Hot Work - Day 2

The day began in earnest with our early arrival at "parc ferme", the council carpark that housed the vehicles overnight. The service crew were dispatched to Waratah, and Zara and I motored out towards Wynyard to the start of the Calder stage. The gearbox fix unfortunately did not work so we were resigned to holding the gearlever when in fourth. This adds a new dimension to the workload when driving, so it takes a while to do it subconsciously. Although the tyres were cold, the first stage flowed well, and we set a top 15 time. Pretty good for an old nail! Then over to Yolla, with another fast road, and a couple of big stop chicanes. The vibrating brakes started playing havoc, but otherwise it was also quite smooth and fast.

A run down to Hellyer, and a punishing 19 km stage south was next. We had trouble finding a rythmn, just as we had done on Friday, and dropped some time to our nearest rivals. The car felt unsettled under brakes, and took an aversion to stopping. 4th gear also featured a lot, so much of the stage was driven one handed.

Off to Waratah to service the car, and the crew had set up shop in a prime spot at the sportsground. The boys had an internet link, and were watching the stage times as they happened. In fact they knew how we had fared before us! The tyres were swapped front to rear,

and the brakes bleed, and more fuel poured in. The Subaru drinks 102 octane, and is quite thirsty unfortunately. I downed an apple and a cold drink, and tried to cool down a little. The outside temperature was rising, but inside the car with nomex suit, balaclavas, gloves and helmet was stifling. Lots of fluid was the order of the day.

Then the biggest stage of the event, Savage River. This is 25kms of a mixed bag of surfaces, styles and altitude, and is an arduous and daunting test. I actually enjoy this one, and so pressed on as quick as possible. The brakes were still difficult to manage, and the tyres became a little useless in the last 6kms when they overheated. The front tyre pressure increased from 36psi at the start to 44psi at the finish, and this makes a significant difference to grip levels. Still, skids are king, so we did a few.

The provided lunch was excellent, but with little respite from the searing sun outside, it was a harsh wait for the stage to reverse so that we could race back out to Waratah. Eventually we lined up, and waited for our shot. On the start line, the nifty electronic timing units count done from 30secs, with display at 10secs, then 5 to 1. A great idea when it works, but it failed for our run, and in the ensuing confusion, we were waved off after our time, and maybe lost 5secs. Hopefully the officials will sort that out later. We had a great run back out, and slotted back into to service for another brake bleed. This time the master cylinder required quite a top-up, so we may have boiled some fluid away,. This is a fact to life when your brakes are tiny, and the job is big. More fuel, and on to Hellyer to do the rest of the morning stages in reverse. This stage worked much better this time, but the results were still not great. I feel that there are some aspects of setup that need to be worked on , and Scotty has already pointed to the sway bars as a source of improvement. The car has been tending to roll about, which works well for gravel, but not so good for tarmac.

The final two major stages were without incident, and we were again suitably quick. Next was the high-profile Burnie street stage, with the event pulling off a major coup by holding a short blast through the town centre. It was fabulous to see the size of the crowds, and after a quick fisrt run, we (I) decided to get adventurous 2nd time out. This partially worked, with some big slides, but also some ugliness attempting to turn at a couple of the 90degree corners. This is not something to do in front of crowds, and definately not in front of the crew. I did both, so will now wear their wrath for some time. Bugger!

A 2 hour service has given us time to change front brake rotors for new, and tomorrow we will try to bed them in with the old pads on the first couple of stages, before swapping to new pads.

This should be an entertaing day as a lot of the stages are new in some form.

Cheers

Waldo