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.