Wizard Home Loans Rally

Result: Started Car 16 and finished 5th outright.

(43 on start list)

The team: Greg Lemmon Pilot; John Paul De Sousa Co-Pilot; Henry Lemmon Service Guru; David Morphett Service Legend Representing Brindabella Motor Sport Club Group Position Outright 5th N3 1st P3 eligible but not entered 1st ACT based car 3rd For general interest and context, the cars above us were 1st Dato 180B - Group P4, 2nd WRX - Group N, 3rd Mitsub EVO II - Group N4, 4th Subaru Rx Turbo - Group P6. Special Stage 1 - Bluetts The start seemed slow while we tried to get the feel of the car developing its race pace. At the first RGL on the outside of the corner was the rolled over shiny yellow spectacle of Car 9. The underbelly of the Dato 1600 was an ugly sight after having only progressed 1.3 k's into the course not doing much to improve our early nerves. Without any time to look at each other Greg and I were wary of going too hard just yet - better to be on the road than off it. The surface felt slippery and icy even though it was dry and dusty. Now the dust from the car ahead was upon us. This was a good sign for Greg and I thinking we were not doing too badly if we could be catching the car ahead. We were soon upon Car 15. Frustratingly it was like being on a Sunday afternoon drive really being slowed up while we honking the shit out of the horn to get him to pull over. After maybe 1.5 to 2 k's he finally did. Back to normal pace. We stuffed the spectator point and nearly missed the first turn straight after it - whew! Traveling in a white out of dust and having a slow possibly damaged car ahead of us for at least a third of the stage probably cost us 30-40 seconds. Our time of 10:01 placed us with a shocker, 24th in the field. Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 11.1km Position on Stage 24th Time 10:01 8:38 Service No report. Special Stage 2 - Hyles 1 Can't really remember too much about this one except that it felt slow and tentative. At the end after the Finish control there was some noise emanating from the rear of the car. Earlier in the day, David one of our dedicated Service Crew, noticed some unexpected undesirable movement in the rear axle possibly being excessive bearing play - the noise worried us but nothing could be done right now except drive on. As confirmed by our position on the stage we did not do this one very well !! Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 5.45km Position on Stage 20th Time 4:11 3:33 Special Stage 3 - East West 1 This one felt better, the car feeling it had better pace. What do you know, just when we were starting to get that fast feeling, we were blocked by a pair of kangaroos hopping down the road in front of us for probably 200-300m. While that doesn't seem much it seemed like ages in the car - the Corolla nearly stopped a couple of times for Greg to avoid contact (another missed opportunity by Roo Lover #1 Greg ). In my book its times like these when an ARB bull bar on the front would have been great to mow them down before they found their exit off the road. Honk Honk off they went finally. This totally buggered up our concentration resulting in lost pace and we screwed (driver error) the next call which was a TVHR uphill having to reverse the car to get correct turning position after an overshoot. The second part of the stage was rough with rocky patches everywhere. The sump guard was getting a real workout. At the finish control we knew we had done a good time the cars in front of us having done 22-23mins but cars ahead of them having done high 18's - oh what could have been without the kangaroos and an error - probably 30 seconds better. Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 21.01km Position on Stage 10th Time 19:37 17:45 Service Perfect timing. We had calculated exactly right, finishing the competitive with the fuel warning light on leaving enough for a safe transport. Top up fuel 20 litres, top up of oil for the first time in 3 events requiring about 0.6 litre. This oil consumption was unusual ! Otherwise everything was going fine with the car. Tighten wheel nuts. Special Stage 4 - Uriarra This stage was the longest of the event. After a really good spectator point pass (nice little fast paced dink right dink left) we were confident. As it turned out it was a fantastic drive that felt great. Sweeping S's on nice smooth briar bushed lined one track including spectacular views back to Canberra and great perspectives on the road ahead up the valley where the dust streak from competitors two or three cars ahead were competing. In places dust patches from the car ahead was a problem, but then strangely no dust at all, almost like they had a "turbo warp control" cutting in now and then zooming them ahead of us, putting their dust out of range. Obviously the wind circulating through the valley created dead spots in places letting the dust linger. Kangaroos plagued us again, but this time thankfully they found an exit off the road quite quickly. The later sections of this stage at the end were 'rough as' again giving the sump guard another workout. The challenge with this stage was keeping your concentration on the long "no call" sections. There was a section of 3.75 km's with no calls but plenty of action on it. I had my fingers crossed that that the terra trip was going to be spot on for the next call and that the call would not have multiple ambiguous similar features around it so that I could reorient and keep focused - as it turned out no problem. Greg's driving was confident and attacking. Teamwork was kicking in. Steve Mee at the Finish control was not calculating time taken on his running sheet, but he knew we did a great time. That had us wondering about how he would have gone ? Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 35.24km Position on Stage 5th Time 33:28 31:14 Service 1:45 including a dinner break before commencing the night stages made it a good time to catch up with other competitors and trade tales. Routine - tyre rotation, oil OK, fuel OK till next service. Special Stage 5 - Tidbinbilla Heaps of dust at the start causing white out clouds - as a result we could have done better but then everyone else probably had the same problem. We had a clean run through and finished with what we thought to be 3rd fastest from the control sheet but turned out to be 5th. By now we were thinking our target of a top ten finish would now be a possibility given a few dropouts and the times we were doing. As we moved away from the Finish control a horrible squawking and squealing noise came from the rear. I grabbed the torch hopped out to have a look see - nothing obvious was there. Greg rolled forward to test again. The squeal was still there but no smoke leaks or bits falling off. My first reaction was the bearings were ceasing up, given what David has noticed earlier in the day. We decided to push on, nothing we can do out here anyway. Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 28.4 km Position on Stage 5th Time 25:39 23:52 Special Stage 6 - Peirces East Thankfully the squeal/squawk disappeared by now - our only problem now was fuel. The warning light came on at the end of Stage 5, so with this competitive and a long transport to the next service it was going to be touch and go. Remember the torch from SS5 well it suddenly reappeared. Greg had shoved it between his legs after our SS5 finish and with the rough ruts and running over bunnies it worked its way onto the floor beneath the pedals……ssssssshit ! After a very calm discussion on the pros and cons of torch retrieval strategies in the dark without losing pace and without it blocking the brake pedal we eventually got it without stopping…….pppphew ! The bitch about this little debacle was the break in concentration, taking my eyes of the road book, missing about 3 calls and reorienting again. It is moments like these when the cumulative read on the terra trip becomes important. We both thought our performance on this one was average so we were disappointed but glad to still be ON THE ROAD - probably could have done 10 seconds better. Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 8.47 km Position on Stage 4th Time 8:56 8:12 Service Fuel pronto - Greg and I were really worried about making it back - with mobile service available on Brindabella Rd we rang ahead to Henry to say if we weren't there in 5 minutes to bring the jerry can. Car was doing well - the squeal/squawk must have been a rock in between the brake pads and disc ? when we were ready to leave, luckily David noticed the Power Steer cap was missing - a quick gaffer tape job to stop splashing leakage and we were away arriving a couple of minutes late at the Start control. Special Stage 7 - Hyles 2 No real comments on this one except that I gave a late call on the downhill approach to an uphill TVHR. I called 100m when it was probably 65-70m resulting in a harmless overshoot. Little things like this are a wake up call to get your concentration back on track. SS 7 felt fast so we were surprised that it was a little slower than the daylight drive. I think the best performer in terms of comparison to the day drive was a 5 second deterioration so we did pretty well in the end. Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 5.45km Position on Stage 7th Time 4:18 3:50 Road Memory / Night Vision effect 7 second deterioration 14 second deterioration Special Stage 8 - East West 2 Again we felt fast so again we were surprised that it was a little slower than the daylight drive. I think the best performer in terms of comparison to the day drive was Car 7 with a 35 second gain although they had a shocker first time around. Cruising along about half way through the stage after coming out of a RGR on a straight section Greg was slow to get the car centred on the track. There was a small innocuous looking dip on the LHS of the road, which the left rear clipped lurching us upwards into a tail drift to the right. That small error at the pace we were doing could have unstuck us but nevertheless Greg performed a great "correct" to keep us on track. Finished. Well done. Hand shakes all round. Us Outright 1st on stage Competitive 21.01 km Position on Stage 3rd Time 19:54 18:05 Road Memory / Night Vision effect 17 second deterioration 20 second deterioration Overall Very very happy with the result. Its good to know we could still have been an extra minute or two better if cars ahead, pesky kangaroos and loose equipment in the car did not hamper us. Thank you Thank you Henry and David for servicing and waiting. Thank you Julia for sandwiches. Jpd1101