well.
14th Apr '07 - AORC Stats Update
Spent a considerable amount of time updating the AORC stats (to handle the new classes) and all the associated pictures of cars. Just about every car that turned up at Hyden has at least one new picture; sometimes a few.
12th Apr '07 - Urrrrk...
Go here to find the tale of misfortune that followed our attempt to get to the Hyden 400 over the Easter long weekend.
20th Feb '07 - Fixups
Thanks to an interested party the stats for the 2006 Sunraysia AORC round are quite a bit more accurate. Whilst fixing them up I've also had a hack trying to get a few more names correct (it's the Finke results that are the problem, and my first-name guesses are only so good). Anyway, the revised stats are in the same location as before (here).
17th Feb '07 - Statistics (and the SNS)
Due to the amazing level of demand for AORC stats (Harleigh asked), I've added the 2006 results to the existing statistics. As a result of this, the WAORC stats have been shuffled to their own folder and a new folder made for the AORC output. All the results can be found here. Note that the two sets of statistics are completely seperate.
As for the SNS (Silly Numbering System - an acronym used to describe the new offroad car numbering system), it has caused nothing but pain when trying to reconcile the various car numbers used in the statistics from previous years to this year. The crux of the problem lies in the leading digit previously always representing a car's class; this no longer being the case for the new "Pro Buggy" class where the car number is simply less than 100. The result of this is a heap of old class 1 and 9 cars that simply don't fit into the new class structure without knowing their engine size. Plus, until they race, I have no idea as to the number they'll run. Suffice to say, it's a mess that isn't going to be sorted out soon.
Whilst having a hack, the Rodeo bodywork page was updated with the latest stage of the frame-painting progress. I wonder how much we can avoid 'fixing' whilst putting the car back together...
18th Jan '07 - Feedback (or lack thereof)
Well, all those people that have been asking questions and expecting responses; be dissapointed because you won't get any. Whilst the feedback form has sort of been working, it hasn't been logging any email addresses, making it kinda hard to respond. Needless to say, it should really be fixed now... It also goes without saying that Jaw needn't comment on this particular situation (not even once).
On the car front, the chassis is off at the engineering shop to have a few bars replaced and fabrication of a new super-sized fuel tank. Hopefully it'll be back soon, to get a much needed coat of paint before reassembly. Getting to the first short-course however is getting more and more unlikely... :(
10th Dec '06 - Feedback
The feedback form should be working again...
6th Dec '06 - WDR
Well the car's still in little bits being prepped for a new fuel tank and some welding. It worries me somewhat that the beginning of the next season is only 8 weeks away though...
Anyways, onto brighter news, the WDR website has gone live. All club specific information should be available there (if not just ask), plus there's a bit of background and historical info floating around.
Also, having had to replace most of the cooling system on my road car (for reasons we won't go into) I've done a bit of a brain dump on the silly things over here. If there's enough of these general info topics, they may eventually find their way into a 'Tech' section, or something...
22nd Nov '06 - ChaseCam PDR100 Test Videos
Not entering any events (because the car's been stripped) has meant there's been no oportunities to get some decent footage with the new camera/recorder setup. As a consolation, it's been bolted to the front of the 'racing Pulsar' and dropped into an RX7 running up at Wanneroo. Neither clips are particularly exciting, but they do demonstrate the quality you'd expect from a similar setup. The videos are here and the extra camera setup info is here.
Also posted a bit of video Harleigh Uren took in the beginning of the year out at Yealering. It strikes me as a bit ironic that some of the better footage from the in-car camera (he'd borrowed our setup), comes from a different car. Oh well, it's here (and rather large).
14th Nov '06 - ...and that makes three
Well I managed to get roped into building a website for the Western Desert Racers, so quite a bit of time has been spent on that recently, plus a website for my wife's business. On the car front, the Rodeo is currently being stripped, ready for a few new bars and a coat of paint. Fingers-crossed, we'll have her back together in time for the kick-off event next February down at Harvey.
Oh, and I added a small bit on the dry-sump system running in the Rodeo...
6th Nov '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics XI
Added some more results from 2002/3. This time it's Round 3 of the 4WD USA Short Course Championship held at Harvey and the Rod Hatter Memorial Dumbleyung 320. In fact the event at Dumbleyung was one of those few occasions when a relatively mediocre car managed to snatch an outright placing (in that case everyone better stopped for one reason or another) at a long-course.
There are now stats for 26 events, conducted at 9 seperate locations, including more than 300 different competitors, 164 different vehicles and covering more than 6000 competitive kms.
Also re-arranged some stuff, moved some stuff, added some stuff, did some other stuff...
4th Nov '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics X
Processed some results from the recent Gascoyne Dash (cars only); which is certainly a long race with some pretty high speeds being reached on the second day. In fact the average speed of the second day's racing was significantly faster than any previous race in the stats. Ironically, the first day's racing also saw some of the slowest speeds.
Also entered some more data into the stats from wayyyy back; in this case the Barbagallo Landrover 220 (held in June 2002), the ARB Statewide Group Hyden Humps 2002 (held in September 2002) and the Brookton King Of The Hill 300 (held in April 2003). The offroad landscape has changed a bit since then...
Also fixed a few name typos in the stats so there aren't as many doppelgangers roaming around the place.
1st Nov '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics IX
I've now exhausted my meager collection of photos and dumped almost 100 more into the stats repository. This brings the total to around 300, which considering there's only about 160 cars in the stats, makes it a bit surprising that there are still a few without a picture. If the owners wouldn't mind dragging them out and sticking 'em on the track, we'll be able to complete the list...
I should thank Jak for allowing me (admittedly some time ago) to post some of his pictures; mostly from Hyden and Harvey. If you want to see some more of his work, go to www.angstrom.com.au.
31st Oct '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics VIII
Added a new section to the stats page called the Competitor List. This section contains links (sorted alphabetically) to every competitor mentioned within the results, and is a fairly comprehensive summary of just about everyone who's entered a WAORC event over the years. So instead of hunting through the results for people's names, you can look it up directly.
Also mucked around with some of the stats layouts, added a few more pictures of vehicles (yet again it'll be almost impossible to find 'em unless you look hard), added a 'back' button to the stats popup, and added some results from the 2002 race held at Dumbleyung.
Oh, and something's managed to kill the SNR for the webserver for the past few days, so if loading pages is a bit difficult, that's the reason... yay!
28th Oct '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics VII
Expanded the stats available in the Vehicle List. It now supports individual stats for each competitor, plus links between releated cars and competitors. Also added quite a few more pictures into the stats section (not that it's obvious though).
24th Oct '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics VI
Added another section to the overall statistics page, providing a link to the stats for every car, as derived from the race results, grouped by class. So, if your car is mentioned in any of the results, it should be in the Vehicle List.
21st Oct '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics V
Added quite a bit of information to the car statistics popups, and cross-referenced them with the competitors to provide the usual driver and navigator names. Now the popups give a pretty good idea as to the type of car and who is actually in it... See the stats page.
17th Oct '06 - More pics
Posted a few more pictures for the stats popups. Hopefully most of them are available now.
15th Oct '06 - Hyden Results
Kim's posted some results from Hyden, so I've pushed them through the stats generator. Currently these results are provisional, so they may change. Note that I've taken a punt at the driver/navigator names, as I don't have them to hand at the moment. The other change is the result of the stats file getting pretty big, so I've split it up into 'stats' and 'results'. Oh, and the stats now have a link to a picture of each car, or at least the ones I have. Everything's now under it's own submenu, appropriately called Statistics.
10th Oct '06 - Bits and Pieces III
Finally finished the website navigation (now the folder list shows where you are; or at least it should), website template is dynamic (based on the detected browser size), animated the logo (because it wasn't), and added little bits of info to various pages.
7th Oct '06 - Bits and Pieces II
Added a bit more info about the helmets, the Commodore oil cooler (and air box), revised some layouts and had a cup of coffee. Also fixed a browser incompatibility issue between Firefox and IE (where some of the links in Firefox were unclickable; which sort of made it a bit hard to navigate around the site).
2nd Oct '06 - Engine update
Added a bit of info to the Rodeo engine page, regarding the timing belt operation. The terminal failure of this belt resulted in missing the final race of the year (at Hyden). All the racing's over for the year, however there's still the 4WD show at the end of November, and with some luck the car'll be on display there.
28th Sep '06 - More pics
Everyone seems to like pictures, so I've posted a few more of the set that we took at Brookton during the year.
24th Sep '06 - Profiles
Added a few pics of 'the team' into the profiles section. Nothing particularly spectacular, except the accumulation of gray hairs between photos.
17th Sep '06 - Broken Bits
Added some bits and pieces around the place (Rodeo suspension, engine, drive train, miscellaneous and breakages), moved the 'video' section, added a shot of the Datsun axles (because people still seem interested in 1600s), added a short write-up for Mogumber and the 'look' of the site also changed a bit...
13th Sep '06 - The World According to Frenchy
Added some history on the WDR, put together by the French brothers. Also put in a few more offroad links and forced all the existing links (internal and external) to open in the same browser window (which you'll probably only appreciate when you try to use the 'back' button). Also added a bit of info about helmets.
10th Sep '06 - Feedback Form Fixed
Finally got around to fixing the feedback form (that's been broken in just about every version of the site since the day dot). So without any more ado, here it is.
8th Sep '06 - Videos from the archives...
Added a few semi-interesting videos that were lurking around in the archives.
7th Sep '06 - Web Browser Schenanigans
Fixed a web-browser compatibility issue that was making the navigation pane act a bit crazy. All I can say is that the web-site looked just fine in Firefox... So about 3.5% of you saw the site properly, and 96.5% didn't.
5th Sep '06 - Videos
Added a section for all the event videos under (not surprisingly) the Events-Videos folder. Also found the shakedown video from Brookton (earlier this year), so there's a snippet from that in there as well.
4th Sep '06 - Tyres
Added a bit more information on the Hankook tyre and rim combination being run on the Rodeo.
2nd Sep '06 - Bits and Pieces
Received the new PDR100 digital video recorder from ChaseCam. This device can record MPEG2 (ie. standard DVD format) at full PAL (720x576@25fps) onto a CF card at various compression levels (more compression implies smaller files but less image detail). At some stage before the next race I'll have to pop it into a car to see how good the footage is. Have a look here for a picture of the device.
Also added some info regarding the Odyessy dry-cell battery run in the Rodeo and a few more links.
29rd Aug '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics IV
Changed the look of the stats page to follow the general site layout more closely. One of these days it may even get to use the standard CSS the rest of the site uses. Lets see who can spot where the new stat has appeared. According to it, the toughest course is actually Boddington. I guess it's lucky we haven't raced there for a while...
23rd Aug '06 - Stats update
Added the results from the recent race at Mogumber into the stats database. Also fixed a minor error in the calcs for the number of laps completed and total times, as shown on the summary table for each event.
22nd Aug '06 - Stats update
Modified the stats ranking system to provide a means of comparing cars based purely on their overall potential. The rankings now use speed (as given by the laptimes) to award points to each car that has completed at least 2 of the last 5 events.
19th Aug '06 - Major site update
The entire site has been shifted to CSS, SSI and JS. For those who understand what I'm talking about - it'll be obvious; for those that don't - it just makes the site more consistent in its appearance. One benefit of getting rid of the frames is the ability to link directly to any page on the site with a simple URL. Hopefully those silly search engines won't get lost anymore...
15th Aug '06 - Back from Mogumber
Well, it certainly wasn't the best race for us. After getting lost during reccy (along with a few other cars), we posted a fairly average prologue time (don't really know what went wrong there). This had us seeded somewhere around 10th (out of 45 entries) for the first section. It was short and eventful... After hitting 7000rpm down a straight (based on gearing I think we calc'd this out to about 190kph) the timing belt let loose and it was all over. We haven't figured out yet if the motor has been damaged (it depends on if the valve train can interfere with the pistons or not), but at least we've washed the car. Here's a small snippet from the on-board camera (it's a bit blurry because it was raining at the time). With any luck, Jez'll write up a race report soon...
Also updated the stats, by modifying the rankings. Cars are now only ranked after competing in at least three events and there is a bias towards more recent events (so you can't sit around on your laurels).
6rd Aug '06 - Another video from the archive
Found a video kicking around that was taken at Yealering last year. Unfortunately, there hasn't been anyway near as much rain out there this year; which is bad for both the farmers and us. This footage was taken in the old Commodore, which had a windscreen; even though the amount of muck passing through the car seems to belie that fact.
3rd Aug '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics III
Minor update to the stats page. It's now running a style sheet; meaning it'll be quicker to load, but look almost identical to before.
1st Aug '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics II
There's been (quite) a bit more work put into the stats page, which is hopefully nearing completion. The link remains the same (here), but the content is greatly expanded. Comments, suggestions, feedback; send it .
22nd Jul '06 - Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
We've put some work into an automated script for analysing event results. Presently the output is static (you can see an example here - (Ed. link removed)). Hopefully, within the next couple of weeks we'll be able to sort out the 'interactive' side of things and publish a much more in-depth analysis. welcome as always...
12th Jul '06 - Harvey Short-Course
Race report has been posted here... Also a couple of additional in-car videos (round 3 and round 4).
11th Jul '06 - Harvey Short-Course
Just back from the Harvey short-course and the car performed exceptionally well. As expected, it was a bit of a rush getting the second seat in, but in it was. We had a few minor issues with power (that may be related to a dud battery) that were exacerbated by the 4 spots on the roof, however even a few cut-outs weren't enough to stop a 1st in class and 3rd outright finish. You'll have to wait for a write-up of the event, but for now there's a couple of in-car videos here and here.
25th Jun '06 - Moved site to a new server and registered www.rumblemotorsport.com
Well the geek in me (plus some other factors) decided that it would be interesting to host the RMS site on a purpose-built server; and this is it! Not a particularly impressive box, but it does the trick. Operating system is Fedora (core 5), running Apache v2.2, and all the latest updates.
3rd-4th Jun '06 - Brookton (King Of The Hill - 240) (long course - WAORC Round 3)
As per normal, everything was a stupid rush to get the car back together and to the race. Rebuilt items included most panels, the powerglide, the supercharger, welding done on both steering knuckles and an entire set of front suspension rod-ends. Read-on for the gory details...
14th Jun '06 - Website moved onto Westnet
Lots of updates, heaps of information on the new Rodeo, new logo; I wonder if any of this will help us win an event?
14th-16th Apr '06 - Hyden (long course - AORC Round 1, WAORC Round 2)
First event for RMS this year was the 1st round of AORC staged at Hyden, WA. We didn't have time to install either the navigator's seat or the in-car video, so Jez was by himself during the subsequent rollover (problem with the brakes coming into a corner) and the eventual self-destruction of the powerglide. Talk about giving the new car a baptism of fire...
30th Jan '06 - Move to Class 4
We've picked up Byron Murfet's class 4 Holden Rodeo truck. Chrome-moly frame, supercharged 3.2L Holden Isuzu V6, left-hand drive. Now all we have to do is get it ready for Hyden...
20th Nov '04 - Harvey (short course)
Read what happened here...
2nd-4th Oct '04 - Hyden (long course)
For us city-slickers it's quite a haul out to Hyden; being at the far edge of the wheat-belt. So we usually head out there for at least a couple of nights. This year was no exception, so we turned up with everything, bar the kitchen sink, in the back of the truck. Read the rest of the notes here.
3rd Jul '04 - Beverley (short course)
It's been a busy couple of months. I reckon 4 weeks is about the minimum amount of time we need to get the car mobile again. I guess it helps that short-courses are a bit easier to manage (in terms of breakdowns), because of the numerous gaps between races. Added the short-course race report here.
29th-30th May '04 - Boddington (long course)
Added the race report here...
24th-25th Apr '04 - Brookton (long course)
Added the race report here...
6th Mar '04 - Harvey (short course) and breakages update
Good, bad, really good and then really bad. Quite an unusual night. Anyway the race report is here...
3rd Mar '04 - Finally, an update!
Well, it had to happen, but it happened quite a while ago. The ol' Datsun was just falling to pieces. The monocoque had started developing nasty fractures, and due to the age of the metal (and probably more-so our welding skills) it was nigh impossible to keep the thing together. Anyways, along came an offer for a Holden VC Commodore and we jumped at it. Some guy bought the Datsun shell (basically for the roll-cage and bullet-proof rear-end) and we haven't seen it since.
21st Dec '99 - Breakages Update
Just added our latest smash to the list of breakages. Looks like we might need a couple of new struts and a bit of bog...
15th Dec '99 Event Calendar
Added the WA CAMS supplied event calendar, as I can't seem to find one elsewhere that covers all the WDR stuff.
6th Dec '99 Vehicle Class Split
Split the vehicle classes into their own section in preparation for the pics on each type.
3rd Dec '99 AGM and the Elections
Seems that there was a bit of a commotion created at the recent elections. That's what comes of having lots of eager people involved with the club. This might have been seen by some as a split in the club, but I rather think it's good to have some differing opinions and the fire to back them up. :)
Looks like the elections will have to be reheld after they sort out exactly what a proxy vote is.
2nd Dec '99 - Low-Res Pics
In an effort to speed up the load process I've started adding low-res pics to all the displays. Stop the download if you don't want the colour pics or disable hi-res.
30th Nov '99 - Rehash
Moved sponsors to their own page to clean up the main display. I'll also be moving the links to another page. Overviews shouldn't have to be scrolled. Might also think about putting in a black/white system or even text based. Work ongoing...
29th Nov '99 - Pics
Just got my hands on a digital camera, so expect more pics from now on. First on the list will be a few of the newly mangled front right side of the car. :(
15th Nov '99 - Harvey (short course)
First race report for the site. I wonder if anyone reads these things, and if they do, do they make any sense?
