South Auckland Car Club - Skids in the Dark 2

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Event Review

It was a great day in the forest, which I can report turned into a dark day again.

We got to the forest at 11:30am, go the car unloaded and scrutineered, and then had to hang around until 3pm to get the first recce run through the 10km loop. We did the pacenotes and were ready for the first run.

On line, 10sec, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go and we were off up the hill, round the first slow left through the gate and we were away. The first 2km was fast 3rd and 4th gear road, with no real problems, just real fast with nice flowing corners. The road then turned into slow lefts and slow rights on a 4km uphill section. Lots of fun, tail hanging out driving, with long slow rights and lefts. The road was great, plenty of grip for the Kumho R700 tyres, and the car was going great. Sam's pacenotes were perfect...as usual.

Once out of the twisty stuff we had a quick and tricky medium left and we were onto the Ridge Stage as used in this years International Rally of New Zealand. Lot's fast lefts, and fast rights, with the odd slow tightening rights thrown in to keep me on my toes. Finally we got to the long downhill left, that tightens to a slow left with a hump, known as Gronholm's Corner, due to a spectacular piece of driving from the 2000 World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm on this corner last year...we took this very easy.

The stage then opens out into a fast succession of lefts and rights towards the finish. It was at this stage that I noticed fumes in the car..and sure enough, once the stage was over, I discovered we had engine damage...our time though was 7min 03 secs, and only 2sec behind a couple of faster cars (one being an Impreza), not bad.

So after a bit of soul searching we decided to do one more run, and ended with a very sick engine, but a better time 6min 50sec...so watch out when we get our engine gremlins sorted..

Now, with the Far North Rally on the18th, we have an engine rebuild to perform before the end of this weekend...so the plan is engine out tomorrow night, get the parts needed on Thursday/Friday, and put the engine back in on Saturday....and hey presto, a new engine...which I really hope will last the distance up North...we will beat the engine gremlins one day...

Pace Notes

What are pace notes? Well they are a verbal description of the road, which is read out by the co-driver, in this case Sam, to the driver as they are travelling through the stage. Sam will read them to me one corner in advance so I know how to set the car up for a corner, and for what is happening around it. Click here to view our pace notes from the event (PDF 550kb)

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Preview

This weekend sees the second round of the South Auckland Car Clubs Day/Night Rallysprint taking place in the Maramarua Forest.

The event will be based around Forest Headquarters and is 9kms in length utilising a road that is during the Propecia International Rally this year in late September.

Starting at @ 2pm in the afternoon each car will get approx 3 runs, before dinner time, where we wait for the sun to go down, and the big spotlights to be attached to the front of the cars, and it is off night rallying. See the map below for basic idea where it is.



The night runs will again be three times through the 9km course, but of course it is a little different travelling at high speed with spotlight's on the front. It takes a bit to get used to but is actually a little easier than the day time, as you can't see how close the trees are coming to the car...which is good for both dirver and co-driver alike.

If you are interested in coming down to spectate, then drop me a line and I will give you details to get there.

Slot Car Racing on the Web
If you would like to do a bit of racing yourself, then check out this link, but you will need the Macromedia Shockwave plugin to view it for your browser. If you can see it then drag down the tracks and make a speedway to race on, then click the flag to go racin...

See our next event here.

Cheers

Simon Bell
Redhills Rallyteam