Running out of things to go wrong..

After spending much of yesterday running on three cylinders, we were looking forward to getting back into some good pace today in the Wairarapa stages.

We made some changes to the brake pads and although the violent shake went away, I just never felt confidant about the way the car would stop. The brakes I use for sprint events work brilliantly from cold and will stop the car in an amazingly short distance. It was this sort of braking that I'm used to and want for the car and my drive style. Unfortunately we have not managed to achieve it during the event. It's just too much to ask with the system we have.
Multiple hard applications of the brakes at 180+kph for long periods of time demands a more expensive system that is beyond my budget.

Anyway, that really wasn't a factor today as most of the stages were in the wet anyway.
Today's challenges were loosing another rocker arm in the engine and doing one stage on three cylinders until we could fix it during service. Then breaking another gearbox on the third to last stage just a few hundred metres from the finish. Luckily we had enough speed to coast to the end and post a time.
We missed the last two stages and had to settle for times that reflect the slowest car in our class plus 1 minute. This was the same for when we crashed and missed four stages on Wednesday.

Now you might think that we are disappointed with the way things have gone. This isn't the case at all. Targa is 900kms of flat out rallying with no pace notes and no way of knowing what is over every blind brow or corner. It's extremely hard on cars and the teams. I have lost count of the number of crashed cars we have passed on the 30+ stages we have completed. Our five man team has over-come each and every challenge thrown at them and we are still there every morning on the start line. Tomorrow there will be nothing sweeter than to cross the final finish line.

See you there! ...Ron


Home sweet home! Back in home and sleeping in my own bed never felt so good.. We have had another day full of patchy rough weather with some downpours at times that seemed like somebody was spraying us with a firehose. Another steady day was the plan and we got through unscathed until the gearbox failure in the afternoon.

I've caught the cold carried from Ron so we're both feeling groggy now. Not exactly the best situation to be in for the final day of Targa however I'll make sure my head is screwed on straight for the final leg. It'll be interesting racing along more familiar roads and touring back and forth across Wellington.
The weather looks like it'll hold out so it should make for a good day of racing. I've had enough of the cold.

Hopefully we'll see you out there.Victor.