The Gravel Rally Thread

[FLN75S]

Nice one Tim, let us know how you guys get on.

I am hoping to go up and watch but i have a event on the week after so i'll most likely be too busy getting the car ready, hopefully that wont be the case though.

[Bodella]

I've seen a few people mention that they are going up to Coff's to compete? Is anybody going to just to watch? At this stage I'm going by myself and keeping it cheap by camping in provided camp grounds near the service park. Would great to see some other SAU people up there , I'll have to pick a SAU shirt to make it easy for people to spot me. As I didn't know what I'm doing bought an Enthusiast Evernt Super pass but i have now found a spectators guide here http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/australian-rallying-discussion/26849-wrc-australia-fans-spectating.html . reading through it I may have adjust my plans a little , the Stag my have troubles with some of access roads.

Anyway's, if your going, let me know, always keen to have beer with new people.

[PHaT MR30]

Not going to Coffs any more, a lot of hard work to get the car finished and its still got to get engine mods done and tuned and all new brakes and the budget is pretty stretched. Shame, but we would rather not go all the way up there and break it on the first stage cos we didn't get a chance to give it a good shake down. Looks pretty shit hot now though.

I had some pretty prime accomodation lined up in a 3 b/r townhouse with garage that I cancelled yesterday. If anyone was after a good place to stay right near the service park (and the Super Special goes right past the front), I can hook you up with the details.

[PHaT MR30]

Congratulations must go to Guesty on a great result at the inaugural 500 Classic Rally on the weekend.

Guesty was the co-driver for Peter "beaka" Barrett in a Toyota Sprinter. They finished a strong 3rd after 7 stages of which the majority were in the dark!

Obviously you tamed the beast since Beaka hasn't rallied in over 10 years and from what I heard he drives likes "Triple Caution through dip, hold it flat!"

[screamin']

Some footage is up from Forbes

Nice, a gravel rally thread on a Skyline website. I feel quite at home all of a sudden.

Skyline's in bits at the mo doing a rebuild to see if we can find some power without cheating and putting on a hairdryer It's only been a month and these vid's are making me impatient. Might have to ship the Skyline over and come for a play some day!

A couple of NZ video's for ya's.

[PHaT MR30]

The MSCT is proud to present the Southern Cross Television Mountain Stages Rally for 2011. It is an all new roadbook with approx 180Km competitive and a central service park in Mathinna.

How to get to Tasmania

The Spirit of Tasmania sails daily between Melbourne and Devonport.

Spirit of Tasmania | Home

Toll Shipping offers a cargo service between Melbourne and Burnie daily.

Toll ANL Bass Strait Shipping - Home

How to get to the Rally from Launceston

Directions are located in the Spectator Guide below, please allow at least 1 Hour 45 Minutes to get to the starting location in Mathinna.

Accommodation

Affordable comfortable accommodation is available at Archers Manor and is the finish location for the event. A great restaurant and motorsport bar are located here and is where the presentations and all the competitors will kick on.

Archers Manor

Please find below Entry Form, Supplimentary Regulations and Spectator Guide.

Entry Form

http://msct.com.au/PDF/Rally/2011%20Mt%20Stages%20Entry%20Form.pdf

Please fill the highlighted sections on this form out in full and click SUBMIT.

Supplimentary Regulations

http://msct.com.au/PDF/Rally/2011%20Mt%20Stages%20%20Supp%20Regs%20approved.pdf

Spectator Guide

http://msct.com.au/PDF/Rally/2011%20Mt%20Stages%20Spectator%20guide.pdf

It is recommended to set print settings in Adobe to 'Fit to page' and print duplex. If your printer is unable to print duplex, first print page 1 only, flip the page and insert into the MP tray of your printer (blank side up) and print page 2 only.

More information is available at www.msct.com.au

Entries close Friday 16th September 6pm, We encourage you to get your entry in soon.

TV Commercial to air from 11th September

Regards,

MSCT Mt Stages Committee

[FLN75S]

I had a run 2 weeks ago at the Amsag Cowra rally, this event has a mix of both fast shire roads and more technical stages in the forest.

I was running a different co driver for this event plus new brakes and diff so it was start of easy and see how we go. Just as we were starting to work well and i was trusting the calls i managed to damage the oil cooler cutting a corner and it put us out for the rest of the day. Luckily i noticed the low oil pressure and shut it down before any damage was done.

We bi passed the oil cooler and filled it back up with oil ready for the Sunday stages which are all fast shire roads. With nothing to loose i pushed pretty hard and we managed to win all but 1 of the stages which was when we blew an intercooler pipe a couple of km's from the end.

Here is a couple of the stages, the first has some tar sections as well which i always enjoy though not much fun pushing hard on rally tyres.

[PHaT MR30]

Thread revival.

Who's going to Rally Victoria? We are heading over and cross registering in the VRC/ARC. Pretty excited to be rallying again after a long break. Actually gonna be a bit of a task as ive never written notes under such controlled recce and the driver has never driven on them!

Car has spent a few months in Victoria in the good hands of Johnny Down and Melbourne Performance Centre. Now making plenty of grunt through the midrange, and it should be a totally different car to drive with some new diff maps (and ABS disabled!), handling issues sorted and most importantly decent brakes!

Anyone else entered or going for a look?

Dates are 11-12th November

[FLN75S]

Make sure you let us know how you go, and post up some pics.

I am having a run next weekend at Sunny corner run by amsag, will be the last rally for me this year.

[FLN75S]

Had a great run at the Amsag Sunny Corner Rally on the weekend, we got our best result yet and no drama's all weekend which is always good to finish of the year with.

We managed 2nd outright and 1st RWD, the stages had a good mix of tight technical corners but with some nice flowing ones as well which is always better for the Silvia.

below is some photos from the event.

[zebra]

very cool.

I keep looking at the stupid cordia in the shed...one day

[PHaT MR30]

Fantastic Effort Jason!!!

We also had a great event at Rally Victoria. Allthough the lead up to the event was stressful, went to pick up the car and it had no brakes on it so had to get some air freighted in from V-Sport and because we went from running in just the VRC to the ARC had to install a firebomb (not a bad idea though). Oh and we had planned to run on Pirelli's (which we had a stockpile of) but again cos we were running ARC had to run the control Khumo tyre.

Did a pretty good recce and wrote some notes we were happy with, could have done better, but a last minute terratrip problem meant we had to guestimate.

On the friday we took it easy to get a feel for the car, notes and being actually able to go at a decent pace knowing what was ahead. Finishing Heat 1 in 10th outright.

Saturday we fitted a new set of Medium 800R's and set on our way. There had been big storms a few days prior and we expected the roads to be much the same as the previous day. They were far from wet! We used up those 4 tyres in 2 stages! and had to struggle through the next two stages, both of which were 20 odd km's long each, to the next service where we made the decision to fit some 900R Hard's.

This allowed us to pickup the pace in the afternoon stages (which were a repeat of the morning stages). We were faster on each stage in the afternoon and on the penultimate stage managed 4th outright which was very pleasing. The final dash around the super special stage we were fastest outright and finished Heat 2 in 6th outright.

Final result being 6th outright overall, we were very happy considering this was only meant to be a shakedown for the car and crew. Amazing to be trading time with ARC regulars and big names of the sport.

Apparently we were invisible to photographers so I haven't got any pictures yet, but will be sure to post them up.

[PHaT MR30]

Few pics courtesy of Aiden O'Halloran, more to come

[FLN75S]

Nice one Tim,

Good to see the car went well for you guys. I had the same problem with Tyres all day as well by the end of the 1st stage they were already pretty worn and by the time i finished the 3rd stage i could see steel belting on the rears lol, luckily i had a service straight after.

I was running the Khumo Mediums but i think ill stick to the hards on the rear just to get some life out of them.

How do you compare the Pirelli's to the Khumo's? i have heard good things about the Pirelli Tyres but i've never tried them.

[FLN75S]

Couple more photos,

[PHaT MR30]

Its really hard to compare them back to back as the car is set up so different to when we ran on Pirelli's, It woudl be nice to compare all the Khumos, it would be nice to try the 800 (open tread pattern) in a hard compound (we only tried mediums) to see how they go. the 900 (closed tread) in Hard was better wearing, and on the hard packed road gripped well and obviously showed in stage times.

Pirelli is more expensive too I think? and there isn't much available.

[FLN75S]

I know what you mean its hard to compare unless you organise a test day and try a few different setups to see how they feel.

It would be great to be able to have a day trying different tyres but i know that will never happen, the only other tyres ive ever had a chance to run was some Michellins and i found them pretty good but you can't get them anymore so i'll stick with the Khumo's.

[PHaT MR30]

I know what you mean about set up, we didn't touch anything on the car all weekend except tyre pressures. Had Johnny Down working on the car a few weeks prior to the rally and he spent ages dialing in springs/shocks, alignment, diff maps, engine tune, everything and it felt spot on. He knows his shit, having worked as an engineer for various WRC teams such as Peugeot, Seat etc and Jaguar F1 team! Feel sorry for him though as Justin Dowel certainly keeps him busy fixing the car!

Its funny the politics even in Australian rally, all the top photographers are briefed on who to shoot, IE take pics of the first three cars and move to next stage! So it was really hard to get good quality shots as most were just snap happy spectators, but I did find this guy who took some of my favorite pics of the weekend, thanks to macrophotographics.com

[zebra]

I keep forgetting about this thread

Some nice shots there Tim and Jason

[FLN75S]

So whats everyones plans for 2012?

Here is some footage of my last event at the Sunny Corner Rally.