2003 Greg Todd and Gearboxes

It's been a while since I last updated you on our year, so what's been happening?

Since Taranaki, we have done the Greg Todd Memorial Rally. It was a great day, with some heavy rain thrown in at the end to make the stages that little more slippery, which lead to a moment on the 2nd to last stage saw us exit stage left into the trees at 140km/hr in the only spot on that stage with a small clearing on the edge of the road.

We finished, it wasn't our best finish, but we got 45th O/A and 10th in class. This rally as a bit of a test, as we had installed a new close ratio / full time 4WD gear box (thanks sadly to Jayson Stringer who wrote off his Leone two weeks previous). All went well, but we hadn't had time to add a new rear diff, and as the ratios were mis-matched, the car was behaving a little oddly.

After the Greg Todd, we updated the rear diff to a 4.11ratio, which now matched the front one, and will hopefully remove the wierd almost handbrake like twitchyness of the rear of the car on turn-in to the corners. The traction out of the corners was superb over the old setup, so we will have to wait until we hit the gravel up north to see.

2003 Rally of the North - Paihia

So, this weekend we head up to the Rally of the North, 10 stages based around Paihia on the best roads in the country.

We are seeded 55th and will be starting at about 8:30, and returning to Paihia at around 6:30, so it will be a long day.

To find out more, log onto either www.onlinemotorsport.net or www.tophalfseries.co.nz

I will be in touch after the event to give you the low down on how we went.

Thx

Simon Bell & Sandy Bansal
Redhills Rallyesport