Tarmac Rallying Perpetual Thread

[Snowman]

Thanks all. Was heaps and heaps of fun.

Super happy with my result - puts an end to last year for me now. Couldn't have caught Blaise even if I didn't hurt the car on Riana (damaged shock after driving through a fence!) but my speed this year was way up on last year so 2nd was as good as I was going to get. But well done to my buddy on taking out not only this event but the Australian Targa Championship as well.

Big thanks to Matt for sitting next to me all fortnight and for providing some great laughs. Will try and put together some of our best parts into a video. Also to Bris for being a super champ running service in a pretty thankless job and always being there where and when we needed him.

Super efforts from some others on here too. Melinda did a great job especially since before the event started it looked to us like it was about to die! (and 2nd fastest across the 58.8km Mt Arrowsmith on a damp road!) and of course The Woo man who kept us all entertained with his Top 10 outright stories in the 999 car.

[DJRIFT]

if you havent already check out the porsche movies, this is the first one

they played this at the dinner last night. i watched them all just before and just about every car gets shown.

it may have had a massive budget but i wish this format was how the targa TV show was put together.

Edited April 12, 2011 by DJRIFT

[Snowman]

Here's another vid of some highlights from our Riana stage this year (where I had my little whoopsy)

[Marlin]

Great stuff Snowy and Matt, good calling too Matt, clearly snowy missed the call, lol, I know the feeling!

[trez]

You got nothing on mr woo snowy, his off shits all over yours

[Snowman]

100% my fault. It was the way the notes were done - the 7R>t * 4L just didn't compute and I just didn't know this bit of road well enough.

The reality is that for Targa I did around 50hrs of Video recce - but my Riana footage was from 2008 when it was Riana Short and didn't cover that stretch of road. And then because of the Touareg issues we had on recce my full day that was planned for Cethana, Mt Rowland, Paloona and Riana was condensed into a single pass pretty much and as you know Benny if you want to be serious in this game you really need to put the effort into learning the bits you need to know.

I mean its funny how Adam went into that same spot and yet someone had even been there before him as well! It's obviously an easy spot to stuff!

(Vid of Adam going into the same spot attached!)

[Marlin]

You're absolutely right mate. I reckon that particular spot is where the stage actually changes character, and many many were caught out there judging by the black marks on the road by the time we went through.

it's wierd how as soon as I saw the entry and exit wounds, I just KNEW one of my mates had been through there! LOL

[Snowman]

It's also after about 15-16mins of INTENSE driving (doesn't get much more intense than Riana - maybe Cethana but those 2 are easily the most full on). So I think my brain was pretty fried at that point.

Farken good fun though. It's funny how Mt Rowland and Riana are 2 of my absolute favorite stages and yet have both caused me grief in the past.

[PHaT MR30]

I remember that corner last year snowy and you are spot on, Riana is possibly one of the most fatiguing stages due to its length and the way it changes its flow and terrain.

I know what you mean about the notes.. Sometimes they just don't read right in the heat of the moment and can catch you out. I remember not recceing Queenstown last year and there is an 8L 50 t> 3L, and you just come hooking into a 3L downhill!

Your effort was a bit better than Newt's! but Silver medal to the Woo!

Love to see your crests at the Natone School.

well done too BTW proven you were as quick as last year in a "legal car"

[Snowman]

I lifted at the school. That one scares me

I have no doubt fatigue was a huge part of my problem. We missed breakfast because muggins here decided to change his tyre strategy last minute which meant we had to get in early (early start on the Sat anyways!) to put the new tyres on before we left. Then because my car still currently uses rear left tyres far more than rear rights (?? don't know either) I had Brisby running around trying to swap those tyres around from left to rights. This meant we also ran out of drinking water in the car before Cethana and never caught up with Bris who keeps the supplies before the lunch stop.

And with everyone getting pinged 20mins for being a minute late I never stopped to rehydrate / get some food (and infact during lunch we had to fix the bloody front shock so I never got anything to eat for lunch either that day!)

But it was a big big lesson learnt on looking after yourself as a priority for these things. You just can't skimp and keep your mind functioning right.

Oh and I know the corner in Queenstown.

My notes have changed to 8L BECOMES !3L>t (I've re-written a bunch of Johns notes that I just don't like the way it was originally written. But the BECOMES call is one Steve Glenney uses that I think works well)

[DJRIFT]

we were on different notes again but ours didnt flow with what the road was doing and very nearly ended up in the bank. its oviously just one of thoes corners.

i also find it to be fatuging. while its not the longest stage i think in our road book it has the most or almost as many pages as mt arrowsmith.

[PHaT MR30]

Ok here is my crash, still working on getting the quality up, but if you select 480p once in it comes up a bit sharper (Gavin has one of the older POV1's).

I was lucky enough to be supplied by Qstarz with one of their 5Hz GPS loggers and it turned up the night before so I stuck it in and only got as far as doing this one stage with it in!

Available from www.highoctanedirect.com.au for $199.00

Using Dashware for the overlay.

Question I have, is anyone else having problems with video's out of POV's (or any camera for that matter?) having to be converted before you can edit in Windows Movie Maker or Dashware or anything? I think this is where my quality loss is coming from, cos I need to convert from AVI to WMV or MPG before I can edit.

[Snowman]

Yeah my POV1 did weird things like produce video upside down when uploaded into Movie maker, or else in a weird shade of pink/purple. I ended up having to use Premier Pro to get it to work ok.

The VBox is definitely easier - although I would like them to bring out a HD upgrade as well.

The crash doesn't look like much fun though Timmy. It's a funny stage though - we know if you go balls out on it us EM guys can JUST clear it. So I know I went a little ragged at the end making sure I got it done and it nearly unraveled for me with half the car in the dirt.

[navdan]

It's a funny stage though - we know if you go balls out on it us EM guys can JUST clear it. So I know I went a little ragged at the end making sure I got it done and it nearly unraveled for me with half the car in the dirt.

This was just after you told Handbags it's "easily" clean-able haha

[Snowman]

Well I just remembered cleaning it the year before - and given this year on Day 2 I was a minimum 15s faster on every stage in similar conditions I figured it MUST be easy to clean.

But I did run pretty damn on it this year (just in case) and ran the clear time dead on. So yeah - it was easy to clean if you went ballistic

[sav man]

Warning long post, I wrote up a report from our Targa adventure.

Day 0 -2

We decided to head down to Baskerville raceway to learn how to setup the new suspension, and to bed in the new pads. We did about 50 laps, and learnt a lot about the suspension. But we had blown a lot of oil out of the catch can. Feeling pretty happy with our self’s, we put that car on the trailer and went back to Launceston. Started the car up to get it off the trailer…. Knock knock knock, then ran fine, it had oil pressure so I thought the oil might have run/shaken out of the pump during the trip. We changed the oil and it didn’t’ make the noise again on start up, and worked on the car till about 1 am

Day 0 -1

Finished some tidying up before scrutineering (not that it matters with AASA), but the headlights stopped working 30 mins we were due to headup (the only thing that they check). Damo was running some peak, and dodgied it so we’d pass. I jumped in the car and headed up to the silverdome. After about 2km I started to hear a quiet tap tap tap at 3000rpm…hmmmm. 2 more km later the tap tap tap, was a knock knock knock. I got on the phone to Damo to start looking for an engine. Did scrutineering and paperwork, then looked at our engine options. Damo’s won pretty easy, as it was free, and it’d done 2 Targa’s already (used it for recce).

Damo and I rounded up some mates, and took the car to the workshop and spent got 3 hours in on the engine removal before we had to go to drivers briefing. Rocked up back at the workshop at 6, and set to work on the 2 cars removing engines, 2 people per car. It didn’t take too long to get my engine out. But then we had to strip the plenum, water pump, and timing belt off my engine.

By 10:00 we had Damo’s engine out, and started the ancillary transplants. I had been lent a super baffled sump off an RB25, we waisted an hour in cleaning it up and trying to fit it…. Unfortunately the oil pickup wouldn’t work on the RB20. So the old sump had to be cleaned out and refitted. By this time it was 1:00 am, and Crump, Steve, and Travis had pulled to plug so they could get up for work/navigate in Targa in the morning.

Damo and I were the only ones left to put the engine and box back in the car. As the night went on, tempers started to wear thin, as we couldn’t find tools, and the floor was covered in a thin layer of coolent and oil (very slippery). By 3 we had the engine and box bolted in, and set to work on the radiator/loom..etc. At about 3:45 I start putting the coolent in, and found one of the copper washers on the turbo had been damaged. After a heated discussion on what we should do, I just pulled the bolt out, slipped another old washer on, and crossed my fingers (while having coolant rain all over me).

4:00 am rolled around, and we fired the engine up… it went first go (even on E85). Surprisingly there were no leaks, and we spent the next 30 mins bleeding the coolant system, and checking the car over.

I finally got home at 5:00am after dropping Damo home.

Day 0

I had organised to get the car on the Dyno at 7:30 in the morning, as the tuner said “putting a new engine in is like a new girlfriend….they are never the same”. So I got up at 6:30 (1.5 hours sleep), I felt really sick, dry reached a few times, jumped in the car and went to pick the Skyline up. It still started, and even drove up the road. Brad the tuner was is a very chirpy mood, and was winding Damo up pretty bad, Damo was about to knock his teeth out. Got the car on the dyno, and it dropped 40kw straight off the bat, did another pull and it dropped 50kw. Brad said the engine would make the event, but would lose power the hotter it got. Apparently the head was pretty tired.

We got the car checked in at the silverdome at 8:30 (30mins before the cut off), and headed down to the prologue. We didn’t recce the prologue, as every other year the field had been run through the stage….not this year. We parked the car in the park, and got to meet some people from SAU and jaw off for a few hours before we headed out. We were too tired to be nervous at the start line, we took off, and it became apparent at the first corner that the untested 235 tires were going rub on the skirts every time I hit the brakes, or turned the car. I ignored it, and ripped a few skids. We were slow, but didn’t really care at the time.

Waisted a few more hours in g’town, then headed back to Launceston to fix the skirts. At service we found that oil was still being blown out of the catch can. I tipped more oil in the engine, and dropped it in the silverdome and went to bed.

Day 1

We had an early start as we were slow which was good (we were thinking of going slow anyway) as we didn’t have any gravel to dodge on the road, cause we were in front of all the EVO’s and STI’s. The morning was pretty uneventful apart from having to use the hand brake to dodge a crashed car that hadn’t put any triangles out. After the first few stages I checked the catch can, only to be greeted by a big mess of oil through the engine bay (again!). So I tipped more oil in the engine, and dropped the revs from 8000 to 7000. At lunch we wound some more rebound into the rear shocks to stop the rear from bouncing off the bumps.

Sheffield was straight after lunch, and we had a crack. Got 8th fasted EM, passed a car, and was nose tail with the next car as we went across the finish line. The stage didn’t record on the camera for some reason  . After the last stage we got a one way valve, and got the catch can and turbo oil drain modded so it’d drain back into the sump. We installed the new oil drain setup at the Targa expo, which created some interest with the public.

Day 2

Started the car up to test the oil drain, and it didn’t leak. But we got 5km from the silverdome, and noticed a lot of smoke. Damo’s house it on the way to the Sidling, so we pulled in there (running heaps of peak), and found the oil drain gasket hadn’t sealed. We had 30 mins of late time to fix the problem. Somehow we got the drain off the bottom turbo, gasket goo’d it, and got to the Sidling within 1 min of our late time, but we were last car on the road. The stage was like a gravel road, I had ¾ of the car off the road at times to stay in the racing line. We made it to lunch with no other issues, apart from the catch can still filling up, but it wasn’t all over the engine bay, and seemed to be draining back into the sump. We finished the day with no other issues, and got an early night (hooray)

Day 3

Day 3 is a nice short day with more flowing roads. On Dunorlan I hit a railway crossing flat, and Damo’s guts almost fell out of his arse, but the car didn’t even know about it. Next stage was Stoodly, and ½ way through the stage one of the nuts came off the bonnet pin just after I clicked 5th, which left ½ the bonnet flapping in the air It was a short stage, so we kept going at race pace. We fixed the bonnet at the re-fuel after the stage. Rest of the stages were enjoyable and uneventful. At the end of the day I drained 3l of oil out of the catch can, and decided to pull 4psi boost out of the car to stop if breathing.

Day 4

This is the longest and best day of the event. Cethana is my favourite stage of the event, we had a good crack but still didn’t have a good time (1:00 slower than I used to do in the GT-R). Gunns Plains had been shortened, and we got a good time on it. Riana was our most memorable stage of the event. We had marked the first series of crests along a 900m straight as completely flat, but after we got massive hang time, and almost landed in the gravel we didn’t think it was a good idea. It took Damo almost 1km to stop giggling like a girl. Unfortunately there weren’t any photographers at that crest. The next series of crests I backed off a little for, but still got a good photo of some air out of it. Getting towards the end of the stage Damo missed a call on the now infamous Snowman/Newton corner . I tipped the car in and hoped for the best, and luckily we came out the other side just fine.

Hellyer gorge was dry until we stopped at the finish line, and the heavens opened up. Driving along the highway we worked out how to sort of clear the windscreen. But the next 3 stages were wet, and between the screen fogging up, and the wipers being next to useless at speed, we lost a lot of time. But faired better that a lot of cars on rosberry (one of which burnet to the ground).

On a good note, the car hadn’t breathed a drop of oil all day

Day 5

The first stage of the day was mainly wet but no rain. I softened the shocks off in the morning (should have done it for the wet stages the day before), and the car felt pretty good on the wet roads. Mt Arrowsmith is 59km long, and was 80% dry, so I stiffened the car back up again. We passed a GT-R on the stage that was only 10-15 secs behind us on the leader board, but also got passed by Steve and Kel. The stage was wet at the end, and we once again struggled with not being able to see. The rest of the day is a lot more relaxed after Mt Arrowsmith. They were a mixture of wet and dry, so I softened the car back up again and left it. We made it to through to the finish in one piece.

We got 13th in early modern and 1st in our class (7MSB). Damo did a great job, especially since it was his first pace noted rally, and the only time we had heated words was after about 3am on Tuesday morning.

Now to start planning for next year to get up the order, and stop rust proofing my car.

[sav man]

and here is riana

[2pee]

More than likely a grubby grab for website hits, poll to rhs of article, vote early, vote often,

advocate

Appears there should be some appearance requirements enforced too, some rough nuts there!

[Marlin]

Excellent writeup Benny! Very glad you and Damo prevailed against what was clearly a very challenging Targa for you both.

Bet you're even better mates now huh

[Snowman]

LOL - yeah anyone with a mullet should be banned

But that main speed camera thing was funny. I'm not sure if I got done or not - but it was on a MASSIVE downhill and as we went past I noticed I was maybe 5kms over (which in Vic is done for). I really don't speed on transport nor even when doing recce in stages. BUT I also try and avoid braking when driving in a straight line as sudden brake lights can make people panic.

I'm sure there is a law in Vic on not being able to place speed camera's on big hills like that.