Snowman

Well I just found out today that I can't make either Lake Mountain or Targa Tas this year due to work commitments. So I'm thrilled to have spent all that $$$ on my car especially to do them now!

The problem is you could line the corners with puppies and guys would still cut them! LOL

should fix it....

My notes (which were recycled from last year) still had chicanes in them. LOL Lucky they mentioned it at DB else I wouldn't have picked it up.

As I said earlier - last year before all Octogon events there was specific mention of the "no cutting corners with white lines" This year there was nothing so I can't see how he can be penalized.

Probably. I know SupaLoc are trying to incorperate crumped front ends into the changes now as well. Actually whilst Week's latest effort will still probably cost more than all of our cars on here to fix - it looks like he's got away damn lucky as the chasis rails and all the suspension components seem to be ok.

We got to cover all the stages once (lucky TWP is technically only 9 stages with a few repeats - that are all close to each other and base camp). So Thursday and Friday between doing all the other things we had to do either officially (scrut - drivers briefing) and getting Troy sorted (licenses, suit, helemt etc) we found the time to check, change and in some cases write the notes and have a bit of a practise run. So it was all good. I was just happy to be there having some fun which was why I said to Bris I was happier having him in the seat than some proven expert, as win or lose I didn't care as long as I had some fun along the way! Plus - short of killing him - had I been unfortunate enough to vernture off into the bush I knew there was no way I could inflict more damage than he has done to himself over the years!

Another thing people may have noticed was that the R35's weren't "as fast" as last year. Interestingly they have ALL now switched to the Toyo's (which I think are crap). I wonder if that played any part or if the Lambo and STi have just jumped them now?

Here's a link to the stage where the arm finally snapped (we think - we are just going by the fact that the "noise" became a clunk after this stage). Looking at the footage I can't tell when it happened exactly as the car was handling crap from start to finish. LOL Still - given all of that the stage time was only 17s off the class leading time! (and only 5s slower than Adam and Dan LOL). But you can get a good appreciation of how well the blood nut in the mad seat did given his short notice call up.

Yep - just going to look into whats involved in changing everything - arms, hubs, bushes - EVERYHTING. And ANY hoses in the engine bay that are original. And anything else I can think of that shouldn't ever break but seems to on my car!

David "hit a bump" on Airwalk and the car just died. I think in the end he said it was a relay that died.

As far as I know all cars got fuel tested. I was wrapped with that too since it was such a fark around having to get the EXACT right fitting which just so happened to be only available from one person in the country. The funny thing was they rang me up with a panic after my sample because I'd had to use a jug full of boiling water to get my fitting onto my hose and as a consequence my fuel sample was full of water (both ends of the hose had closed ends) so they panicked my car was going to blow up! LOL

I'll put the footage on Youtube. It was a pretty wild ride! LOL

Yeah seems like the crack has been there a while and it has finally let go. It could explain the noise we heard but its impossible to be sure on any of this.

Big Kudos to Bris from me for jumping in the car. He's are hard judge on himself but I think he did an awesome job and at no stage did any of his little mishaps put me off or put us in danger. Which is probably more than I can say given I chose to keep blazing on even though we knew there was a problem with something at the front of the car. Given what we know now we are both fairly lucky (again!) But I'd happily have the old boy jump in the car again anyday. Well done to Norton and Dan too on a great first up Tarmac effort. Hopefully one day we can all have a good run and have a good ding dong. Oh - and BRING ON TARGA HIGH COUNTRY in Nov!!!

I'll be back with more later - but I'll add for now that there was NO mention in any paperwork or verbally in any drivers briefings about the white lines and no corner cutting for TWP this year.

Yeah sure these past Rookie winners may have all crashed - but at least they can say they have been a winner. Remember - if you're not first you're last!

Well if Russ can run his car then yeah he's just scared. That being said - I'd be scared to run that car through the tree's too! LOL The wide expanses of a racetrack with lots of run-off is where I'd want to be in it. But it's good to know its a relaxed event. I'm really keen to do a few different things next year (this year is booked out already).

Is there like a run-what-you-brung class for Mt Stewart? I thought it was a SCAMS of Fail regs event?

Agreed - so boy am I glad I made it to the start line last year!

The "free entry to Targa Tas the following year" prize for winning Rookie has gone. I was the lucky last winner of that little gig. Its been replaced with an entry to TWP the following year now.

Good to hear Ben. Only shitty thing about rookie now is the big prize has gone - but I still think its an awesome place to start out if you're new to the event. Even though you're hardly new to the event!!

The dragon finally lives again! We're back on track for TWP. It's over 50kw's down on power from where it was but I'm hoping the changes will actually make it a faster targa car. Guess we'll know in a week or so! Very pumped now!

What John - baby seats in the back?? PS - Craig told me I had to ring you and convince you to come to Tassie!

Sorry to hear it Benny - but I can fully understand it. I'm struggling to find the time to do it this year as well and to be honest if I didn't have the free entry I'd be thinking twice. It's such a big commitment of time (and $$$ obviously). I worked out the other day that the bare minumum I can do the event in time wise is around 13 days in Tassie. Plus all the other shite back home. It's a killer! But the good news for you is there is there is a rumour that there is going to be a cracking new short event (2 days) in November on the mainland. One day Stu might man up and actually tell everyone all about it