According to the tracking system the container with my car was offloaded at Tilbury Docks (London) at 1810 this evening, couple of days to clear Customs and I can go and get it. Looking forward to seeing it again, although it needs a bit of fettling before it'll be out in anger!
I find it strange that the car has made it back to the UK faster than the refund of my Aussie Customs Bond ... Hey, ho!
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Check this out ... Yours Truly on TV
Interviewed at Phillip Island ... shame they called it a TR3, it is a TR5 of course!
http://www.c31.org.au/schedule/view/episode/19765
http://www.c31.org.au/schedule/view/episode/19765
Monday, 2 May 2011
Back in the single-seater...
I had wondered how driving the Formula Junior round a gravel-lined modern track would feel after the tree-lined adrenaline rush of Targa, well I'm pleased to report it was still fun!
My first round of this year's FIA Lurani Trophy, at Donington Park, having missed the earlier rounds at Monza and Hockenheim. The car was woefully unprepared having been away for so long, but we checked a few obvious bits, put in some fuel and went well in qualifying having not sat in the car for six months I was quite pleased with a 1:28:3, 3rd in class C. Had a couple of interesting slidy moments, one tank-slapper through the Craner Curves had my full attention!
Race one sadly was a complete disaster... Good enough start, although I'm still not great at getting this car off the line, interesting first lap, but a broken gear selector at the chicane saw me coasting into the pits and into retirement. Very disappointing, and a bit ironic that it wasn't anything I'd have checked in the uncommitted winter job list.
Fortuitously I had a spare selector, and got it replaced (when the car should have been in Parc Ferme apparently!), and with a generous nod to that engineer of last resort, Mr Heath Robinson, we lined up for Race Two on Sunday morning ... Not a bad start and a good couple of laps, but then red-flagged after a three car shunt at the front of the field, disappointing considering we'd had the riot act read to us that morning by the Stewards, after some iffy driving standards on Saturday. I don't know how the shunt came about, but I crested the rise at Coppice to find bits of car all over the road, and came past John Fyda's broken car to see him lying alongside as a marshal arrived urgently beckoning more support ... I am pleased to report that he has just a broken ankle, but I didn't find this out till later, frankly it had looked worse than that when I came by... Hope your leg mends quickly John.
Got a poor start in the second attempt, and got tangled up with the front-engined cars, also leaving a small margin as I expected to find a 'box full of neutrals at some point, and coupled with a gusty wind chucking the car about, I was well off the my Qualifying pace, but sitting on the grid for 20 mins whilst ambulances and broken cars come past you really doesn't do much for your confidence ... Pleased just to finish to be honest. 3rd in Class, of 5. 15th overall from 32 starters.
A very long wait for the cars to be released from Parc Ferme, whilst there was a lengthy Steward's enquiry, then the M1 was closed, then our chosen alternative the A361 was closed, then the kids needed a break ... We got to Delta's to drop the car off gone 18:00... Ho hum!
Well done to the awesome Callum McLoed for two fine wins in the Caravelle.
Get well soon to John Fyda, and I hope to see the mangled cars back out soon, especially Stuart Roach's beautifully prepared Alexis.
Next stop Porto, a full six weeks away.
My first round of this year's FIA Lurani Trophy, at Donington Park, having missed the earlier rounds at Monza and Hockenheim. The car was woefully unprepared having been away for so long, but we checked a few obvious bits, put in some fuel and went well in qualifying having not sat in the car for six months I was quite pleased with a 1:28:3, 3rd in class C. Had a couple of interesting slidy moments, one tank-slapper through the Craner Curves had my full attention!
Race one sadly was a complete disaster... Good enough start, although I'm still not great at getting this car off the line, interesting first lap, but a broken gear selector at the chicane saw me coasting into the pits and into retirement. Very disappointing, and a bit ironic that it wasn't anything I'd have checked in the uncommitted winter job list.
Fortuitously I had a spare selector, and got it replaced (when the car should have been in Parc Ferme apparently!), and with a generous nod to that engineer of last resort, Mr Heath Robinson, we lined up for Race Two on Sunday morning ... Not a bad start and a good couple of laps, but then red-flagged after a three car shunt at the front of the field, disappointing considering we'd had the riot act read to us that morning by the Stewards, after some iffy driving standards on Saturday. I don't know how the shunt came about, but I crested the rise at Coppice to find bits of car all over the road, and came past John Fyda's broken car to see him lying alongside as a marshal arrived urgently beckoning more support ... I am pleased to report that he has just a broken ankle, but I didn't find this out till later, frankly it had looked worse than that when I came by... Hope your leg mends quickly John.
Got a poor start in the second attempt, and got tangled up with the front-engined cars, also leaving a small margin as I expected to find a 'box full of neutrals at some point, and coupled with a gusty wind chucking the car about, I was well off the my Qualifying pace, but sitting on the grid for 20 mins whilst ambulances and broken cars come past you really doesn't do much for your confidence ... Pleased just to finish to be honest. 3rd in Class, of 5. 15th overall from 32 starters.
A very long wait for the cars to be released from Parc Ferme, whilst there was a lengthy Steward's enquiry, then the M1 was closed, then our chosen alternative the A361 was closed, then the kids needed a break ... We got to Delta's to drop the car off gone 18:00... Ho hum!
Well done to the awesome Callum McLoed for two fine wins in the Caravelle.
Get well soon to John Fyda, and I hope to see the mangled cars back out soon, especially Stuart Roach's beautifully prepared Alexis.
Next stop Porto, a full six weeks away.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Friday, 15 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
That's Just about it Folks ...
... But I will load some more photos and some footage up onto YouTube, when I get home to the UK next week, so keep popping back if you might be interested in those.
Thanks for reading.
James
Thanks for reading.
James
Thanks
Particular thanks are due to:
Helen Coad of Octagon, the organisers, she's endured my inane questions and listened to my tribulations for 18 months, and she's brilliant.
David Ogg and navigator Michael Farrell. Helen introduced me to David some months back to give me some perspective on the event. At times when this whole project looked a bit improbable, it was great to have David and Helen, whilst not exactly 'in the canoe' with me, at least cheering me on from the bank as I paddled against the current! Having arrived in Oz, David and Michael have been fantastic, with logistics, as chauffeur, recce guide, and friends.
Charlie and Mary Hughes and their crew; and Stephen and Ginetta Rochester and their crew; your patient help is hugely appreciated.
XL Insurance, my employer, for giving me the time off and the much-appreciated sponsorship towards shipping costs.
OAMPs, for sorting several insurance issues that arose.
Geoff (and Grant) Kelly for getting the car back on track and Targa, when it looked like it might be going pear-shaped after the mechanical problems at Phillip Islands.
Michelle at Gibson Freight in Melbourne, and Martin at DHL Motorsport in Slough - please bring it back safely!
TR Enterprises, Steve, Simon, James and the rest of the gang in Blidworth, Notts., for building a car that has taken all that I have thrown at in the last few weeks, and still looks and goes good. It's heading back your way shortly, so you can put it all back together again!
Massive thanks to Jason Williams for agreeing to sit alongside me whilst I made my rally debut - considering that you were tackling your role as co-driver as a novice too, I think your approach has been excellent, there turned out to be rather a lot more to it than either of us realised and your work on the Pace Notes themselves was tremendous, but your role is much more than just about the Pace Notes. Thanks a lot mate, it's been great to share this experience with you.
Lastly, to Nic, my wife and my children, Emily and Freddie, for being as supportive of my activities as anyone could possibly wish for. I don't (well I try not to!) take it for granted.
Helen Coad of Octagon, the organisers, she's endured my inane questions and listened to my tribulations for 18 months, and she's brilliant.
David Ogg and navigator Michael Farrell. Helen introduced me to David some months back to give me some perspective on the event. At times when this whole project looked a bit improbable, it was great to have David and Helen, whilst not exactly 'in the canoe' with me, at least cheering me on from the bank as I paddled against the current! Having arrived in Oz, David and Michael have been fantastic, with logistics, as chauffeur, recce guide, and friends.
Charlie and Mary Hughes and their crew; and Stephen and Ginetta Rochester and their crew; your patient help is hugely appreciated.
XL Insurance, my employer, for giving me the time off and the much-appreciated sponsorship towards shipping costs.
OAMPs, for sorting several insurance issues that arose.
Geoff (and Grant) Kelly for getting the car back on track and Targa, when it looked like it might be going pear-shaped after the mechanical problems at Phillip Islands.
Michelle at Gibson Freight in Melbourne, and Martin at DHL Motorsport in Slough - please bring it back safely!
TR Enterprises, Steve, Simon, James and the rest of the gang in Blidworth, Notts., for building a car that has taken all that I have thrown at in the last few weeks, and still looks and goes good. It's heading back your way shortly, so you can put it all back together again!
Massive thanks to Jason Williams for agreeing to sit alongside me whilst I made my rally debut - considering that you were tackling your role as co-driver as a novice too, I think your approach has been excellent, there turned out to be rather a lot more to it than either of us realised and your work on the Pace Notes themselves was tremendous, but your role is much more than just about the Pace Notes. Thanks a lot mate, it's been great to share this experience with you.
Lastly, to Nic, my wife and my children, Emily and Freddie, for being as supportive of my activities as anyone could possibly wish for. I don't (well I try not to!) take it for granted.
Trophy Time
The post event dinner was held on the Monday evening, the day after the event, and was huge, well over 500 people. A good dinner, although perhaps the presentations went on a bit too long, but it was well compered. Highlights included the Party Tape, which the tv crew had put together from the more amusing or entertaining clips during the week, it was very well edited, and if you've made a fool of yourself on some stage of other, you can expect to see yourself here! They'd done a similar one for the 20th anniversary using clips from all the preceding years (embarrassingly including David Ogg's previous Targa mount, a Ferrari 365, down a bank at an angle of about 40o!), this tape also got a second showing. The highlight for me though was a ten minute ramble by a long-time competitor, ex-pat Northern Irishman, John Blake, who was hilarious recounting a few stories of past and present indiscretions, both his and other people's.
The other highlight was of course picking up our Targa Trophies, for hitting the times, whilst these had been achieved by quite a lot of crews, it seems that this is a pretty rare event for novices on this event, let alone complete novice Rallyistes, and it's just dawning on us what we have managed to achieve... We are chuffed to bits! A few people are certainly impressed, to the extent that we've been offered a fully prepared Holden Torana if we want to come back and run again but don't want to go to the expense of bringing a car down next time.
Would we come again ... Too right we would! Fantastic event, fantastic roads, lots of lovely people. Let's make no mistake though, it's a major undertaking to bring a car from Europe, both in terms of costs, and time to organise oneself and do battle with the bureaucrats... If I were to come again, I would definitely prepare the car more appropriately for an Endurance event over roads with some bumpy surfaces. We've had a lot of marvellous help whenever we needed it, for which we are very grateful, but I would definitely want some support crew next time, this of course would increase costs somewhat, but at the end of a long day it would be good not to have to wait in sweaty race suits to borrow someone else's tools etc. I would also pre-book fuel, just to relieve the stress of wondering whether you have enough fuel to run the stages and road sections before the next filling station hoves into view. I would definitely run with Pace Notes again, although I would not alter the philosophy of 'driving what I can see'.
Not sure when, but I'll be back ... Just need to work out whether to do Targa New Zealand, or Targa Newfoundland, or Classic Targa Adelaide before coming back to Tas!
The other highlight was of course picking up our Targa Trophies, for hitting the times, whilst these had been achieved by quite a lot of crews, it seems that this is a pretty rare event for novices on this event, let alone complete novice Rallyistes, and it's just dawning on us what we have managed to achieve... We are chuffed to bits! A few people are certainly impressed, to the extent that we've been offered a fully prepared Holden Torana if we want to come back and run again but don't want to go to the expense of bringing a car down next time.
Would we come again ... Too right we would! Fantastic event, fantastic roads, lots of lovely people. Let's make no mistake though, it's a major undertaking to bring a car from Europe, both in terms of costs, and time to organise oneself and do battle with the bureaucrats... If I were to come again, I would definitely prepare the car more appropriately for an Endurance event over roads with some bumpy surfaces. We've had a lot of marvellous help whenever we needed it, for which we are very grateful, but I would definitely want some support crew next time, this of course would increase costs somewhat, but at the end of a long day it would be good not to have to wait in sweaty race suits to borrow someone else's tools etc. I would also pre-book fuel, just to relieve the stress of wondering whether you have enough fuel to run the stages and road sections before the next filling station hoves into view. I would definitely run with Pace Notes again, although I would not alter the philosophy of 'driving what I can see'.
Not sure when, but I'll be back ... Just need to work out whether to do Targa New Zealand, or Targa Newfoundland, or Classic Targa Adelaide before coming back to Tas!
Targa Titbits
Targa is very popular with most of the population in Tasmania, it's a big deal here, schools give kids time off, you can see people in the strangest of vantage points, and sitting in their front yards, or with sofas and a pile of stubbies in the back of a pick-up (locally 'ute') etc. It is all in the name of public relations that we run some of the in-town stages, and that's what the Launceston TargaFest is all about too. It seems appropriate to give these people a wave as you go by on the touring stages. Early in the week I gave a wave which in retrospect seemed a bit limp, and this was to two rufty-tufty types sitting on the back of a ute ... a bit too Brokeback Mountain! So that made us realise that you really need a full range of waves, appropriate for different audiences: the 'English Royalty' for those of a certain age, Jason's cheery 'tellytubby' wave for school kids, but something a bit more manly is certainly required when you hit 'Deliverance' country.
Whilst waiting in the park for the start of the Prologue stage I was approached by an ex-pat Brit, Brian Dermott, who'd been astonished to see the Historic Sports Car Club badges on our car; turned out he was a founder member of the club, and ran in a number of events in the very early days, before emigrating to Victoria. Brian, it was a pleasure to meet you. Any Brits reading this, Brian has offered to be a point of contact, or perhaps even more active support, for any other Brits going out, particularly HSCC members.
We enjoyed meeting father and son team Frazer and Andre Gasgoine, Frazer was a 'Legend' meaning that he had run in a number of the early events, and was invited back for the 20th anniversary, with certain 'grandfather' rights as far as car-specification was concerned - effectively they could run to the regs of the period they ran in. In their case they ran a Ferrari 308 GTB, nice looking car, they ran with no pace notes, and they ran very well. We enjoyed their company. Must be a buzz to have 'Legend' emblazoned on the side of your car!
Best noise of the week, not the Lamborghinis, not even the Porsche 908, but the Jensen CV8 of the Ullrichs, a hugely developed car, not sure that anyone from West Bromwich would recognise it!
Of course we had made a massive effort to get to the event, but teams that had driven from Queensland had at least an 18 hour drive to the ferry in Melbourne, teams from Western Australia had to drive for days to cross Oz ... Pretty epic when you think about it, and it puts us to shame in the UK, when grids are down at some race meetings because people can't be bothered to drive to the farther-flung circuits, which are probably a 5hour drive at most from the majority.
The island has some great place names, Brits would feel right at home, I saw Bridport, Epping Forest and Melton Mowbray for example, there were also a few oddities, such as Laughing Jack and Penguin, but certainly the most amusing was a place called 'Nowhere Else', can you imagine having that conversation with a policeman after he's stopped you - "what's your address sonny", "Nowhere, Officer", "Don't be funny with me, Young Man, where do you live?" etc!
I've mentioned it before, but the scenery really is spectacular - it's a big area yet the population is only half a million or so, of which over half live in Hobart, Launceston, Devonport and a couple of other towns, so that means the rest of the place is pretty sparsely inhabited. Even driving up the state's main road from Hobart to Devonport, there were times when you had 10km views in every direction, and yet the only evidence of humankind was the road itself, some telegraph poles alongside and some fencing stretching into the distance.
I think we were extremely lucky with the weather, although we had to contend with some damp roads at times, for us it was only actually raining as we tackled three stages; a lot of the time we were running under blue skies, I'm led to believe that most Targas are rather wetter than this one, especially as this year was run 3 weeks earlier than the usual date. To make up for our lucky weather, Monday's 300km drive from Hobart to Devonport for the ferry was hideous, torrential rain, roadworks on much of the main road, and quite a lot of heavy lorries raising huge walls of spray - most unpleasant, but I'm grateful that we only had to contend with that after the event had finished.
Whilst waiting in the park for the start of the Prologue stage I was approached by an ex-pat Brit, Brian Dermott, who'd been astonished to see the Historic Sports Car Club badges on our car; turned out he was a founder member of the club, and ran in a number of events in the very early days, before emigrating to Victoria. Brian, it was a pleasure to meet you. Any Brits reading this, Brian has offered to be a point of contact, or perhaps even more active support, for any other Brits going out, particularly HSCC members.
We enjoyed meeting father and son team Frazer and Andre Gasgoine, Frazer was a 'Legend' meaning that he had run in a number of the early events, and was invited back for the 20th anniversary, with certain 'grandfather' rights as far as car-specification was concerned - effectively they could run to the regs of the period they ran in. In their case they ran a Ferrari 308 GTB, nice looking car, they ran with no pace notes, and they ran very well. We enjoyed their company. Must be a buzz to have 'Legend' emblazoned on the side of your car!
Best noise of the week, not the Lamborghinis, not even the Porsche 908, but the Jensen CV8 of the Ullrichs, a hugely developed car, not sure that anyone from West Bromwich would recognise it!
Of course we had made a massive effort to get to the event, but teams that had driven from Queensland had at least an 18 hour drive to the ferry in Melbourne, teams from Western Australia had to drive for days to cross Oz ... Pretty epic when you think about it, and it puts us to shame in the UK, when grids are down at some race meetings because people can't be bothered to drive to the farther-flung circuits, which are probably a 5hour drive at most from the majority.
The island has some great place names, Brits would feel right at home, I saw Bridport, Epping Forest and Melton Mowbray for example, there were also a few oddities, such as Laughing Jack and Penguin, but certainly the most amusing was a place called 'Nowhere Else', can you imagine having that conversation with a policeman after he's stopped you - "what's your address sonny", "Nowhere, Officer", "Don't be funny with me, Young Man, where do you live?" etc!
I've mentioned it before, but the scenery really is spectacular - it's a big area yet the population is only half a million or so, of which over half live in Hobart, Launceston, Devonport and a couple of other towns, so that means the rest of the place is pretty sparsely inhabited. Even driving up the state's main road from Hobart to Devonport, there were times when you had 10km views in every direction, and yet the only evidence of humankind was the road itself, some telegraph poles alongside and some fencing stretching into the distance.
I think we were extremely lucky with the weather, although we had to contend with some damp roads at times, for us it was only actually raining as we tackled three stages; a lot of the time we were running under blue skies, I'm led to believe that most Targas are rather wetter than this one, especially as this year was run 3 weeks earlier than the usual date. To make up for our lucky weather, Monday's 300km drive from Hobart to Devonport for the ferry was hideous, torrential rain, roadworks on much of the main road, and quite a lot of heavy lorries raising huge walls of spray - most unpleasant, but I'm grateful that we only had to contend with that after the event had finished.
The One about the taxi, the spider and the puppies...
For Jason and I, one of our Targa highlights has been meeting a local couple running a yellow Ford Falcon, Charlie and Mary Hughes. It seems as though Charlie sits there pushing the ex-taxi as fast as it will go, whilst Mary is constantly urging Charlie to go faster! They actually ran the Prologue stage with a Taxi sign on the roof! The car is signwritten with a long list of people they are grateful to for help, with the last named being Darby. I asked who Darby was and was told it was their sponsor ... it turns out that Darby is their Great Dane, and she's recently had a litter of pups, so rather than being eaten out of house and home by a large family of Great Danes, they have sold the Pups, and the money they got has paid their entry fee!
It was Charlie and Mary who had a Huntsman spider appear out of the air vents during one stages, a Huntsman apparently isn't dangerous but it's about the size of your hand, complete with furry legs and all, certainly enough to put you off - even if you weren't driving at Charlie's pace at the time - being a farmgirl Mary dealt with it with the hefty book of pace notes, it's about the size of a side plate now, and won't be crawling anywhere ... In another wildlife encounter they had an eagle of some sort swoop down in front of the screen on another stage. They (and their crew) are great fun, it's been great to meet them. They were very sweet to buy four cuddly toys, a koala, a platypus, a bilby and a Tasmanian Tiger, for Jason and I to bring home for our young children. They've also done very well in the event, which they are very pleased about considering they are relative novices too. The old taxi goes well!
It was Charlie and Mary who had a Huntsman spider appear out of the air vents during one stages, a Huntsman apparently isn't dangerous but it's about the size of your hand, complete with furry legs and all, certainly enough to put you off - even if you weren't driving at Charlie's pace at the time - being a farmgirl Mary dealt with it with the hefty book of pace notes, it's about the size of a side plate now, and won't be crawling anywhere ... In another wildlife encounter they had an eagle of some sort swoop down in front of the screen on another stage. They (and their crew) are great fun, it's been great to meet them. They were very sweet to buy four cuddly toys, a koala, a platypus, a bilby and a Tasmanian Tiger, for Jason and I to bring home for our young children. They've also done very well in the event, which they are very pleased about considering they are relative novices too. The old taxi goes well!
Monday, 11 April 2011
Monday in Hobart
We actually had a day off on Monday.
Thanks to Scott, Elaine, and son Colin, Taylor for showing us around Scotty's ToyShed, with a few interest classic and race cars, and lots of good memorabilia, photos etc. Elaine then dropped us up to the Moorilla estate, where a controversial new modern art gallery has been opened by some gazillionaire. Very modern building, and the whole place is very funky, but just a touch weird ... There are no descriptions on the Walls by the exhibits, but they give you an iPod which works out where you are in the building and what you might be looking at, in each case there is then different buttons that gives you an explanation of the piece, the comments of the Gallery owner or the curator, or in some cases an interview with the artist. Some of the comments by the owner or the curator are classic, as they have a tendency to describe each other's selections (or sometimes their own!) as cr@p! After you've left, the iPod then emails your own experience in the museum to you.
The gallery has only been open a couple of months and is seriously impressive, inevitably we found some stuff good, some stuff clever, and some other stuff just plain weird or even deviant! The piece de resistance (although I hesitate to use that phrase) is actually a machine called the 'Cloaca Professional' ... Anyone out there remember their Latin from school? Cloaca is the word for sewer if I recall correctly, and this is a machine that actually makes poo, replicating the human digestive system. Into one end they feed food that is surplus from the restaurant and cafe (at 12:00 and 15:00 every day) and then at 14:00 every day it poos - I'm not kidding! Jason asked the technician a bit about it, and he told us that it had got a bit clogged up during the installation phase, but then they realised that it didn't have a varied enough diet, as the builders were dropping their pies and chips into it ... Now it has a 'normal' varied human type diet, they even give it a beer a couple of times a week!
One of the other exhibits opened with some chunks of genuine meat hanging from it, when these started to deteriorate, they fed the meat to the Cloaca ... So here we have it, the first museum in the world where one exhibit eats others. Hilarious. If you don't believe me check out the website mona.net.au
Off to the big Targa Presentation dinner shortly, and ready for a beer! Will report on the dinner later.
Tomorrow we drive up through Tasmania from Hobart to Devonport to catch the ferry, and we have planned to meet a group of Targa-istes at the pub that sits on one corner of the old Longford circuit, and is apparently full of race memorabilia. It's about half way up the state, so a good place to break anyway in the 4 hour drive. I hope the car can make it...!
Thanks to Scott, Elaine, and son Colin, Taylor for showing us around Scotty's ToyShed, with a few interest classic and race cars, and lots of good memorabilia, photos etc. Elaine then dropped us up to the Moorilla estate, where a controversial new modern art gallery has been opened by some gazillionaire. Very modern building, and the whole place is very funky, but just a touch weird ... There are no descriptions on the Walls by the exhibits, but they give you an iPod which works out where you are in the building and what you might be looking at, in each case there is then different buttons that gives you an explanation of the piece, the comments of the Gallery owner or the curator, or in some cases an interview with the artist. Some of the comments by the owner or the curator are classic, as they have a tendency to describe each other's selections (or sometimes their own!) as cr@p! After you've left, the iPod then emails your own experience in the museum to you.
The gallery has only been open a couple of months and is seriously impressive, inevitably we found some stuff good, some stuff clever, and some other stuff just plain weird or even deviant! The piece de resistance (although I hesitate to use that phrase) is actually a machine called the 'Cloaca Professional' ... Anyone out there remember their Latin from school? Cloaca is the word for sewer if I recall correctly, and this is a machine that actually makes poo, replicating the human digestive system. Into one end they feed food that is surplus from the restaurant and cafe (at 12:00 and 15:00 every day) and then at 14:00 every day it poos - I'm not kidding! Jason asked the technician a bit about it, and he told us that it had got a bit clogged up during the installation phase, but then they realised that it didn't have a varied enough diet, as the builders were dropping their pies and chips into it ... Now it has a 'normal' varied human type diet, they even give it a beer a couple of times a week!
One of the other exhibits opened with some chunks of genuine meat hanging from it, when these started to deteriorate, they fed the meat to the Cloaca ... So here we have it, the first museum in the world where one exhibit eats others. Hilarious. If you don't believe me check out the website mona.net.au
Off to the big Targa Presentation dinner shortly, and ready for a beer! Will report on the dinner later.
Tomorrow we drive up through Tasmania from Hobart to Devonport to catch the ferry, and we have planned to meet a group of Targa-istes at the pub that sits on one corner of the old Longford circuit, and is apparently full of race memorabilia. It's about half way up the state, so a good place to break anyway in the 4 hour drive. I hope the car can make it...!
Hobart - Tea and Medals!
We made it! Bit of a crawl into Hobart, but a good run through about 20 green traffic lights in succession - somebody wants us to finish this thing.
We jump the queue so as to follow David Ogg and Michael Farrell's Alfa Giulia up onto the top of a small multi-storey car park where the official finish was sited, tv, commentators, podium, we get to drive through an arch and a pretty model looking a bit chilly in the cooler weather hangs a finishers medal round our necks. We are elated just to finish. Park the car on thhe lower level, and back on top to get a beer and cheer our buddies as they come through.
We are 58th in Late Classic Handicap, and 73rd in Classic Outright. We have achieved both our goal of finishing and our ambition to get a Targa Trophy. Into the bar for a beer, having been breathalysed every morning we've not had more than 2 beers any day, we might have a few more tonight ...
We might have got to the finish, but I'll have some more bits to go up later on the blog, just might be a couple of days until I get wifi again.
We jump the queue so as to follow David Ogg and Michael Farrell's Alfa Giulia up onto the top of a small multi-storey car park where the official finish was sited, tv, commentators, podium, we get to drive through an arch and a pretty model looking a bit chilly in the cooler weather hangs a finishers medal round our necks. We are elated just to finish. Park the car on thhe lower level, and back on top to get a beer and cheer our buddies as they come through.
We are 58th in Late Classic Handicap, and 73rd in Classic Outright. We have achieved both our goal of finishing and our ambition to get a Targa Trophy. Into the bar for a beer, having been breathalysed every morning we've not had more than 2 beers any day, we might have a few more tonight ...
We might have got to the finish, but I'll have some more bits to go up later on the blog, just might be a couple of days until I get wifi again.
Final Day
Here we go, six stages left, including the 58km Mt Arrowsmith stage. Today's journey goes across the state from Strahan to Hobart, through an enormous World Heritage National Park.
First stage was the reverse of the Rinnadinna stage the day before, a long climb out of Strahan, on wet roads, in trees, with a low sun to hit you in the eyes as you apex some of the corners ... Took it easy at the start, and then wound it up a bit when the road opened up further into the stage, really enjoyed this one. Overtook a few cars close together near the end, which was interesting on quite a narrow bit of road!
Then into Queenstown stage, up out of an old mining town, 'Deliverance' territory again, a very twisty road that is carved out of the mountain side, with a serious drop to one side. This is the stage you'll see some photos of if you look at Targa's website. I was very circumspect on this one, there's something about a helicopter hovering alongside you that is faintly intimidating. Still on Trophy though, as the road opens up into fun flowing stage down the back side of the hill, without the death-defying drop, so we could push on!
Mt Arrowsmith ... 58kms. Awesome ... Through the National Park, stunning scenery, and great road, but potentially treacherous, lots of surface changes, plenty of water on the surface although at least the sky was clear, and in places you could see diesel down on the race line, on top of the water ... nice. We had a few minor moments when the car understeered a touch in the corners. Fortunately there was once again plenty of long fast flowing stuff, some of which was already dried by the sun, so we made our Trophy Time quite comfortably. Three shortish stages to go, but a couple of long road runs, through amazingly beautiful unspoilt scenery; in some of the views it really wouldn't have been a surprise to see a brontosaurus, as it cannot have changed in that long.
Tarraleah was next up, moderate length stage at 8.64km, at the beginning of the week we'd have thought that was long, now it's just a short blast! A fun stage again, but we aren't pushing too hard now that we've nearly got to Hobart! Two stages to go ...
A long run to New Norfolk for lunch. I pulled the car up and a local greeted me warmly, and said he'd driven 30kms specifically to see us and our car, as he had seen it in the Sunday paper, this was news to us! He was a nice gentleman, a farmer nearby, and had a TR6 hence his interest. Obviously I went in search of a Sunday newspaper to see the photo that had piqued his interest - true enough it was taken at the corner on Riana stage on day 4, that I mentioned earlier - it's a great shot, with two wheels in the air on the left side of the car - I'm delighted, and texted my wife to tell her that I'd get it blown up to 6ft x 3ft to put it on the living room wall, it's much too good for the bathroom where car photos usually have to go!
Molesworth was a stage shortened by rain damaged roads, a bit mickey mouse in it's curtailed form, what David Ogg called a Goat Track, narrow, twisty and slippery as the rain had started again, coupled with that, this was our usual post-lunch time to foul-up. I didn't drive it well at all, but we beat the Trophy time again. One to go.
Grasstree Hill, a nice flowing smooth stage to finish, really enjoyed it, didn't push too hard for obvious reasons. We made it, Trophy Time again. Just a 20km road stage to complete in time and we're done - not a easy task with the clutch issues now worse ...
First stage was the reverse of the Rinnadinna stage the day before, a long climb out of Strahan, on wet roads, in trees, with a low sun to hit you in the eyes as you apex some of the corners ... Took it easy at the start, and then wound it up a bit when the road opened up further into the stage, really enjoyed this one. Overtook a few cars close together near the end, which was interesting on quite a narrow bit of road!
Then into Queenstown stage, up out of an old mining town, 'Deliverance' territory again, a very twisty road that is carved out of the mountain side, with a serious drop to one side. This is the stage you'll see some photos of if you look at Targa's website. I was very circumspect on this one, there's something about a helicopter hovering alongside you that is faintly intimidating. Still on Trophy though, as the road opens up into fun flowing stage down the back side of the hill, without the death-defying drop, so we could push on!
Mt Arrowsmith ... 58kms. Awesome ... Through the National Park, stunning scenery, and great road, but potentially treacherous, lots of surface changes, plenty of water on the surface although at least the sky was clear, and in places you could see diesel down on the race line, on top of the water ... nice. We had a few minor moments when the car understeered a touch in the corners. Fortunately there was once again plenty of long fast flowing stuff, some of which was already dried by the sun, so we made our Trophy Time quite comfortably. Three shortish stages to go, but a couple of long road runs, through amazingly beautiful unspoilt scenery; in some of the views it really wouldn't have been a surprise to see a brontosaurus, as it cannot have changed in that long.
Tarraleah was next up, moderate length stage at 8.64km, at the beginning of the week we'd have thought that was long, now it's just a short blast! A fun stage again, but we aren't pushing too hard now that we've nearly got to Hobart! Two stages to go ...
A long run to New Norfolk for lunch. I pulled the car up and a local greeted me warmly, and said he'd driven 30kms specifically to see us and our car, as he had seen it in the Sunday paper, this was news to us! He was a nice gentleman, a farmer nearby, and had a TR6 hence his interest. Obviously I went in search of a Sunday newspaper to see the photo that had piqued his interest - true enough it was taken at the corner on Riana stage on day 4, that I mentioned earlier - it's a great shot, with two wheels in the air on the left side of the car - I'm delighted, and texted my wife to tell her that I'd get it blown up to 6ft x 3ft to put it on the living room wall, it's much too good for the bathroom where car photos usually have to go!
Molesworth was a stage shortened by rain damaged roads, a bit mickey mouse in it's curtailed form, what David Ogg called a Goat Track, narrow, twisty and slippery as the rain had started again, coupled with that, this was our usual post-lunch time to foul-up. I didn't drive it well at all, but we beat the Trophy time again. One to go.
Grasstree Hill, a nice flowing smooth stage to finish, really enjoyed it, didn't push too hard for obvious reasons. We made it, Trophy Time again. Just a 20km road stage to complete in time and we're done - not a easy task with the clutch issues now worse ...
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Day 4 - the real BIG day
Into the Silverdome this morning at an alarming 0600, complete with all our luggage. Sunrise is beautiful here, but we hadn't expected to see it quite so often! It's a huge day, definitely the hardest of the whole event, 550 road kilometres including 8 stages, ending up in the small south-western port of Strahan, where the arrival of the event trebles the population for a few hours.
We ran Cethana Stage, which is the same road as Mt Roland, which we had run yesterday, but today run in the opposite direction, and with another 10kms tacked onto the end of it, this is simply brilliant, lots of very fast stuff over the top of the mountain but also some twisty bits too. Towards the end there was another long climb and the car was feeling (actually smelling) tired and hot, so i backed off a touch. The end of Cethana stage marks the mid-way point of the competitive stage kilometres, so there is still a very long way to go, and the car is tired, so it is worth our while to ease up occasionally to preserve the car.
A short stage and then on to Riana, another signature stage. A long climb, then some open flowing stages on the top, then dropping down into a gorge (where the recent heavy rain had damaged the road so a short section was limited to 40kmh). A one point there is a left turn at a junction, with the road dropping away slightly, and it's a favourite spot for photographers, I wanted a good snap but I went over it a bit more aggressively than I'd intended ... Managed to collect the car on landing, although it was a bit squirrelly! Just hope they got the shot, we'll find out later. We got overtaken by three cars on this stages, each one delaying us slightly, and in one case the car overtook us on a twisty section, but then we had a long climb and a flowing section where we would have been quicker.
Into each car at this event the organisers have attached some funky box of tricks called Rallysafe, which gives stage times and distances etc., and lots of other functions, but it's main purpose is safety. It will give you a caption on the screen if a car closes to less than 200m behind, so that you can look to help him overtake (if the Nav presses a button a message is transmitted back to the approaching car acknowledging his presence); if the car comes to a stop on stage the box instantly transmits an SOS message, to which you can then adjust to 'OK' or validate the 'SOS', following cars will pick up the message, and the first three on the scene are expected to stop. We know it works, because immediately we came to a stop in our 'off' on Wednesday the box was transmitting. It's an impressive system once they get it working, but there have been a lot of teething troubles during this event. Well, during the Riana stage we got an SOS message come up, so we backed off for a couple of minutes expecting to find a car off, nothing was seen, and when another car approached and overtook we assumed the message was spurious, and we upped the pace again. At the end of this stage, despite feeling like we'd gone well, we had missed our Trophy Time for the first time, by a mere 9 seconds. However having approached the organisers they have agreed to discount 30 secs for this stage time, in recognition of the RallySafe issue, so we are back on Trophy again. It transpires that a number of cars just missed Trophy Time on this stage, and have put in requests to the organisers for adjustment due to the short speed limited section which was not taken into account in the Trophy Time.
After lunch there was a serious threat of rain in the air, and we were lucky to get through the Hellyer Gorge stage before the drizzle turned to proper rain. But that was the last dry stage of the day. Rain was something that I'd been dreading... although the tyres we're using are quite good in the rain, these were pretty well-used by now! I'd got into some rhythm in the dry, and didn't really want to go back down the learning curve. Still rain is what we got, so here goes...
Mt Black, Rosebery and then the Rinnadinna stage down into Strahan. Both Mt Black and Rosebery were fairly major road, by local standards, still twisty, but wider and not so tight - would have been very fast if dry. But it wasn't, it was wet and very slippery in places, with treacherous surface changes and White lines well worth avoiding. Three cars were off with 100m of each other on Rosebery before we went through, including the Ford V8 Pilot being driven as the ceremonial #1 car that opens each stage, it lost a rear wing in the accident, so some wag came up with the idea that it should henceforth be called Car #3/4! When you add the slipperiness to the fact that TR wipers are useless, and the car will steam up whilst we await the start of stages, it all became a bit of a daunting challenge. I didn't enjoy any of these stages to be honest, but was pleased to hit Trophy Time (which is adjusted for wet or intermediate conditions).
Into Strahan, very tired, but so is the car, we had to bleed the clutch, still in my race suit under the car, in the rain ... It's supposed to be fun! Serviced the car, parked it in Parc Ferme, then showered and headed back to the centre of the village, where the atmosphere was really good, big fireworks display on the harbour too. We have survived Day 4, quite a good number didn't, or had delays after offs.
One day to go.... Still on for a Trophy, we think (we know we've hit the stage times, but we're still a bit confused about the road times - but we think we are still clean...) All our buddies still running too.
We ran Cethana Stage, which is the same road as Mt Roland, which we had run yesterday, but today run in the opposite direction, and with another 10kms tacked onto the end of it, this is simply brilliant, lots of very fast stuff over the top of the mountain but also some twisty bits too. Towards the end there was another long climb and the car was feeling (actually smelling) tired and hot, so i backed off a touch. The end of Cethana stage marks the mid-way point of the competitive stage kilometres, so there is still a very long way to go, and the car is tired, so it is worth our while to ease up occasionally to preserve the car.
A short stage and then on to Riana, another signature stage. A long climb, then some open flowing stages on the top, then dropping down into a gorge (where the recent heavy rain had damaged the road so a short section was limited to 40kmh). A one point there is a left turn at a junction, with the road dropping away slightly, and it's a favourite spot for photographers, I wanted a good snap but I went over it a bit more aggressively than I'd intended ... Managed to collect the car on landing, although it was a bit squirrelly! Just hope they got the shot, we'll find out later. We got overtaken by three cars on this stages, each one delaying us slightly, and in one case the car overtook us on a twisty section, but then we had a long climb and a flowing section where we would have been quicker.
Into each car at this event the organisers have attached some funky box of tricks called Rallysafe, which gives stage times and distances etc., and lots of other functions, but it's main purpose is safety. It will give you a caption on the screen if a car closes to less than 200m behind, so that you can look to help him overtake (if the Nav presses a button a message is transmitted back to the approaching car acknowledging his presence); if the car comes to a stop on stage the box instantly transmits an SOS message, to which you can then adjust to 'OK' or validate the 'SOS', following cars will pick up the message, and the first three on the scene are expected to stop. We know it works, because immediately we came to a stop in our 'off' on Wednesday the box was transmitting. It's an impressive system once they get it working, but there have been a lot of teething troubles during this event. Well, during the Riana stage we got an SOS message come up, so we backed off for a couple of minutes expecting to find a car off, nothing was seen, and when another car approached and overtook we assumed the message was spurious, and we upped the pace again. At the end of this stage, despite feeling like we'd gone well, we had missed our Trophy Time for the first time, by a mere 9 seconds. However having approached the organisers they have agreed to discount 30 secs for this stage time, in recognition of the RallySafe issue, so we are back on Trophy again. It transpires that a number of cars just missed Trophy Time on this stage, and have put in requests to the organisers for adjustment due to the short speed limited section which was not taken into account in the Trophy Time.
After lunch there was a serious threat of rain in the air, and we were lucky to get through the Hellyer Gorge stage before the drizzle turned to proper rain. But that was the last dry stage of the day. Rain was something that I'd been dreading... although the tyres we're using are quite good in the rain, these were pretty well-used by now! I'd got into some rhythm in the dry, and didn't really want to go back down the learning curve. Still rain is what we got, so here goes...
Mt Black, Rosebery and then the Rinnadinna stage down into Strahan. Both Mt Black and Rosebery were fairly major road, by local standards, still twisty, but wider and not so tight - would have been very fast if dry. But it wasn't, it was wet and very slippery in places, with treacherous surface changes and White lines well worth avoiding. Three cars were off with 100m of each other on Rosebery before we went through, including the Ford V8 Pilot being driven as the ceremonial #1 car that opens each stage, it lost a rear wing in the accident, so some wag came up with the idea that it should henceforth be called Car #3/4! When you add the slipperiness to the fact that TR wipers are useless, and the car will steam up whilst we await the start of stages, it all became a bit of a daunting challenge. I didn't enjoy any of these stages to be honest, but was pleased to hit Trophy Time (which is adjusted for wet or intermediate conditions).
Into Strahan, very tired, but so is the car, we had to bleed the clutch, still in my race suit under the car, in the rain ... It's supposed to be fun! Serviced the car, parked it in Parc Ferme, then showered and headed back to the centre of the village, where the atmosphere was really good, big fireworks display on the harbour too. We have survived Day 4, quite a good number didn't, or had delays after offs.
One day to go.... Still on for a Trophy, we think (we know we've hit the stage times, but we're still a bit confused about the road times - but we think we are still clean...) All our buddies still running too.
Day Three
Well, the one thing you really need to know about today, is that according to the latest results I've just seen, we have moved up the rankings a bit today, and are now sitting one place behind car #611, which is the ex-San Remo winning Porsche 911SC, run by the Porsche factory museum, and driven by a certain ex-World Rally Champion Walter Rohrl ... Yes, honestly, us novices, in our inappropriately prepared car are just 45secs and one place behind a complete hero! To be fair, I should point out that he has penalties after some car issues delayed him, whereas we have none - but that's all part of the game.
Our little car is seriously tired ... Bits are seizing, or falling off with regularity! Today we had the throttle linkage stiffening up, complicating gear shifts, but not a major issue. We've lubricated it all, and replaced the return springs with new ones, seems better. The other issue, which is causing me some concern (because we cannot really do anything about it), is that the clutch pedal is becoming very stiff, so I suspect the bush in the pivot is breaking up, but you can't get to it without removing the pedal box, and this event simply doesn't give you enough time to do such work; it's more of an issue on the road sections and through town really, on stage it's manageable as long as it gets no worse.
Another simply brilliant day, including our first long stage, Mt Roland at 26kms - fantastic! We moved the camera today onto the windscreen and the footage is much better, but I've got bored trying to load video onto YouTube via wifi and iPad, so check back on YouTube in a couple of weeks, as I'll do it from home when we get back.
Still within Trophy Time, our buddies all still running too; but tomorrow is 550kms, including several stages of over 30kms - oh, and the forecast is for rain. The upside of rain is that there'd be less pressure on the car. The downside is that the driver now has to cope with learning what a 7left means in the wet, is it a heavy brake and a downshift, or less? And the tyres are a bit secondhand by now. Wish us luck.
Got to get some sleep, before our 0530 alarm call.
Our little car is seriously tired ... Bits are seizing, or falling off with regularity! Today we had the throttle linkage stiffening up, complicating gear shifts, but not a major issue. We've lubricated it all, and replaced the return springs with new ones, seems better. The other issue, which is causing me some concern (because we cannot really do anything about it), is that the clutch pedal is becoming very stiff, so I suspect the bush in the pivot is breaking up, but you can't get to it without removing the pedal box, and this event simply doesn't give you enough time to do such work; it's more of an issue on the road sections and through town really, on stage it's manageable as long as it gets no worse.
Another simply brilliant day, including our first long stage, Mt Roland at 26kms - fantastic! We moved the camera today onto the windscreen and the footage is much better, but I've got bored trying to load video onto YouTube via wifi and iPad, so check back on YouTube in a couple of weeks, as I'll do it from home when we get back.
Still within Trophy Time, our buddies all still running too; but tomorrow is 550kms, including several stages of over 30kms - oh, and the forecast is for rain. The upside of rain is that there'd be less pressure on the car. The downside is that the driver now has to cope with learning what a 7left means in the wet, is it a heavy brake and a downshift, or less? And the tyres are a bit secondhand by now. Wish us luck.
Got to get some sleep, before our 0530 alarm call.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Day Two
The event just gets better and better ... Another simply beautiful day here, barely a cloud in the sky. 8 stages today, run in the Top right corner of Tas, and including a number of well known stages with 'reputations'!
An early start had us queuing for at the Sidling Stage to open before 0800 having run 50kms or so from Silverdome, unfortunately camera mismanagement meant that we don't have footage of this stage, which is a shame, as it's one of the famous stages. 14.3kms of twisty, tight road narrow in places, and with some damp patches, quite a big crowd in some spots too (always be wary where the crowds are, they quite like to see shunts!) We took a couple of minutes to get into the swing of it, and Jason found the constant switchback quite tricky to brace himself and not get flung from side to side! Eventually found our rythym and comfortably achieved a 10:54 against a trophy time of 13mins.
Stage 2 was Ledgerwood, in open country, where it was possible to get more of a look at the road ahead, a great stage, and the most competitive stage we've run, actually outrunning Targa regular David Ogg for the first time, but only by one second! 5:77km in 3:28 (Trophy Time 5:00).
The next three stages were run on the relatively major A3 road, (not exactly motorway you understand) which had been closed for the occasion. 7.7km Moorina, 13km Weldborough Pass, and 7km Pyengana, and just a couple of road kms between each stage. Pretty intense, as these were more twisty stages in and out of sunlight and shade, with some damp patches too. My favourite section was the last bit of Pyengana, nice sweeping curves, back out of the trees, and with a good camber - the TR is great through this sort of faster stuff. All stages cleared within Trophy time, and a run into little port town of St Helen's for an early lunch, and our second refuel of the morning.
A lovely drive about 40km down the eastern coast road, in company with the TR3A of Stephen and Ginetta Rochester, who along with their crew, have been super-helpful to us. The scenery here is stunning, shame we don't have time to stop and take some photos.
11km Elephant Pass stage up next, and we arrived to find a very short queue into stage, and were ushered in a bit quickly, my mistake, Jason wasn't ready, so we took a minute or so to get up to speed on the notes. Two days in a row I have made small mistakes on the first stage after lunch, need to cut that out. A very tight narrow stage, with a big drop along my side, not confidence inspiring! Ran the trophy time, but not our best stage!
Then 12km Rossarden, the one they've all been scaring us about, again very tight, but now with drops and steep descents. It starts up in the hills, real 'Deliverance' country... First few kms are the open, visible fast and flowing road that suits us, then it starts to drop downhill, and drops over the edge, into a winding track carved out of the side of the hill, dropping ever down into the valley ... you really don't want to run out of brakes here, even if you're actually travelling relatively slowly because of all the sharp twists, fortunately I'm confident in the car in this regard, even if I did dab them occasionally just to make sure before it became urgent. A very happy crew at the finish of this stage, especially as we hit the Trophy Time again, 7:57 against target of 10mins. Watch the video, if I can ever get it to load on YouTube.
Another long road stage, run in company with the Rochesters' TR3A again, more spectacular scenery, very reminiscent to me of Tanzania, except without the wildebeest... Final stage was another crowd-pleasing blast through the streets, this time Longford. We attacked this a bit more having been much too cautious in the Prologue stage.
A great day, super stages, more hardcore than Day 1, longer stages, and longer road links. But crew and car going well, and getting stuck in now. Serviced the car, including a brake bleed after heavy use today. Everything in order. Back into the Velodrome, and off for a shower, dinner and blog!
Still on for a Trophy, and all the people we've befriended are still running, hopefully more of the same tomorrow.
Just got results through, we are now 58th of about 70 cars remaining in Late Classic division on Handicap, and 65th of about 90 cars left in the outright Classic Division overall. So we have moved a little up the order, and not just because of those that have dropped out! We are now 1:32 behind our Mentors/Chauffeurs/Chaperones David 'Genghis' Ogg and Michael 'Attilla' Farrell.
An early start had us queuing for at the Sidling Stage to open before 0800 having run 50kms or so from Silverdome, unfortunately camera mismanagement meant that we don't have footage of this stage, which is a shame, as it's one of the famous stages. 14.3kms of twisty, tight road narrow in places, and with some damp patches, quite a big crowd in some spots too (always be wary where the crowds are, they quite like to see shunts!) We took a couple of minutes to get into the swing of it, and Jason found the constant switchback quite tricky to brace himself and not get flung from side to side! Eventually found our rythym and comfortably achieved a 10:54 against a trophy time of 13mins.
Stage 2 was Ledgerwood, in open country, where it was possible to get more of a look at the road ahead, a great stage, and the most competitive stage we've run, actually outrunning Targa regular David Ogg for the first time, but only by one second! 5:77km in 3:28 (Trophy Time 5:00).
The next three stages were run on the relatively major A3 road, (not exactly motorway you understand) which had been closed for the occasion. 7.7km Moorina, 13km Weldborough Pass, and 7km Pyengana, and just a couple of road kms between each stage. Pretty intense, as these were more twisty stages in and out of sunlight and shade, with some damp patches too. My favourite section was the last bit of Pyengana, nice sweeping curves, back out of the trees, and with a good camber - the TR is great through this sort of faster stuff. All stages cleared within Trophy time, and a run into little port town of St Helen's for an early lunch, and our second refuel of the morning.
A lovely drive about 40km down the eastern coast road, in company with the TR3A of Stephen and Ginetta Rochester, who along with their crew, have been super-helpful to us. The scenery here is stunning, shame we don't have time to stop and take some photos.
11km Elephant Pass stage up next, and we arrived to find a very short queue into stage, and were ushered in a bit quickly, my mistake, Jason wasn't ready, so we took a minute or so to get up to speed on the notes. Two days in a row I have made small mistakes on the first stage after lunch, need to cut that out. A very tight narrow stage, with a big drop along my side, not confidence inspiring! Ran the trophy time, but not our best stage!
Then 12km Rossarden, the one they've all been scaring us about, again very tight, but now with drops and steep descents. It starts up in the hills, real 'Deliverance' country... First few kms are the open, visible fast and flowing road that suits us, then it starts to drop downhill, and drops over the edge, into a winding track carved out of the side of the hill, dropping ever down into the valley ... you really don't want to run out of brakes here, even if you're actually travelling relatively slowly because of all the sharp twists, fortunately I'm confident in the car in this regard, even if I did dab them occasionally just to make sure before it became urgent. A very happy crew at the finish of this stage, especially as we hit the Trophy Time again, 7:57 against target of 10mins. Watch the video, if I can ever get it to load on YouTube.
Another long road stage, run in company with the Rochesters' TR3A again, more spectacular scenery, very reminiscent to me of Tanzania, except without the wildebeest... Final stage was another crowd-pleasing blast through the streets, this time Longford. We attacked this a bit more having been much too cautious in the Prologue stage.
A great day, super stages, more hardcore than Day 1, longer stages, and longer road links. But crew and car going well, and getting stuck in now. Serviced the car, including a brake bleed after heavy use today. Everything in order. Back into the Velodrome, and off for a shower, dinner and blog!
Still on for a Trophy, and all the people we've befriended are still running, hopefully more of the same tomorrow.
Just got results through, we are now 58th of about 70 cars remaining in Late Classic division on Handicap, and 65th of about 90 cars left in the outright Classic Division overall. So we have moved a little up the order, and not just because of those that have dropped out! We are now 1:32 behind our Mentors/Chauffeurs/Chaperones David 'Genghis' Ogg and Michael 'Attilla' Farrell.
Apologies for poor service
Having trouble with wifi at the Silverdome, despite being given full media accreditation to use their networks ... Hopefully it's sorted again, and will stay sorted this time. Perhaps I'll even get some footage up on YouTube.
With the way this event is turning out, I think I'll be unable to report each evening, so you may be 24 hours behind, sorry about that. Don't forget you can follow the Results on Targa's website, we are car #425 in Late Classic Division, I'll give you a tip though, you'll need to scroll towards the bottom of the results list.
Today - Day Two has been awesome, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow, as the car needs a service, and the crew need a shower!
With the way this event is turning out, I think I'll be unable to report each evening, so you may be 24 hours behind, sorry about that. Don't forget you can follow the Results on Targa's website, we are car #425 in Late Classic Division, I'll give you a tip though, you'll need to scroll towards the bottom of the results list.
Today - Day Two has been awesome, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow, as the car needs a service, and the crew need a shower!
Day One - Our First Taste of Rallying Proper
A very early start for us after our slow Prologue time, we were 11th on the road, and most of those running ahead were the vintage contingent! First up was a cruise into the centre of Launceston for a ceremonial start, complete with a speech by a dignitary. A 30-odd km run to the first real stage - Lilydale - this was one of the stages we had recce'd, and the one that had alarmed us by its bumpiness. In action I reckon we bottomed maybe a dozen times on the stage, but only one had any directional impact and that was minor ... We are only touching on some low rear anti-roll-bar mountings, which are bolted straight into main chassis rail - which in true Triumph fashion are made out of spare girders from the Forth Rail Bridge, so we aren't really concerned about it, as we'll just replace the sacrificial mountings in due course.
All these stages are given Base Times, and Trophy Times, as targets. Base times are used for the outright competition, which frankly isn't our goal! However if we manage to come home under the Trophy Time on every single stage, at the end they'll give us something shiny to bring home. We'd been told that the Trophy Times for the first three stages this morning were not challenging, in David Ogg's words "Your Granny could get them!", apparently the Trophy Times from Stage 4 onward would get increasingly difficult.
So the Trophy Time for bumpy of Lilydale was 6 minutes for us, and despite backing off over the bumps, I was both surprised and delighted to be told by Jason that we had run 3 mins 9 secs over the 5.44km.
Kayena and Holwell stages followed with similar results, both being stages we'd recce'd. We were now running a bit quicker as these stages had better surfaces, and that meant that we were catching the car in front each time, in these events the overtaking car has right of way, but it's not always easy for the slower car to leap out of the way if they are trying their hardest anyway, so some overtakes will delay you. Moriarty was the first stage we'd not recce'd, set in rolling open countryside gave us a bit more chance to see ahead of us. Fast in the early and late sections but with a major hairpin in the middle, complete with the big crowd, tv cameras (including hovering helicopter). 5.5kms and a Trophy Time of 5 mins, we ran a 3:21 despite taking sometime to safely overtake a slower car.
Merseylea was our first longer stage at 10kms, and to be honest I can't remember it, I'll have to check the in-car footage! (Sorry I can't get this stuff onto YouTube at present). We ran a 6:47 against a Trophy time (TT) of 8 mins. Then Nook, 5.5kms, 3:32 against a 5 min TT. And into lunch stop at Sheffield. Here it became apparent that there is a lot we have left to learn ... We needed fuel, but didn't realise that we couldn't just go and get it after checking in for lunch ... Lunch was strictly a 20 min break, and we would have liked longer after a big morning. We also had concerns over the starter motor, which had failed before the start of the last stage, requiring Jason to leap out and push start us! That's another apology I owe you Jason!
Quick refuel after lunch, but once again only 95 octane available, rather than the 98 we'd really prefer to use, but better than nothing! And into the 15km Sheffield Stage ... Going well, a great stage, at one point slaloming along with bank on one side, drop and trees on the other, the sort of footage I've always found intimidating when you see it on tv, but it's funny, I only notice the road not the things we might hit or fall off ... Unfortunately I didn't notice the gravel on the steep downhill, grade 1 (sharp) hairpin ... Jason called it right, and I saw it okay, got the speed off, and turned in, but just understeered straight ahead off the road, through some bits of broken branches and into the bank, not a major 'off' but bl..dy annoying! Engaged reverse half expected the wheels to spin uselessly, but we came out fine, so we headed on, quickly checking steering and brakes before upping the pace again. Checked the car after the stage finish, to find only a little 'bruise' on the lower front valance. Jason was a bit quiet for a short time... We still ran 9:38 against a 11:00 TT, for the 15kms.
Two more stages rounded off the day, both of which we cleared within the TTs, so we ran back to the Silverdome, where we pulled up alongside the helpful crew of the TR3, so that we could check the car over more fully after the 'off', take a look at the intermittent starter-motor, adjust the rear brakes and generally prepare the car for tomorrow. After that the car went into the queue for a scrub-down by a group of young ladies in wet t-shirts, all in the name of charity you understand; tonight was the Targa Fest, with all the (remaining) cars displayed in the velodrome, and open to the locals as a car show, complete with band, hence they were all cleaned. There were already a few wrecks on trucks...
A long day, and tomorrow will be no different .. Including some stages that we've been warned about. Jason is just preparing the Pace Notes for the 8 stages, which average about twice as long as today's...
Finally managed to get results off the event website via my brother, David, in the UK! Having started bolt last, we are now 61st out of 75 in our division, with an accumulated time of 5mins 32seconds off the Base times; still in with a chance of a Trophy, but I have no idea about Handicap or Outright.
All these stages are given Base Times, and Trophy Times, as targets. Base times are used for the outright competition, which frankly isn't our goal! However if we manage to come home under the Trophy Time on every single stage, at the end they'll give us something shiny to bring home. We'd been told that the Trophy Times for the first three stages this morning were not challenging, in David Ogg's words "Your Granny could get them!", apparently the Trophy Times from Stage 4 onward would get increasingly difficult.
So the Trophy Time for bumpy of Lilydale was 6 minutes for us, and despite backing off over the bumps, I was both surprised and delighted to be told by Jason that we had run 3 mins 9 secs over the 5.44km.
Kayena and Holwell stages followed with similar results, both being stages we'd recce'd. We were now running a bit quicker as these stages had better surfaces, and that meant that we were catching the car in front each time, in these events the overtaking car has right of way, but it's not always easy for the slower car to leap out of the way if they are trying their hardest anyway, so some overtakes will delay you. Moriarty was the first stage we'd not recce'd, set in rolling open countryside gave us a bit more chance to see ahead of us. Fast in the early and late sections but with a major hairpin in the middle, complete with the big crowd, tv cameras (including hovering helicopter). 5.5kms and a Trophy Time of 5 mins, we ran a 3:21 despite taking sometime to safely overtake a slower car.
Merseylea was our first longer stage at 10kms, and to be honest I can't remember it, I'll have to check the in-car footage! (Sorry I can't get this stuff onto YouTube at present). We ran a 6:47 against a Trophy time (TT) of 8 mins. Then Nook, 5.5kms, 3:32 against a 5 min TT. And into lunch stop at Sheffield. Here it became apparent that there is a lot we have left to learn ... We needed fuel, but didn't realise that we couldn't just go and get it after checking in for lunch ... Lunch was strictly a 20 min break, and we would have liked longer after a big morning. We also had concerns over the starter motor, which had failed before the start of the last stage, requiring Jason to leap out and push start us! That's another apology I owe you Jason!
Quick refuel after lunch, but once again only 95 octane available, rather than the 98 we'd really prefer to use, but better than nothing! And into the 15km Sheffield Stage ... Going well, a great stage, at one point slaloming along with bank on one side, drop and trees on the other, the sort of footage I've always found intimidating when you see it on tv, but it's funny, I only notice the road not the things we might hit or fall off ... Unfortunately I didn't notice the gravel on the steep downhill, grade 1 (sharp) hairpin ... Jason called it right, and I saw it okay, got the speed off, and turned in, but just understeered straight ahead off the road, through some bits of broken branches and into the bank, not a major 'off' but bl..dy annoying! Engaged reverse half expected the wheels to spin uselessly, but we came out fine, so we headed on, quickly checking steering and brakes before upping the pace again. Checked the car after the stage finish, to find only a little 'bruise' on the lower front valance. Jason was a bit quiet for a short time... We still ran 9:38 against a 11:00 TT, for the 15kms.
Two more stages rounded off the day, both of which we cleared within the TTs, so we ran back to the Silverdome, where we pulled up alongside the helpful crew of the TR3, so that we could check the car over more fully after the 'off', take a look at the intermittent starter-motor, adjust the rear brakes and generally prepare the car for tomorrow. After that the car went into the queue for a scrub-down by a group of young ladies in wet t-shirts, all in the name of charity you understand; tonight was the Targa Fest, with all the (remaining) cars displayed in the velodrome, and open to the locals as a car show, complete with band, hence they were all cleaned. There were already a few wrecks on trucks...
A long day, and tomorrow will be no different .. Including some stages that we've been warned about. Jason is just preparing the Pace Notes for the 8 stages, which average about twice as long as today's...
Finally managed to get results off the event website via my brother, David, in the UK! Having started bolt last, we are now 61st out of 75 in our division, with an accumulated time of 5mins 32seconds off the Base times; still in with a chance of a Trophy, but I have no idea about Handicap or Outright.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Prologue stage
We had a plan to run nothing sub-4 minutes for this in-town stage, in order to position ourselves away from the faster runners on the stages tomorrow - the plan worked, but a 4:48 was just TOO slow! Thing is it didn't seem THAT slow, cautious yes, but not silly slow! Still, on the upside, I guess people will probably stop interviewing me now!
Not really a stage to suit the TR or us, to be honest, running around a small town grid, up one block, T junction, down another block, etc., mostly 2nd gear - would definitely have paid to have recce'd it, as I am sure we will find on many stages.
We plan to stop on the run back to the Silverdome HQ, to refuel, and investigate the purchase of some spherichal appendages that may enable us to up the pace...
Footage should be available on YouTube - search on tr5aus .
Not really a stage to suit the TR or us, to be honest, running around a small town grid, up one block, T junction, down another block, etc., mostly 2nd gear - would definitely have paid to have recce'd it, as I am sure we will find on many stages.
We plan to stop on the run back to the Silverdome HQ, to refuel, and investigate the purchase of some spherichal appendages that may enable us to up the pace...
Footage should be available on YouTube - search on tr5aus .
Monday, 4 April 2011
Day 0 - TEMCO Georgetown Prologue
Today we run 60kms up to Georgetown, for the Prologue Stage. The stage itself is just 5.6kms through the streets of town, but this stage is used to seed the starting order. Slower cars go first, and then followed at 30 second intervals - they run slower cars first to keep the field compressed, and therefore the time that the roads are closed to the public is shorter. All of which means that we have been advised to post a deliberately slow Prologue time, this will mean we start early, hopefully well away from the faster guys, who might otherwise need to overtake us on stage - seems like wise advice!
We're off - wish us luck!
We're off - wish us luck!
Monday - Day -1
To the Silverdome very early to do our documentation and scrutineering, quite a lot of processes to run through, but a big staff and well organised arrangements made it a painless process, which considering the 360 competing cars could well have been horrendous - top marks Octagon!
We then ran out with David Ogg and his navigator in David's hire car (automatic Hyundai thing) to go and look at some more of the stages, not exactly a rally car, and sitting in the back meant it wasn't so easy to get a feel, but a very worthwhile exercise nevertheless, as we have now seen seven stages. These were less bumpy than the ones we recce'd on Saturday, but quite tight in places and the target times we'll need to achieve are actually quite quick ... The tyres on the hire car may need replacing ...
Back to Silverdome for briefing, and yet more opportunities for people to put the fear of God into us! Event Director, local police chief, then the Clerk of the Course. Followed by the event Chaplain, who said a prayer for us all to make it safely to Hobart. It turns out that they give him a big modern fast Mustang to follow the event in, presumably so he can get to administer the last rites if it all goes wrong... Apparently he had taken the Mustang to Longford, and was allowed a timed run, during which he hit 209kmh ... So I shall be looking out for the "Faster Pastor" during the week, but rather hoping not to see him on Duty!
We then ran out with David Ogg and his navigator in David's hire car (automatic Hyundai thing) to go and look at some more of the stages, not exactly a rally car, and sitting in the back meant it wasn't so easy to get a feel, but a very worthwhile exercise nevertheless, as we have now seen seven stages. These were less bumpy than the ones we recce'd on Saturday, but quite tight in places and the target times we'll need to achieve are actually quite quick ... The tyres on the hire car may need replacing ...
Back to Silverdome for briefing, and yet more opportunities for people to put the fear of God into us! Event Director, local police chief, then the Clerk of the Course. Followed by the event Chaplain, who said a prayer for us all to make it safely to Hobart. It turns out that they give him a big modern fast Mustang to follow the event in, presumably so he can get to administer the last rites if it all goes wrong... Apparently he had taken the Mustang to Longford, and was allowed a timed run, during which he hit 209kmh ... So I shall be looking out for the "Faster Pastor" during the week, but rather hoping not to see him on Duty!
Sunday - Day -2
On Sunday morning we took a short drive to the Silverdome where Rally HQ is based, this is a big sports venue, with a velodrome, and the cars all congregate on the sports wooden floor inside the velodrome, and then drive up out each day to go rallying. We went up there to get a better idea of the documentation and scrutineering that we'd need to do on Monday, and to meet the super-helpful Helen Coad from the Organisers, who I've been in touch with for about 18 months, and also Jason Bresnahan, who had been assigned to us as our Competitor Relationship Officer, one is assigned to each First-time crew to help them understand the workings of the event, and he was indeed very helpful and informative.
We then drove out to Longford - which was a road circuit back in the 60's where they raced during the Tasman Cup series. This weekend was the inaugural Longford Revival meeting, organised by the same team behind Targa. Unfortunately the full circuit is not available any longer, however Longford had a famous mile-long straight "The Flying Mile", and this was being used for demonstration runs. The event is modelling itself on a small-scale Goodwood Festival of Speed, and it looked to have achieved a good turn-out of both participants and paying public. It would have been nice to see a few 60's single seaters to better illustrate what the event was famous for, but then coming from the UK, I think we are just spoiled by all the fabulous events on our doorstep, and by the huge pool of cars that can be drawn on by the organisers of such events - this was a good show, and it deserves to grow.
Running two cars at Longford was Scotty Taylor, so we tracked him down pretty much as soon as we arrived, at which point he was talking to a couple of guys, who he immediately introduced me too, these were chaps from the local ABC Hobart radio station, who were putting out a live broadcast from the event, and were drawing Scotty out for an interview, which they then dragged me into as well, so within 10 minutes of arriving I am on ABC Radio Hobart! Coupled with the TV interview I gave to 'inpitlane' at Phillip Island, I can't help feeling that fame awaits ... My invite to 'I'm a Celebrity a get me out of here' must be just around the corner!
Rest of the day was taken up with car preparation, cleaning and fixing the stickers (which actually turned out to be more time consuming than we had anticipated).
We then drove out to Longford - which was a road circuit back in the 60's where they raced during the Tasman Cup series. This weekend was the inaugural Longford Revival meeting, organised by the same team behind Targa. Unfortunately the full circuit is not available any longer, however Longford had a famous mile-long straight "The Flying Mile", and this was being used for demonstration runs. The event is modelling itself on a small-scale Goodwood Festival of Speed, and it looked to have achieved a good turn-out of both participants and paying public. It would have been nice to see a few 60's single seaters to better illustrate what the event was famous for, but then coming from the UK, I think we are just spoiled by all the fabulous events on our doorstep, and by the huge pool of cars that can be drawn on by the organisers of such events - this was a good show, and it deserves to grow.
Running two cars at Longford was Scotty Taylor, so we tracked him down pretty much as soon as we arrived, at which point he was talking to a couple of guys, who he immediately introduced me too, these were chaps from the local ABC Hobart radio station, who were putting out a live broadcast from the event, and were drawing Scotty out for an interview, which they then dragged me into as well, so within 10 minutes of arriving I am on ABC Radio Hobart! Coupled with the TV interview I gave to 'inpitlane' at Phillip Island, I can't help feeling that fame awaits ... My invite to 'I'm a Celebrity a get me out of here' must be just around the corner!
Rest of the day was taken up with car preparation, cleaning and fixing the stickers (which actually turned out to be more time consuming than we had anticipated).
Sunday, 3 April 2011
First impressions
Having got ourselves sorted in the hotel, David Ogg came back and we went out on the roads to calibrate the Trip meter, that's a additional mileometer in the car that reads down to 100ths, and will then enable us to match distances accurately with the Roadbook and PaceNotes, which is critically important... Having done this against a measured 10km marked on a local road, we then we into Rally Country, to go and take a look at the roads ...
Houston, we have a problem ... I had spoken to several people familiar with the event about car preparation, and had been told that on tarmac roads my standard suspension set-up would be fine; with Lamborghini Gallardos and 911 GT2s running at the front of the field that made perfect sense ... However, these roads are less than billiard table flat. Coupled with that we are heavier than race-weight, by the addition of spare wheel, some tools, nav kit, and Jason - the Targa type roads we were cruising were causing us to bottom out regularly, which is a huge cause for concern, and likely to hamper performance, but unfortunately that cannot be sorted now... We were in the area that Day One Stages will be run in, and I have been told that they are likely the bumpiest of the entire event, here's hoping.
We ran through a couple of stages at very slow pace, just to get a feel for the roads, and the way the pace notes are written, and how we use them. A very worthwhile exercise.
Met up with a few guys on the Saturday evening, including Charlie Hughes, a local who's crew is carrying my spares package with them.
Houston, we have a problem ... I had spoken to several people familiar with the event about car preparation, and had been told that on tarmac roads my standard suspension set-up would be fine; with Lamborghini Gallardos and 911 GT2s running at the front of the field that made perfect sense ... However, these roads are less than billiard table flat. Coupled with that we are heavier than race-weight, by the addition of spare wheel, some tools, nav kit, and Jason - the Targa type roads we were cruising were causing us to bottom out regularly, which is a huge cause for concern, and likely to hamper performance, but unfortunately that cannot be sorted now... We were in the area that Day One Stages will be run in, and I have been told that they are likely the bumpiest of the entire event, here's hoping.
We ran through a couple of stages at very slow pace, just to get a feel for the roads, and the way the pace notes are written, and how we use them. A very worthwhile exercise.
Met up with a few guys on the Saturday evening, including Charlie Hughes, a local who's crew is carrying my spares package with them.
Arrival in Tasmania
Jason arrived in Melbourne Friday on the plane from London. I'm sure it came as a disappointment to him when I told him that there was no room for him to fit into the car, which was already chock full to the roof in the passenger space - hence he ended up having to walk onto the ferry - and then hitch a lift to Launceston once on this side... Sorry Jason!
We met up at David Ogg's house close to the ferry, and ran down there in convoy with his bright yellow Alfa. A bit of a bumpy old crossing, meant that neither minor Jason managed to catch up on much sleep, but the ship was actually somewhat better than i had been led to expect, and 30% of the cars loading were going to Targa anyway.
We docked about an hour before sunrise, which meant that as we ran south from the ferry we were treated to a pretty spectacular dawn, although when we turned east a few miles later on, driving straight into a low sun, it did become quite tricky for a stretch. Scenery was beautiful and lots of long views unencumbered by housing estates or Macdonalds or all that stuff we've ruined the rest of the World with.
We were at Rally HQ by 0830 (Jason pulled up about 20 minutes later, as they'd had to re-secure the canoe on the roof of the car he'd got a lift in!!)
Utterly shocked to find that the Country Club were we are staying (Tasmania's only Casino) has no wifi, so all of a sudden keeping the blog updated is going to be a stress... Hmm...anyone would think we were at the bottom end of the World!
We met up at David Ogg's house close to the ferry, and ran down there in convoy with his bright yellow Alfa. A bit of a bumpy old crossing, meant that neither minor Jason managed to catch up on much sleep, but the ship was actually somewhat better than i had been led to expect, and 30% of the cars loading were going to Targa anyway.
We docked about an hour before sunrise, which meant that as we ran south from the ferry we were treated to a pretty spectacular dawn, although when we turned east a few miles later on, driving straight into a low sun, it did become quite tricky for a stretch. Scenery was beautiful and lots of long views unencumbered by housing estates or Macdonalds or all that stuff we've ruined the rest of the World with.
We were at Rally HQ by 0830 (Jason pulled up about 20 minutes later, as they'd had to re-secure the canoe on the roof of the car he'd got a lift in!!)
Utterly shocked to find that the Country Club were we are staying (Tasmania's only Casino) has no wifi, so all of a sudden keeping the blog updated is going to be a stress... Hmm...anyone would think we were at the bottom end of the World!
TASMANIA!!
Jason's arrived, Geoff sorted the car and we're in Tasmania, at last ... Probably not a bad time to remind ourselves what we are doing here ... This is a serious event, it's a huge field of 360 competitors, both modern and classic, and the level of competition will be high. We are not here to take those guys on! The roads are supposed to be pretty impressive, and well worth a bit of 'respect' - we are novices, not just on this specific event, but in this type of event - not that there are many of this type of event left in the world. Having been down here a few weeks now I can tell you that when I tell people that we have come down to do this event their first response will be either a) fantastic effort, you'll love the roads and the event, or b) be careful, it's dangerous - a good number of racers, and 'people who should know' have given me response b) ... It's enough certainly to make us refocus on what we're doing. Since we've been here we've found that some of the guys we speak to have a disarming way of saying 'oh, you'll love this stage, and that stage, but watch out for that one, you REALLY don't want to off on that one..."
Of course, both Jason and I, and the car, are Circuit Racers, that means we drive on a bit of track we probably know quite well, if we make a small mistake then we maybe lose a bit of time or a place, but we can come round again less than 2 minutes later and have another go, obviously a bigger mistake can be more costly. Here we have just one go, on narrow, bumpy roads with very little or no run-off.
We are here to have fun, and the primary goal is to make it to the finish line in Hobart on Day Six. We're going to drive the road we see in front of us, not merely trust the pace notes and our ability to interpret them; we are also going to keep a good eye on the mirror for faster guys, who might be just recovering from the last time they overcooked it, and we don't want to be in their way if they get it wrong again. We are going to keep a close eye on the road surface, aiming to avoid loose gravel at the edges and T-junctions etc. We are aiming to conserve the car too, it's a long event, 2,000kms - I thought it was pretty well prepared when it left the UK, but less than two laps into Free Practice at Phillip Island I was on a tow rope back to the paddock, and that was circuit racing which we've done for 7 years, this is something completely new. Fair to point out too that Jason and I haven't spent time together in this sort of claustrophobic environment, so it would be nice to finish the event still chums!
Sent from my iPad
Of course, both Jason and I, and the car, are Circuit Racers, that means we drive on a bit of track we probably know quite well, if we make a small mistake then we maybe lose a bit of time or a place, but we can come round again less than 2 minutes later and have another go, obviously a bigger mistake can be more costly. Here we have just one go, on narrow, bumpy roads with very little or no run-off.
We are here to have fun, and the primary goal is to make it to the finish line in Hobart on Day Six. We're going to drive the road we see in front of us, not merely trust the pace notes and our ability to interpret them; we are also going to keep a good eye on the mirror for faster guys, who might be just recovering from the last time they overcooked it, and we don't want to be in their way if they get it wrong again. We are going to keep a close eye on the road surface, aiming to avoid loose gravel at the edges and T-junctions etc. We are aiming to conserve the car too, it's a long event, 2,000kms - I thought it was pretty well prepared when it left the UK, but less than two laps into Free Practice at Phillip Island I was on a tow rope back to the paddock, and that was circuit racing which we've done for 7 years, this is something completely new. Fair to point out too that Jason and I haven't spent time together in this sort of claustrophobic environment, so it would be nice to finish the event still chums!
Sent from my iPad
Thursday, 31 March 2011
New Zealand
Whilst the car was 'hospitalized' in Melbourne, we headed off to see some family friends in Auckland, New Zealand.
My chum Richard, currently works at Southern Spars, who build the Carbon Fibre masts for Super/Mega yachts, Volvo Round the World Racers, and America's Cup - as far as I am aware there are only two facilities in the world that have the capability to build such stuff, and I wasn't going to pass up the offer of a walk round - I used to be in the yacht race scene, and worked in a yacht yard - but that was early days of carbon fibre, and comparatively this was like the chance to visit NASA when you are a hanglider enthusiast! What Southern Spars do is simply awesome, the scale of the super yachts stuff defies belief, the best part of two hundred feet long, and maybe three feet in 'depth' and made in two parts (front and back) then glued together and 'cooked' in a two hundred foot autoclave, the detailing and finish required when you are producing stuff to be used on the toys of the richest people in the world is simply unbelieveable, even 150ft above deck level screws are covered by monogrammed screw caps! The scale of the rigging is also amazing, and again, whilst the bits are big, they are just beautiful. The effect that these new materials have can be remarkable - when PBO rigging replaced rod a few years ago 2.5 tonnes was taken out of the rig weight, which then means 25 tonnes can be taken from the keel, for the same righting moment - so your oligarch can either have a lighter boat, or 27 tonnes of extra 'goodies' for the same performance!
We took a long weekend down in Waihi Beach down on the Bay of Plenty, pretty stormy and wet weekend, but on the Sunday we took a drive 30kms up to Whangamata (pronounced something like Fonga-matar!), where we knew their annual Beach Hop was taking place. We had no idea what it entailed but on the switchback road through some impressive rainforest scenery we must have passed at least 200 Hot Rods, Muscle Cars, and mainstream classics. When we got into town there were still a couple of hundred left, including some great machinery, ranging from Model T Rods, the ubiquitous Chevy BelAirs, hopped-up Lincoln Continental "barges" plus 'Vettes, T-Birds, Mustangs, Holdens, Toranas and Impalas galore. Great to see mainstream classics mixing with the Rods, in the UK the two scenes seem mutually exclusive, which I feel is a shame, as I fully appreciate the superb engineering and beautiful presentation of many of these cars. The antithesis of something like Phillip Island but great to see (and hear of course!)
Cath, Greg, Charlotte and Amelia, and Richard, Megan, Nicholas, Matthew and Annabel - thanks for your hospitality.
My chum Richard, currently works at Southern Spars, who build the Carbon Fibre masts for Super/Mega yachts, Volvo Round the World Racers, and America's Cup - as far as I am aware there are only two facilities in the world that have the capability to build such stuff, and I wasn't going to pass up the offer of a walk round - I used to be in the yacht race scene, and worked in a yacht yard - but that was early days of carbon fibre, and comparatively this was like the chance to visit NASA when you are a hanglider enthusiast! What Southern Spars do is simply awesome, the scale of the super yachts stuff defies belief, the best part of two hundred feet long, and maybe three feet in 'depth' and made in two parts (front and back) then glued together and 'cooked' in a two hundred foot autoclave, the detailing and finish required when you are producing stuff to be used on the toys of the richest people in the world is simply unbelieveable, even 150ft above deck level screws are covered by monogrammed screw caps! The scale of the rigging is also amazing, and again, whilst the bits are big, they are just beautiful. The effect that these new materials have can be remarkable - when PBO rigging replaced rod a few years ago 2.5 tonnes was taken out of the rig weight, which then means 25 tonnes can be taken from the keel, for the same righting moment - so your oligarch can either have a lighter boat, or 27 tonnes of extra 'goodies' for the same performance!
We took a long weekend down in Waihi Beach down on the Bay of Plenty, pretty stormy and wet weekend, but on the Sunday we took a drive 30kms up to Whangamata (pronounced something like Fonga-matar!), where we knew their annual Beach Hop was taking place. We had no idea what it entailed but on the switchback road through some impressive rainforest scenery we must have passed at least 200 Hot Rods, Muscle Cars, and mainstream classics. When we got into town there were still a couple of hundred left, including some great machinery, ranging from Model T Rods, the ubiquitous Chevy BelAirs, hopped-up Lincoln Continental "barges" plus 'Vettes, T-Birds, Mustangs, Holdens, Toranas and Impalas galore. Great to see mainstream classics mixing with the Rods, in the UK the two scenes seem mutually exclusive, which I feel is a shame, as I fully appreciate the superb engineering and beautiful presentation of many of these cars. The antithesis of something like Phillip Island but great to see (and hear of course!)
Cath, Greg, Charlotte and Amelia, and Richard, Megan, Nicholas, Matthew and Annabel - thanks for your hospitality.
Back in Oz
Flew back from NZ to Melbourne this afternoon, bus to CBD then a train out to Hallam to hook up with Geoff Kelly, who has refitted the metering unit, sorted the car and given it a pre-Targa once over, changed the pads, oil etc. Thanks Geoff, I'm hugely grateful for your assistance both at Phillip Island and since - the cheque is in the post!
Jason is halfway here, and should be here by breakfast time, complete with luggage full of yet more spares!
Car is once again in the car park underneath the Olsen in South Yarra. It is filthy, so I'd like to give it a clean tomorrow if feasible, but I don't have anything with me, will talk to the friendly concierge. It does need a clean, as it is time I got the Sponsors logos stuck on it ... The XL logos that I got made up here, and some stickers from OAMPs who've been very helpful with a couple of insurance issues I had.
I've also got to sort out hardwiring the in-car camera into the car, and fitting it somewhere it'll get a decent view when Jason and I are both in the car.
We're off to David Ogg's tomorrow pm, to load up cars (which means unloading some of my stuff into his, it will be good to be able to see out again!) We also need to fit Jason into one or other of the cars! David lives just 500m from the Spirit of Tasmania ferry, so once we're done we might actually grab a beer!
Next stop - TASMANIA!
Jason is halfway here, and should be here by breakfast time, complete with luggage full of yet more spares!
Car is once again in the car park underneath the Olsen in South Yarra. It is filthy, so I'd like to give it a clean tomorrow if feasible, but I don't have anything with me, will talk to the friendly concierge. It does need a clean, as it is time I got the Sponsors logos stuck on it ... The XL logos that I got made up here, and some stickers from OAMPs who've been very helpful with a couple of insurance issues I had.
I've also got to sort out hardwiring the in-car camera into the car, and fitting it somewhere it'll get a decent view when Jason and I are both in the car.
We're off to David Ogg's tomorrow pm, to load up cars (which means unloading some of my stuff into his, it will be good to be able to see out again!) We also need to fit Jason into one or other of the cars! David lives just 500m from the Spirit of Tasmania ferry, so once we're done we might actually grab a beer!
Next stop - TASMANIA!
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Phillip Island Photos?
Are there any Aussies watching, who can point me in the directions of websites with photos from Phillip Island - I've done all the obvious Google searches, and drawn a blank so far... have found a couple, but no photos of Yours Truly in action!
Phillip Island
VHRR put on a great show here, some 25,000 are thought to have passed through the turnstiles, and certainly the grass banks were well packed. The excellent weather helped of course, I understand that Phillip Island isn't always so blessed.
They run a bewildering 45 races over the two days of racing, giving most categories 4 races, we had one 5 lapper and 3 races of 6 laps; they have a pit return road half way round the circuit, enabling cars to be pulled off after their finish with merely half a lap cooling down, at which point the next race cars are released from the pit lane for their formation lap, extremely efficient. At one point the programme was 30 minutes behind schedule on Sunday, but that's all, which is a simply mighty effort by all involved.
As well as conventional racing, over here they have something called Regularities, which I'd not heard of before, where your performance is judged by how similar your lap times are, against a benchmark, this enables a wide range of cars to compete, with a 1906 GP Darracq, Lago Talbot GP (driven by someone calling himself Hugh Jarse (sic!) then everything/anything through to 70's Corvettes ... This all went a bit wrong when it transpired that some cars where well over 120kph faster than others on the straight, so they ordered everyone to run no quicker than 2:07, at which point some of the quicker cars decided to pack up and go home - this was about the only poorly thought-out issue that I saw all weekend.
Headline cars this year included 3 Maserati 250Fs (pleased to report that the one I'd seen in the pitwall on Thursday suffered merely superficial damage). Obviously the Porsche factory cars were impressive but they weren't actually being raced. Two private Porsche 956/962 were though, and they are always great to see, especially as these tow ran nose-to-tail for many laps of the race I managed to see. For me the highlight was the Gurney Eagle F1, simply the most beautiful race car ever built, to my eyes at any rate.
Great dinner in the Saturday night, with two engaging speakers, John French, well known Aussie tin-top racer, an old boy with a twinkle in his eyes and some good stories. I am sorry that I didn't get to meet Murray Carter, another Aussie legend, still racing modern cars in his eighties - now in his 63rd year of racing apparently he's just building a Corvette, paddle shifts and all - awesome! At the dinner I was sitting next to an ex-pat Brit, Chris Wilson, who now has the ex-Ray Bellm GT40 which he was racing here, and it turns out we have a good mutual friend in common from outside the motorsport scene, small world! Nice to meet you Chris.
I didn't get to see much racing, but the Touring cars looked like the best races, especially the over three litres group, and the Formula Fords, always good to watch, despite quite a wide ranging field from early generations to much later ones.
It was good to meet some of the Formula Junior fraternity, including old acquaintance Kim Shearn, who has lost 60kgs ... Yes really, and now fits into a Lotus 20, which he is bringing to Europe for some events this summer, 4 Formula Juniors are coming over, which is great, as it'll give me the chance to return some hospitality.
Despite the TR5 being a rather humble piece of machinery by comparison with the other cars brought in for the event, the VHRR threw practically the whole "International Competitor" package at me, it is simply fantastic to receive that sort of welcome and hospitality, and I'm hugely grateful.
Fabulous meeting, fabulous track, and super hospitality - if you ever have the chance to come down here and race - DO IT!
They run a bewildering 45 races over the two days of racing, giving most categories 4 races, we had one 5 lapper and 3 races of 6 laps; they have a pit return road half way round the circuit, enabling cars to be pulled off after their finish with merely half a lap cooling down, at which point the next race cars are released from the pit lane for their formation lap, extremely efficient. At one point the programme was 30 minutes behind schedule on Sunday, but that's all, which is a simply mighty effort by all involved.
As well as conventional racing, over here they have something called Regularities, which I'd not heard of before, where your performance is judged by how similar your lap times are, against a benchmark, this enables a wide range of cars to compete, with a 1906 GP Darracq, Lago Talbot GP (driven by someone calling himself Hugh Jarse (sic!) then everything/anything through to 70's Corvettes ... This all went a bit wrong when it transpired that some cars where well over 120kph faster than others on the straight, so they ordered everyone to run no quicker than 2:07, at which point some of the quicker cars decided to pack up and go home - this was about the only poorly thought-out issue that I saw all weekend.
Headline cars this year included 3 Maserati 250Fs (pleased to report that the one I'd seen in the pitwall on Thursday suffered merely superficial damage). Obviously the Porsche factory cars were impressive but they weren't actually being raced. Two private Porsche 956/962 were though, and they are always great to see, especially as these tow ran nose-to-tail for many laps of the race I managed to see. For me the highlight was the Gurney Eagle F1, simply the most beautiful race car ever built, to my eyes at any rate.
Great dinner in the Saturday night, with two engaging speakers, John French, well known Aussie tin-top racer, an old boy with a twinkle in his eyes and some good stories. I am sorry that I didn't get to meet Murray Carter, another Aussie legend, still racing modern cars in his eighties - now in his 63rd year of racing apparently he's just building a Corvette, paddle shifts and all - awesome! At the dinner I was sitting next to an ex-pat Brit, Chris Wilson, who now has the ex-Ray Bellm GT40 which he was racing here, and it turns out we have a good mutual friend in common from outside the motorsport scene, small world! Nice to meet you Chris.
I didn't get to see much racing, but the Touring cars looked like the best races, especially the over three litres group, and the Formula Fords, always good to watch, despite quite a wide ranging field from early generations to much later ones.
It was good to meet some of the Formula Junior fraternity, including old acquaintance Kim Shearn, who has lost 60kgs ... Yes really, and now fits into a Lotus 20, which he is bringing to Europe for some events this summer, 4 Formula Juniors are coming over, which is great, as it'll give me the chance to return some hospitality.
Despite the TR5 being a rather humble piece of machinery by comparison with the other cars brought in for the event, the VHRR threw practically the whole "International Competitor" package at me, it is simply fantastic to receive that sort of welcome and hospitality, and I'm hugely grateful.
Fabulous meeting, fabulous track, and super hospitality - if you ever have the chance to come down here and race - DO IT!
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Normal service will be resumed shortly ...
Sorry Everyone, we are staying with friends in New Zealand, and have no Wi-Fi access, and we haven't found a local Hotspot to work from, hence lack of recent posting. I have drafted a report on Phillip Island and some other stuff, so should be able to post that as soon as i have wi-fi, even if that's only when I fly back to Melbourne on Thursday. Greg, thanks for the loan of your PC for this brief post!
I can tell you that as soon as Jason gets off the plane on Friday morning we should have a plethora of metering units and fuel pumps, as the stuff that was damaged at Phillip Island has been rebuilt (it was a close run thing as the specialist Injection man was off sick for a couple of days last week - typical of the way my luck has run on this whole exercise - just enough stress to test my High Blood Pressure Prescription!). Obviously now we will have no more issues with those bits of the car - so for those believers of Murphy's Law, the big question is ... what else DIDN'T I bring ...?!
I can tell you that as soon as Jason gets off the plane on Friday morning we should have a plethora of metering units and fuel pumps, as the stuff that was damaged at Phillip Island has been rebuilt (it was a close run thing as the specialist Injection man was off sick for a couple of days last week - typical of the way my luck has run on this whole exercise - just enough stress to test my High Blood Pressure Prescription!). Obviously now we will have no more issues with those bits of the car - so for those believers of Murphy's Law, the big question is ... what else DIDN'T I bring ...?!
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Stress!
Stress 1: Car - is now with New Best Friend Geoff in the Dandenongs suburb of Melbourne; the borrowed fuel injection unit has been removed, and that along with my own unit has been delivered to some Injection specialists in N. Melbourne - then we went to the Zoo (great zoo, by the way!). Injection specialists are talking about a shortage of parts and it taking the sort of time we don't have ... impressed upon them the urgency of everything - have to see what happens. Sensibly though I have started work on Plan B - it looks as though we can get an injection metering unit set up for my camshaft, and into Jason's luggage before he gets on the plane next week from the UK - hopefully that'll be a spare but you never know ... also seeking a spare fuel pump, just in case the fuel issues cause any knock-on effect - unfortunately the pump i use isn't exactly available on the corner of every street, but i am 'pursuing several lines of enquiry!'
Geoff is also going to give the car a pre-Targa check-over, as it ran very rich over the weekend an oil change makes sense. Geoff will also bleed some brake fluid through and do a couple of minor jobs - all things i'd planned to do at Phillip Island during the downtime - but that got swallowed up by other activities, stresses, and chatting. I told you I'd be famous for 15 minutes, they even put my name over the Pit garage, and i was intereviewed on camera too!
Stress 2: WiFi, multimedia and all that jazz ... bit of a struggle at present, this is being typed on an exorbitantly priced hotel lobby PC - hopefully i'll have the chance to upload some photos, in-car footage, and do a proper report of the meeting when we get to Auckland tomorrow.
Geoff is also going to give the car a pre-Targa check-over, as it ran very rich over the weekend an oil change makes sense. Geoff will also bleed some brake fluid through and do a couple of minor jobs - all things i'd planned to do at Phillip Island during the downtime - but that got swallowed up by other activities, stresses, and chatting. I told you I'd be famous for 15 minutes, they even put my name over the Pit garage, and i was intereviewed on camera too!
Stress 2: WiFi, multimedia and all that jazz ... bit of a struggle at present, this is being typed on an exorbitantly priced hotel lobby PC - hopefully i'll have the chance to upload some photos, in-car footage, and do a proper report of the meeting when we get to Auckland tomorrow.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Sunday at Phillip Island
Started to get 'hooked' up on the circuit, and with the car. Of course the last time I had raced this car was june 2009 at Castle Combe, where I shunted it having hit oil at Tower Corner ... So that partly explains why I was quite nervous in the car this weekend, coupled with the fact that this trip is a major 'investment' and I really didn't want to bend or break the car. Having had fuel injection issues on Friday, the car was running but not 100%, so that put me at the back end of the grid.
Saturday went well, two confidence building finishes, including successful avoidance of some slightly wild driving around me!
Sunday started with an early rain shower, but track was fully dry by the time of our race. Again some wild antics, coupled with some fast guys coming through from the back after previous DNF's led to a cautious first two laps, but then I got a clear track, and started to put in some better laps, getting several cars back. Got my best down to 2:07:3 from 2:10.0 so a big improvement, still struggling on the brakes at the two slow corners, Honda and MG, but also at Lukey Heights, where I lack confidence to carry decent pace into the climbing corner. A big lock-up there on the last lap didn't help the confidence! A big grin after the race.
Race 4 was almost an exact repeat, with cautious early laps, avoiding 'missiles', and letting some guys go through; but then hooking up some pretty good laps, and getting back by several cars, and reducing that best further to 2:06:3. Finished 20th in final race, having started Race 1 from the back of the grid of 40+. A even bigger grin! Sure I'd have been below 2:05 if the car had been on song - I'll just have to come back to prove it! There's a bit of difference in development levels with the cars here, allegedly the TR6s in my class have 180bhp at the rear wheels, I have about 180bhp at the flywheel, which would likely translate to a 20% shortfall (and that's if it had all been working perfectly!), on top of that they are a bit lighter. I guess the other types are similarly developed, certainly the MG Midgets, MGA and those Merc 190s were a surprise, in the UK Roadsports class I wouldn't expect to have much trouble with them!
There's in-car video of Race 4, in two parts - search on "tr5aus" and look out for the Porsche 914 - sorry I'm struggling with multi-media, loading footage or even photos direct onto this blog, via the iPad and hotel wi-fi! I'll load some from the earlier races too tomorrow.
I'll write more about the meeting tomorrow, it was fabulous, a great track to drive or spectate, also a great meeting. Very happy to bring the car home in one, fully-functioning, piece.
Saturday went well, two confidence building finishes, including successful avoidance of some slightly wild driving around me!
Sunday started with an early rain shower, but track was fully dry by the time of our race. Again some wild antics, coupled with some fast guys coming through from the back after previous DNF's led to a cautious first two laps, but then I got a clear track, and started to put in some better laps, getting several cars back. Got my best down to 2:07:3 from 2:10.0 so a big improvement, still struggling on the brakes at the two slow corners, Honda and MG, but also at Lukey Heights, where I lack confidence to carry decent pace into the climbing corner. A big lock-up there on the last lap didn't help the confidence! A big grin after the race.
Race 4 was almost an exact repeat, with cautious early laps, avoiding 'missiles', and letting some guys go through; but then hooking up some pretty good laps, and getting back by several cars, and reducing that best further to 2:06:3. Finished 20th in final race, having started Race 1 from the back of the grid of 40+. A even bigger grin! Sure I'd have been below 2:05 if the car had been on song - I'll just have to come back to prove it! There's a bit of difference in development levels with the cars here, allegedly the TR6s in my class have 180bhp at the rear wheels, I have about 180bhp at the flywheel, which would likely translate to a 20% shortfall (and that's if it had all been working perfectly!), on top of that they are a bit lighter. I guess the other types are similarly developed, certainly the MG Midgets, MGA and those Merc 190s were a surprise, in the UK Roadsports class I wouldn't expect to have much trouble with them!
There's in-car video of Race 4, in two parts - search on "tr5aus" and look out for the Porsche 914 - sorry I'm struggling with multi-media, loading footage or even photos direct onto this blog, via the iPad and hotel wi-fi! I'll load some from the earlier races too tomorrow.
I'll write more about the meeting tomorrow, it was fabulous, a great track to drive or spectate, also a great meeting. Very happy to bring the car home in one, fully-functioning, piece.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
With more help from my New Best Friends, Geoff and Grant, we got the car back together and running, it's not perfect as the replacement metering unit is set up for a car with a wilder camshaft than I'm running, but at least it's over fuelling the motor not leaving it lean - which can be expensive!
So I got two races and finished both, we're down on power and having to use a max of 5000rpm for safety, but we got to race. Finished both, took a few cars in the first, (although I have to say the back of the grid has turned out to be a bit faster than I'd anticipated! Starting on the back in my usual races in UK I'd expect to take 6-8 on the first lap alone, but not here!) Second race I was moved up the grid a bit and had some interesting dicing particularly with an Aston DB4 and Porsche 914. The Aston came by on the straight, but looked pretty wild, so I backed off expecting to watch him spin out, but it took longer than I expected, and when he did gyrate at Lukey Heights half a lap later he ended up in the tyre wall... After some close quarters stuff with the Porsche I managed to get back by and held him off, but I expect more of the same tomorrow. Shame we can't the car on full song here so I could play with some faster guys, but it's fine, I'm out there racing, and it really is a great track.
So I got two races and finished both, we're down on power and having to use a max of 5000rpm for safety, but we got to race. Finished both, took a few cars in the first, (although I have to say the back of the grid has turned out to be a bit faster than I'd anticipated! Starting on the back in my usual races in UK I'd expect to take 6-8 on the first lap alone, but not here!) Second race I was moved up the grid a bit and had some interesting dicing particularly with an Aston DB4 and Porsche 914. The Aston came by on the straight, but looked pretty wild, so I backed off expecting to watch him spin out, but it took longer than I expected, and when he did gyrate at Lukey Heights half a lap later he ended up in the tyre wall... After some close quarters stuff with the Porsche I managed to get back by and held him off, but I expect more of the same tomorrow. Shame we can't the car on full song here so I could play with some faster guys, but it's fine, I'm out there racing, and it really is a great track.
Friday, 18 March 2011
And then some days don't go so well...
Rather a disappointing day ... Car ground to a halt just one and a half laps into Free Practice this morning. Turned out that the fuel injection metering unit seized, yet another 'first' that no-one seems to have come across before, and again a unit that had been recently rebuilt... Albeit could be as simple as some grit in the fuel ... Had a massive amount of help, particularly would like to thank Geoff and Grant Kelly, and Michael Heaton who've spent a lot of time with me today; Ian Watt who has loaned me a replacement metering unit (but it's not exactly 'plug and play'); Brian Richards and my pit buddy Californians who've loaned tools etc. As of now the car is still in 1000 bits, but I'm confident now that it'll be running by Race 1 tomorrow, and starting from the back of the huge grid can be great fun! Not only that, but there's specialist fuel injection man in N. Melbourne who can sort it before we head to Tas ...
Bit grumpy right now, but standby for more upbeat report in 24hrs...
Bit grumpy right now, but standby for more upbeat report in 24hrs...
Thursday, 17 March 2011
At last ...
Been an interesting day... The Good Shepherd David Ogg met me at the Olsen this morning and we had a hot slow run through the Melbourne traffic to get the TR Roadworthiness test completed, then we went up to VicRoads to get the "Club Permit" red plates that mean we are now road legal here at long last (although gaffer taping them the inside of the front and rear windscreens may not be 100% 'by the book'!)
Off we go to Phillip Island. I arrive mid-afternoon to find I'm missing a briefing for International drivers that no-one had told me about, and not only that but there were familiarisation laps available to overseas drivers this afternoon. Now this was a small snag ... When we'd parted this morning we hadn't been too concerned about what stuff went in which car, so Nic and the kids had my race suit, gloves, boots etc., but very handily I had a bag of dirty kids clothes and a fresh packet of nappies/diapers for Freddie. Fortunately I managed to get a briefing, two laps of the track with the organisers, and Nic was on the island and bundled the kids back in the car to come and bring me the stuff I needed.
So, completely unexpectedly i have been out on track this afternoon, they may have been familiarisation laps officially, but I guess some were more familiar than others as a few boys were not far off race pace ... only a small number of cars out though, so plenty of track. Sadly my first run was curtailed after just two laps when one of 3 Maserati 250Fs here span into the pitfall ... Ouch, driver unharmed, but that's a bad way to start the weekend. On the third lap of my next run I come across my own pit garage buddy - Jonathon Ornstein from California in a CanAm car - pulled off the track with what turned out to be a terminal engine failure... Felt very sorry for him, just hope Garage 12 isn't jinxed... I ran another 8-10 laps, then pulled in for fuel and to check the car over; with lots of people coming up to chat I never got back out again before the track closed. No problem, I wasn't expecting to get out at all today, and the few quiet laps will stand me in good stead tomorrow.
Super circuit, lots of long corners, and more undulating than it appears on tv. Great meeting and everyone very friendly, and excited to see a Pom come all the way to take part! At one point I was on track with 2 250Fs, a GT40, a Lola T70 Spider, and a couple of F1 cars, of which one was Alan Jones' 1981 World Championship winning Williams!
Off we go to Phillip Island. I arrive mid-afternoon to find I'm missing a briefing for International drivers that no-one had told me about, and not only that but there were familiarisation laps available to overseas drivers this afternoon. Now this was a small snag ... When we'd parted this morning we hadn't been too concerned about what stuff went in which car, so Nic and the kids had my race suit, gloves, boots etc., but very handily I had a bag of dirty kids clothes and a fresh packet of nappies/diapers for Freddie. Fortunately I managed to get a briefing, two laps of the track with the organisers, and Nic was on the island and bundled the kids back in the car to come and bring me the stuff I needed.
So, completely unexpectedly i have been out on track this afternoon, they may have been familiarisation laps officially, but I guess some were more familiar than others as a few boys were not far off race pace ... only a small number of cars out though, so plenty of track. Sadly my first run was curtailed after just two laps when one of 3 Maserati 250Fs here span into the pitfall ... Ouch, driver unharmed, but that's a bad way to start the weekend. On the third lap of my next run I come across my own pit garage buddy - Jonathon Ornstein from California in a CanAm car - pulled off the track with what turned out to be a terminal engine failure... Felt very sorry for him, just hope Garage 12 isn't jinxed... I ran another 8-10 laps, then pulled in for fuel and to check the car over; with lots of people coming up to chat I never got back out again before the track closed. No problem, I wasn't expecting to get out at all today, and the few quiet laps will stand me in good stead tomorrow.
Super circuit, lots of long corners, and more undulating than it appears on tv. Great meeting and everyone very friendly, and excited to see a Pom come all the way to take part! At one point I was on track with 2 250Fs, a GT40, a Lola T70 Spider, and a couple of F1 cars, of which one was Alan Jones' 1981 World Championship winning Williams!
Monday, 14 March 2011
Great News
Great news this morning ... The car is now free to leave Gibson Freight, all I have to do now is take it for a Roadworthiness test, then to the offices of whichever club David Ogg has organised to support my temp road permit application, then round to VicRoads for the permit... Should be a breeze now .... Wish I hadn't said that!
More confident of getting on track at Phillip Island on Friday than I had been a couple of days ago ...
Hopefully some real petrol-fuelled stories to come soon ... Might still include stories of wildlife encounters and sandcastles for the sake of the broader audience...!
More confident of getting on track at Phillip Island on Friday than I had been a couple of days ago ...
Hopefully some real petrol-fuelled stories to come soon ... Might still include stories of wildlife encounters and sandcastles for the sake of the broader audience...!
Sunday, 13 March 2011
First taste of competition
Whilst the car might be still locked away, here in Lorne we have found other competitive opportunities ... The Lorne Sandcastle competition ... At the point we registered I reckoned we had a reasonable chance of a podium (we were the second team to enter!), so we constructed a 'Proper Anglo-Saxon Castle', complete with Norman Keep, crenellations, inner and outer defensive Walls and moat, to keep the marauding enemies at bay - in fact the marauding 'enemy' was 10 month old Freddie - look Son, at your age I wasn't expecting any creative input, but if you just want to destroy it, can you attack someone else's! Our castle was modelled on Arundel (I'm a Sussex boy!) - anyway the rest of the Aussies turned up, made Geckos, turtles, Mermaids (bit saucy too considering the age of the audience...) and sea monsters... I did think of calling for a Stewards' Enquiry as it distinctly said sandCASTLE (but didn't want to explain 'gamesmanship' to a 4 year old) ... we were 'Highly Commended', the only genuine 'Castle' to be so.
Later in the day, Emily and I were climbing some steps up from a viewing point above the coast, when we came face-to-face with a Koala, maybe 3-4ft away, he/she (they're fluffy, i've no way of knowing!) ambled off completely unperturbed; we, on the other hand were very excited to see one so close in the wild.
This blog is supposed to be about the motorsports elements of this trip, hopefully I can fulfil that promise soon and get away from stories of the beach or wildlife encounters!
Later in the day, Emily and I were climbing some steps up from a viewing point above the coast, when we came face-to-face with a Koala, maybe 3-4ft away, he/she (they're fluffy, i've no way of knowing!) ambled off completely unperturbed; we, on the other hand were very excited to see one so close in the wild.
This blog is supposed to be about the motorsports elements of this trip, hopefully I can fulfil that promise soon and get away from stories of the beach or wildlife encounters!
Thursday, 10 March 2011
I've had a specific request for an update on the activities of the band (more specifically the groupies of the band) that was staying at our hotel in Melbourne. Well, I'm as disappointed as you will be to report that today's rockstars really aren't like those of our generation ... Having heard no wild late-night shenanigans I asked the concierge as we left what they got up to, and the wildest thing he could report was that they got their laundry done! Of the ladies travelling with them one might indeed have been the Mum of one of the band members too, (allegedly)- I'm sure John Bonham's Mum never toured with him...
At the recommendation of Melbourne-based Targa competitor David Ogg, I found myself spending 45 minutes in the convivial company of Mariana from Sao Paolo, practicing my Portuguese ... Before you leap to conclusions, she was programming and cutting XL logos to stick on the car for Targa. Also ordered some logo'd t-shirts from some local 'dudes' who mainly do hoodies ... I had more to talk about with Mariana!
We've now moved down to Lorne, about 40kms down the fabled Gt Ocean Rd, fantastic scenery and views, but a Subaru Forester isn't what you want to be driving, even if it is a hire car!
Emily and I went to check on the TR yesterday, still sitting in 'jail' at Gibson Freight, pending completion of paperwork, Customs Bond is paid, Quarantine guys are booked, after that I can take the car away, but only far enough to get an inspection to then get the local VicRoads Registration papers that I will need to use the car on the road here. Been a laborious and time-consuming process to be honest, but hopefully we are near the end, although it's now clear that I won't get the chance for a daybreak blast down to the 12 Apostles in the TR, which I was hoping to do to test the in-car camera set-up. Shame. I can report that the car started, a bit hesitant, but after blowing six weeks of salt out of its throat it did run clean ... I think it's looking forward to getting out on parole!
At the recommendation of Melbourne-based Targa competitor David Ogg, I found myself spending 45 minutes in the convivial company of Mariana from Sao Paolo, practicing my Portuguese ... Before you leap to conclusions, she was programming and cutting XL logos to stick on the car for Targa. Also ordered some logo'd t-shirts from some local 'dudes' who mainly do hoodies ... I had more to talk about with Mariana!
We've now moved down to Lorne, about 40kms down the fabled Gt Ocean Rd, fantastic scenery and views, but a Subaru Forester isn't what you want to be driving, even if it is a hire car!
Emily and I went to check on the TR yesterday, still sitting in 'jail' at Gibson Freight, pending completion of paperwork, Customs Bond is paid, Quarantine guys are booked, after that I can take the car away, but only far enough to get an inspection to then get the local VicRoads Registration papers that I will need to use the car on the road here. Been a laborious and time-consuming process to be honest, but hopefully we are near the end, although it's now clear that I won't get the chance for a daybreak blast down to the 12 Apostles in the TR, which I was hoping to do to test the in-car camera set-up. Shame. I can report that the car started, a bit hesitant, but after blowing six weeks of salt out of its throat it did run clean ... I think it's looking forward to getting out on parole!
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Kind of difficult to quibble about the costs of the 'Family Holiday' side of this trip, considering the costs of motorsport elements... But it did concern me rather when we arrived in Melbourne this morning to find our hotel is really rather nice, is about 50yds from a Lamborghini showroom and that we were sitting at breakfast next to a Rock Band from the US who are playing here tonight -sure they aren't exactly Springsteen, ZZTop or Nirvana (rip) but I'll be scrutinising my bill nevertheless to ensure I'm not paying for any tv sets they lob out the windows in the early hours ...! If I suffer a sleepless night after the flight here I might just pop down to the lobby to check out the Groupies... Mind you the band looked to have an average age of about 15, so maybe their Mums won't let them stay up late...
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Car has arrived
The good ship Orchid was scheduled to have docked in Melbourne on March 2nd, so I hadn't expected to hear from the freight forwarders until a couple of days after that; however at lunchtime on the 2nd itself, I was surprised to receive a mail advising that the car was already at the Forwarders' Depot, and awaiting Customs Clearance and Quarantine inspection. Very exciting to hear.
We leave Singapore tomorrow evening, arriving in Melbourne early on Sunday, so I hope to get everything sorted early next week, and get the car parked safely in my friend, David Ogg's, garage. I also need to get some stickers made up to reflect the sponsorship I have secured late on from XL Insurance, my employer. I need to get some t-shirts printed up too.
Then I need to get on with the family holiday part of this adventure, before my wife runs out of patience! I'm not sure I'd mentioned yet that on top of all this petrol-fuelled adventure, we are also travelling with 4 year old Emily, and 9 month old Freddie!
We leave Singapore tomorrow evening, arriving in Melbourne early on Sunday, so I hope to get everything sorted early next week, and get the car parked safely in my friend, David Ogg's, garage. I also need to get some stickers made up to reflect the sponsorship I have secured late on from XL Insurance, my employer. I need to get some t-shirts printed up too.
Then I need to get on with the family holiday part of this adventure, before my wife runs out of patience! I'm not sure I'd mentioned yet that on top of all this petrol-fuelled adventure, we are also travelling with 4 year old Emily, and 9 month old Freddie!
Thursday, 24 February 2011
The Events
VHRR Phillip Island Classic
We have been invited to compete in the Triumph TR5 at Phillip Island, in the annual Classic Festival run by the Victorian Historic Racing Register, this must be the biggest Historic Racing festival in the Southern Hemisphere, attracting more than 500 competing cars (more than 100 in Group S classes, with whom we will be racing) and around 50,000 spectators each year.
This year the event runs from 18th - 20th March. Phillip Island is one of those circuits revered by drivers around the world, personally I've never been there, and most of the times I've seen it on tv it's been the likes of Rossi and Stoner rushing round it. I'm very excited about following in such famous wheeltracks. I've not seen a timetable yet, but if I understand correctly there will be two practice/qualifying sessions on Friday, then two races each day on Saturday and Sunday; I'm used to racing over 20-30 mins, but these will be a little shorter.
One of the last proper "Road Races" in the World. 2,000kms round the beautiful island of Tasmania, with the stages on closed public roads run 'as fast as you dare'. Well over 300 cars have entered for this the 20th anniversary running, more than half in the Classic Divisions. The competitive elements of the event run over 6 days, but including pre-event scrutineering, etc., and the post event party (+ sobering up) we'll be 'involved' for about 10 days.
This year the event runs from 18th - 20th March. Phillip Island is one of those circuits revered by drivers around the world, personally I've never been there, and most of the times I've seen it on tv it's been the likes of Rossi and Stoner rushing round it. I'm very excited about following in such famous wheeltracks. I've not seen a timetable yet, but if I understand correctly there will be two practice/qualifying sessions on Friday, then two races each day on Saturday and Sunday; I'm used to racing over 20-30 mins, but these will be a little shorter.
Targa Tasmania
This is a major event, it is estimated that 200,000 spectators watch the event live, and there is significant tv coverage, which gets picked up by channels round the world, accessible to many millions of viewers. The local tourist board puts the event's value to Tasmania around AUD12m. At the front of the modern classes you should expect to see a pair of Lamborghini Gallardos duking it out, with some other serious, if slightly less exotic, machinery - where else other than Oz would you see that?!
We've not done this type of event before; the whole idea of driving fast with someone telling me what's coming up round the next bend or over the next crest is all a bit daunting - will I be able to assimilate the information fast enough, will Jason lose his place after I've scared him into closing his eyes, or will he drop the pace book into the footwell ...? No doubt like many blokes I've trained myself to 'turn a deaf ear' to anyone telling me how to drive (oops, sorry Love, did you think I was concentrating..?!); now with intercom his voice will be shouting inside my helmet. How will we get on ...? Well the honest answer is that we aren't going with any pretentions to win anything, we've never seen the roads before, and some of them are really quite challenging, so we will drive the road that we can see in front of us - as quickly as possible, of course! I'm led to believe that if we have a trouble-free run, then we ought to be able to achieve a 'Targa Trophy' for a penalty-free run - so if we had an ambition that would be it.
Monday, 21 February 2011
Trials and Tribulations
Seeing as it now appears that the ship carrying my car has successfully transitted the Suez Canal, and run the gauntlet of Somali pirates, it seems a good moment to run briefly through some of the issues that threatened to derail this plan at various times...!
Crashing the car at Castle Combe in June 2009 was obviously a major hiccup (I hit oil on the track, honest) ... at one stage it looked as though the only sensible decision would be to write-off the car completely ... but when did anyone addicted to the racing drug every worry about what is sensible? It got rebuilt, of course it did, not only that, despite the fact that I'd proven it could go fast enough to leave the track, it also got a rebuilt engine and just a few extra horsepower. Initially it was due to have been delivered back to me at the beginning of the 2010 season, but various delays meant that it was delivered to Silverstone the evening before the Silverstone Classic at the end of July. Sadly it didn't last long; the new engine failed about 4 laps into qualifying, and well before I'd even starting pushing on ... this wasn't good. Cue one of those fits of depression that this sport can pitch you into from time to time ... I did allude to it being like a drug didn't I?!
Seemed like that would curtail the Aussie plans ... But No...
The engine builder generously admitted that the engine failure wasn't down to my right foot, and agreed to build a new engine if I paid for the new block - deal done. I eventually picked the car up on a Saturday morning in late November, less than one month before the anticipated shipping date. I planned a nice long run home to run it in, all over the Peak District, down through the Cotswolds etc. Bad plan. It doesn't matter what roads you pick on our overcrowded island - any Saturday is a frustrating time to drive 500 miles without using motorways, and the only time the road opens up in front of you you'll find a camera to spoil the fun. I did eventually put 1000 miles on it just before it went into the container for shipping, and am reasonably confident that it is restored to full health.
In the remaining weeks I fitted an intercom so that I will be able to hear Jason screaming at me. Fitted passenger seats, belts, new tyres, moved fire extinguishers (again), fitted spare wheel retainer, accumulated and catalogued a huge box of useful spares (except the one thing that I'll end up needing, I suppose). And went through the entire car checking all nuts, bolts, pipes, cables, hoses etc., Then I cleaned it seriously to pass Aussie quarantine regs, then I got it professionally steam cleaned and valeted to finish off.
Perfect - but sure there's something I forgot ...
Crashing the car at Castle Combe in June 2009 was obviously a major hiccup (I hit oil on the track, honest) ... at one stage it looked as though the only sensible decision would be to write-off the car completely ... but when did anyone addicted to the racing drug every worry about what is sensible? It got rebuilt, of course it did, not only that, despite the fact that I'd proven it could go fast enough to leave the track, it also got a rebuilt engine and just a few extra horsepower. Initially it was due to have been delivered back to me at the beginning of the 2010 season, but various delays meant that it was delivered to Silverstone the evening before the Silverstone Classic at the end of July. Sadly it didn't last long; the new engine failed about 4 laps into qualifying, and well before I'd even starting pushing on ... this wasn't good. Cue one of those fits of depression that this sport can pitch you into from time to time ... I did allude to it being like a drug didn't I?!
Seemed like that would curtail the Aussie plans ... But No...
The engine builder generously admitted that the engine failure wasn't down to my right foot, and agreed to build a new engine if I paid for the new block - deal done. I eventually picked the car up on a Saturday morning in late November, less than one month before the anticipated shipping date. I planned a nice long run home to run it in, all over the Peak District, down through the Cotswolds etc. Bad plan. It doesn't matter what roads you pick on our overcrowded island - any Saturday is a frustrating time to drive 500 miles without using motorways, and the only time the road opens up in front of you you'll find a camera to spoil the fun. I did eventually put 1000 miles on it just before it went into the container for shipping, and am reasonably confident that it is restored to full health.
In the remaining weeks I fitted an intercom so that I will be able to hear Jason screaming at me. Fitted passenger seats, belts, new tyres, moved fire extinguishers (again), fitted spare wheel retainer, accumulated and catalogued a huge box of useful spares (except the one thing that I'll end up needing, I suppose). And went through the entire car checking all nuts, bolts, pipes, cables, hoses etc., Then I cleaned it seriously to pass Aussie quarantine regs, then I got it professionally steam cleaned and valeted to finish off.
Perfect - but sure there's something I forgot ...
Monday, 24 January 2011
Background
I have owned my 1968 Triumph TR5 since autumn 2003, having bought it from my brother. Since 2004 I have raced it in historic events, mostly the Historic Roadsports Championship run by the Historic Sports Car Club in the UK, but occasionally venturing into Europe ... this time we're going a bit further. Why?
In 2006 I convinced my wife to accompany me, as Navigator, on a Road Rally in Sicily celebrating the Centenary of the famous Targa Florio road race. Little did we know that we would find out she was pregnant on the very night before we were due to fly out ... anyway the event went well, having never rallied before we actually placed 5th overall and 2nd in our Class - largely because the competitive element of that event was pretty mickey mouse - still it was good fun, we got lots of shiny trophies, and a nice suntan. I shan't forget the last day on the road though, 14 hours in the car, three times up and down Mt Etna on various tiny roads, and some of it with the roadbook on my knees, navigating myself as Nic had fallen asleep as she was just starting to suffer from morning sickness ... she won't forget it either ... someone else is navigating for me this time! (In case you were wondering, Emily is 4 today, and doesn't seem to have suffered from this unusual start to life!)
Whilst we were in Sicily we befriended a group of Australian motorsport enthusiasts who were following the event ... one of them, Scotty Taylor, enthused about an event with 'proper' road-racing that was run in his home state ... my dream of competing in the Targa Tasmania was born there and then ...
A lot has happened between now and then, an abbreviated history will follow soon ...
In 2006 I convinced my wife to accompany me, as Navigator, on a Road Rally in Sicily celebrating the Centenary of the famous Targa Florio road race. Little did we know that we would find out she was pregnant on the very night before we were due to fly out ... anyway the event went well, having never rallied before we actually placed 5th overall and 2nd in our Class - largely because the competitive element of that event was pretty mickey mouse - still it was good fun, we got lots of shiny trophies, and a nice suntan. I shan't forget the last day on the road though, 14 hours in the car, three times up and down Mt Etna on various tiny roads, and some of it with the roadbook on my knees, navigating myself as Nic had fallen asleep as she was just starting to suffer from morning sickness ... she won't forget it either ... someone else is navigating for me this time! (In case you were wondering, Emily is 4 today, and doesn't seem to have suffered from this unusual start to life!)
Whilst we were in Sicily we befriended a group of Australian motorsport enthusiasts who were following the event ... one of them, Scotty Taylor, enthused about an event with 'proper' road-racing that was run in his home state ... my dream of competing in the Targa Tasmania was born there and then ...
A lot has happened between now and then, an abbreviated history will follow soon ...
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