This event seemed to be pretty hard on cars!
From the sounds of it Dan & Sammy's problem was a fuel pump on the blink which finally leaned it out enough to say goodbye to a couple of pistons. I was really impressed with Dan's times for his first rally, straight off the bat he was quick and consistent all weekend. I was puzzled when I saw a stage time for them, but hadn't seen them come to the service park. Then an utterly bad feeling when they were both walking up to the stop point.
Hopefully it can be fixed for reasonable $$ and you will be back for more.
Danny and I had a good weekend even if it was a bit trying at times. Picked the car up on Friday, drove to Marysville and jumped in the car, straight away something was not right, it felt like it had no power! After mucking around with the maps, we ended up loading an old map which was really only meant for short track hill climbs. But it worked.
Saturday morning stages, went well till about the 4th where we lost the clutch. Completed the stage in 4th gear, luckily they called a lunch break so we could inspect it. Turned out the metal line into the slave cylinder had snapped off. With some help from the boys at TMR they managed to flare the line and get us back going. No further problems for the day and we kept getting quicker.
Sunday morning, we hit hard while the road was still cool, posting our fastest time of the weekend which was a 4:36. the following two runs were just as good and in the mid 37's. We then noticed the exhaust was slightly louder, leaking from somewhere. Didn't let it bother us, except that on 4th run off the line an electrical fault which plagued us at High Country showed up again and in the same breath the exhaust manifold cracked quite badly. So with no power/boost/anything we crawled up the mountain, around a minute and a half slower than previously. What to do?
The manifold had cracked and opened up like a big valve. TMR to the rescue again! It was a bandage solution, but for the time we had to fix it in and limited resources it woudl have to do. I did the sums and we had enough of a gap to 3rd place that if we could limp it up there we could still finish 2nd outright and 2nd in the championship.
So with fire extinguishers at the ready we started our final run up the mountain. It was quite hilarious, so slow and at times I had to keep telling danny to keep his speed up cos I didn't think we were going to make it in time! But we did it!
So now the car gets a good rest and a big birthday for next year so we can continue competing in the ATRC, but our main focus will be a red hot crack at Targa.
here are a couple of vids for your viewing pleasure
Barrel Hit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arAUmkCPBl4&hd=1
Fastest Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWUYZy-wrZo&hd=1