Snowman

LOL - I'm not saying you did! I'm just clarifying that there IS a rule that says you can't! But then there is also a rule that says you must do the speed limit during recce and yet *allegedly* there were a lot of people doing a touch over 60km/hr up and down the Airwalk road last week as well. Probably none of them were doing recce - but there was a dude in a silver VW Golf whose missus must have been giving birth in the back seat or something as he sure was in a hurry!

There we go. Sup regs. Section F 34. Reconnaissance c) Limited. "...3 week period prior to the event,reconnaissance is limited to 3 passes on any targa stage..." I know none of them follow that rule though!

I thought you weren't supposed to do more than 2 passes as it is classified as "practicing'? I know plenty of people do though and that the serious guys spend at least 2-3 weeks down in Tas doing recce before the event. It's a fair commitment to an "amateur" event!

Isn't there a rule somewhere that says you ain't supposed to do that!!? LOL Kudos to him for the amount of effort he puts into his recce work though. I remember him telling me he watches a minimum 4hrs of video a night in the 4 weeks leading up to Targa in preparation. And he tends to only watch the sections where there are 4+ corners that are 8's and above in a row (if using 1-10). Last year I drove over 32 of the 41 stages once beforehand and that was it (so 9 stages I never saw at all before I raced them). But I know I suck at the fast stuff and this is why.

He lost both side mirrors on that stage! LOL

*Edit - the map suggests it starts at the bridge however.

The recce notes seem to suggest they just extended it at the back. Give it 5 more years and they will have made it a 100km stage!

So I just looked at the recce notes for TT11 and noticed they made Mt Arrowsmith longer again! 58.9kms. The whole competitive distance of Day 1 is only 61kms! LOL

Mike Pritchard had Close beaten on the boat over. He IS Brisby #2! I was no match for either of them.

What happened to the STi plans for the old man?

Well currently Trav is listed as sitting in 2 seats which will be a challenge for him!

Ok - footage of Cygnet where YT gets past. I wish we could here our intercom because you'd here Matt tell me "Don't try and race him" HAHAHAHAHA - yeah right!

Speed feed is directly into the camera via GPS - not from the cars feed at all. And it seems it gets lost in the tree's a bit. For example it never worked at all in any of the runs through tahune / airwalk but comes back on-line as soon as we get into town. I'm pretty sure it will be a short where the kill switch is in the center console. It was pretty tight in there and its probably got a rub through one of the heat shrinks is my guess. Have 5 days lined up at a mix of places in the next few weeks (PI, Haunted Hills, Sandown, Calder and Broadford) so I'm thinking there is a good mix of high speed corners and big bumps in that lot of places to make sure we have it sorted. The event is pretty good. Cygnet is MUCH better now than in 2010 (compare my footage to say Dean Evans in 2010 for road quality). Oyster cove is an awesome bit of track and the day flowed really well. I'm personally not sure about the 2 trips up to Tahune on Day 1 (the +90min wait up there is a killer - especially the 2nd time around as you are quite tired about then and its hard to motivate yourself back up again). I'd prefer it if they had more transport and ran Grasstree Hill and Molesworth (even in reverse) like they did they first year to 2 runs up to the airwalk. But Dover and especially Longley are just heaps of fun to drive.

That's very interesting! Pretty sure we both run the same shocks too. Looking at our respective times on the weekend it shows a very similar pattern. Last 3 runs were: Tahune 2 (TW - +56s, AR +60s) Airwalk 2 (TW - +51s, AR +55s) Longley (TW - +75s, AR +72s) Then on Day 2 after we both adjusted shocks (Only stage I got proper times on) Woodbridge 1 (TW +44s, AR +46s) Woodbridge 2 (TW +38s, AR +41s) I really think this is quite a good learning experience for me. As this really confirms the difference that change makes. I think the comparative improvement is around 1s/km just in the shock adjustments.

Thanks Greg. Looking on he footage last night from Oyster Cove 2 and Cygnet 2 you can see I was getting faster and faster as I gained confidence in the new settings and watching it against some footage I found from 2010 of Dean Evans on the same stages I was 2-3s in front of him when our fuses blew. Looking at the times he then ran in 2010 this would put me back to where I would expect the old car to be. It's still off the Newton freak but back in par with Paris / Ayres etc which I am ok with. So fingers crossed we can tune it a bit more in the next 7 weeks and I can have another happy run at Targa. I put a couple of stages on youtube already if anyone wants to watch. Woodbridge 2 (=2nd fastest EM)- Oyster Cove 2 (good til the fuse blew again) - I will try and upload what I have from Cygnet 2 later as well. (And Cygent 1 where there is a guest appearance from YT in the Lambo)

I'm going to try and go and Sat but am going to do Haunted Hills on the Sunday (another option if you are interested. Plenty of SAU people will be there - although if I was you I'd be sticking with PI for 2 days)

Thanks Jack. Initially no - they made no difference at all. But that doesn't mean they aren't going to be better than what I had - infact I am sure they will be. But it seems that the problem was in the bump setting on the shocks. They were both fully closed off which meant the car had no bump at all. This meant the car had no lean in on turn in and kept the back sliding around the whole time. We have only initially changed this setting from full hard to right in the middle but I reckon with some more tweaks we can get it bang on. The back I think needs to go further softer still. Unlike the old Teins we ran these MCA's make MASSIVE differences when you play with the clickers. I'm not sure who set them all to full hard but the guys who were helping me out with the advice on what to look for (Steve Glenney and Dean Herridge) both laughed when I told them where they were set too.

Scary stuff. Glad to hear you are ok. But FYI I have seen 2 other cars do exactly the same thing in the same spot.

Well I made it - just! LOL I have to say that event just isn't kind to me. If I ever think of doing it again someone remind me not too. I *think* we are finally getting somewhere with the car but is hard to tell as with the extra speed we found after playing with the shocks we found an electrical gremilin that meant we kept blowing ignition fuses. They were going at really high G load situations. And it's fun at 160km/hr when you suddenly lose all power I can tell you right now. Finding the cause will probably be even more fun. So was having to drive with out all of my electronic talent as I stole fuses from places to put back into the ignition location. Shows just how awesome that Wooster guy must be! But the couple of clean runs we did have put us back in the top mix on those stages. So we have 8 weeks til the big one and I am feeling better about its chances now than I was Saturday lunch-time. And I was also really pleased to see Ayres get his mojo back on the Sunday too after a few tweaks. As I was beginning to think we all needed to get rid of the GT-R's and follows Rickards path down EMO land!

I am on the list mate - you just aren't looking far enough down it. It seems the Blue car with a busted upper control arm was still faster than this new car is! LOL I might have to follow Rickards path and get an EMO. Seems to have worked for him.

Woo - you need to bring the RB20 powar. Newton needs to be put back in his place!

Look - just because in the 2 previous Wrest Point events I've competed in I have snapped the wheel studs off once and snapped an upper control arm in half the other time - it doesn't necessarily mean the roads are bumps down there....

I'm up for an Aust Day beer! I also get in that morning on the fun ship. Is Timmy being your guide again given I don't think him / Gav were running?

I left mine in. Thought they might be useful one day. Ripped lots of stuff out of the car but they stayed behind. (Not particularly helpful I know!)

The good news is I have picked up a $24 12V hair dryer to get me by in the short term. Long term if a production run for a decent heated R34 windscreen comes up I will put my hand up for a couple.