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Some blokes I know are growing mo’s for charity. Some good and some not so good! (the mo’s that is).
They did alright and raised a little of dosh for a worthy cause;
(Edited 04/02/2009 because the previous reference is now obsolete.)
All over the shop is one answer. Its been such a long time between posts how could one possibly recall all that’s happened. Plenty of rallies as an official and even a couple in the left hand seat. Even became a tarbaby for one event, Classic Adelaide, with my boss in the mighty TR7 V8. Yes thats me in the pink driving suit! That was plenty of fun until the car caught fire on the last day of the event!
My most recent stint was with a fellow CCRMIT member, young Rosey, in his Toyota Corolla Levin. He hadn’t driven in a while and the car was just finished and on its first outing but we finished and the car ran relatively trouble free all day. I enjoyed that one too and can’t wait for the new Escort to be finished. More on that one at a later date.
TYF’s been out again and has found himself a new Nav for season ‘08. They are finishing consistently and have had some reasonable results and the confidence is building slowly. New suspension fitted recently should help with that in the next outing this Saturday night (21st June).
My most recent stint was with a fellow CCRMIT member, young Rosey, in his Toyota Corolla Levin. He hadn’t driven in a while and the car was just finished and on its first outing but we finished and the car ran relatively trouble free all day. I enjoyed that one too and can’t wait for the new Escort to be finished. More on that one at a later date.
TYF’s been out again and has found himself a new Nav for season ‘08. They are finishing consistently and have had some reasonable results and the confidence is building slowly. New suspension fitted recently should help with that in the next outing this Saturday night (21st June).
Now that I’ve started again I’ll try and keep the news a little more regular and up to date.
Ciao for now,
Tired
Well sadly, the Begonia Rally will not go ahead this year and that’s a crying shame as G and I would have loved to compete on those fantastic roads. We have some great memories from the Wombat Forest (both together and in other combinations) and were keen to get the big Commy in there for a fang! But alas, not to be.
So what next? Frankly I don’t know as there is not much on the horizon this year. We’ll have to see what the calendar brings in the new year and satisfy ourselves with spectating for the remainder of the year. And to be honest, that’s not very satisfying!
I could probably prostitute myself to another driver and while there are a few I’d sit with, (and maybe I will) it’s G I want to be beside the most!
So now I’ve put the pressure on! (and that’ll get him moving…… 
).
Oh yeah and it’s Mrs G’s birthday today. Happy birthday A
Ciao ’til next time.
Tired
Not another rally I hear you say. Well what else do we do out in those forests? Now shut up and read on!
That’s right, you read correctly, Commander Brass Nuts of Tugga Tassie fame was on board for the directional duties this time and what an appropriate night for him to be along. Below zero temperatures what! Yes sah!
The car had been fettled and repaired since the DNF at Bonnie Doon and TYF was raring to go. What lay ahead of them was 150km of competitive sections, with loads of dust, no wind and those narrow and winding roads with the treacherous stumps of the “Heathcote” forests.
Servicing was central and so Tired and Nath elected to sit it out at the service park and socialise between visits from out intrepid team. “A” drum of fire was conjured up but it was not “the” drum of fire and indeed Grasshopper was only briefly present on the end of the phone. The fire was pleasant enough though and kept us reasonably warm.
Soon enough the boys were back and carried plenty of evidence of the still night with a ton of dust in the car already. A check over was all that was required along with a refuel and then some chat as we waited for the 40 min service time to expire.
The Commander had no complaints about the ride and was obviously feeling relaxed and TYF was pretty laid back about it all as usual!
So off they went and we went to socialise again. Reports of DNF’s filtered in and when young Gillie and Leeham didn’t return at the expected time and road position we sympathised with Jerzy before he got the news and headed off to retrieve a busted car. Crew is all OK but the Sprinter will need some tender loving care.
Then it was the long wait for our boys (last car on the road by now). And arrive they eventually did. Car was good and straight onto the trailer. A brief post mortem with the Commander and he was off back to Melbourne. We had a qick look at the results and saw the chaps were definetly not last but couldn’t make much sense of it all beyond that. So off to Nagambie for a well earned rest before the trek home later on Sunday.
By Sunday night the provisional results were out and initially it looked like the lads had finished 19th. But by Tuesday and obviously some careful checking of results, they ended up finishing 23rd. Still not a bad result from 44 starters. The Commander is very happy as they had no navigational errors, only one minor off road excursion and I believe a couple of minor spins.
TYF is pretty chuffed as well. Only 3 more finishes until he gains that “E” grade.
A notable result to fellow club member Craig Jones and Sandra Cuttle, 7th outright.
Next event, hmmmm, not sure. Depends on whether the Begonia runs or not.
Ciao for now.
Tired
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This post is a little late but needed for continuity of the story so far……
Just like in the movies! We went to Bonnie Doon (well Peppin Point actually but near enough!) for a weekend away. Oh, and there was a rally on as well and the TYF was competing.
So Andrew O came along for guidance around the course, it was a daylight event, all special stages and route charted (no maps, yippee) and Grasshopper even came along for logistical and service support. All set, what could go wrong?
Well, nothing, for nearly 3 stages. And if you ask the driver, there was nothing wrong at all!
But the service crew knew better, once they’d looked under the car! That’s an interesting sight! Where the bloody hell is the rest of that Koni shock absorber. Faark!, broken mount and half the shock missing! Oh well, you’re out boys.
It was a nice day out and the rest of the weekend was pleasant, shame about the rally.
Our accommodation was great, awesome views across what should have been water, but Lake Eildon hasn’t had much water in it for quite a while. However, the view was still pretty cool, and with the early morning fog covering the valley it was quite spectacular.
To sum up it wasn’t the most successful event, but, the car was easy to fix, no was hurt and we had a nice weekend away.
Ciao
Tired
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Camo pants dear G (natural fibre of course!). What else in the Stealthodore? You know I’m there and bugger the road book, bring out the MUM map! Only 130 days to go until Sept 22.
You are right to have no expectations though, look who you’ll be chauffeuring around, I’m not getting any younger you know and the eyesights not what it used to be.
You are right to have no expectations though, look who you’ll be chauffeuring around, I’m not getting any younger you know and the eyesights not what it used to be.
Ah, memories of the Zed (all bow in reverence to the mighty beast).
Now there’s a goal, the Zed will most likely be there that night, beat the Zed, beat the Zed.
Not much of a challenge from what I’ve seen lately.
Come back are good, don’t worry I’ll stroke your ego, if it deserves it, and if not look out!
This is the Wombat after all and it’s about time we got a new story to tell around the campfire.
Well that was a load of disjointed waffle wasn’t it. G will understand it all and that’s all I care about!
Ciao
Tired.
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That stage I told you I was in charge of……….. well it all started OK. Everyone turned up on time and they were all in position anticipating the arrival of the cars past their exclusive spot in the forest and we were all good to go.
Now it had been raining all night and was fairly wet in the forest but the roads were in pretty good nick and we hadn’t had any problems on our travels up and down the stage. 00 went through as did 0 and they were happy. (explanation: these are the numbers given to the course opening vehicles in a rally, they are event officials who do the final check of the stage to ensure it is set correctly, – signs, boards, personnel – and everyone is ready to go)
Then I got a call on the radio to hold the first car (which had just arrived and booked in) at the start until further notice.
Then came the call I didn’t want to hear, the event has been called off! What? Yes the forester had decided that it was too wet and that perhaps the roads might not stand up to 45 cars for too much longer. 5 stages had been run and some were to have been used again later in the day. Ours was the 6th and was to be used once. It was also the last stage to be used before they started to use the repeat stages.
So it really sucked that every official in the forest expect the 25 odd on our stage got to see rally cars in anger.
I don’t really have any problem with them calling it off, they own the roads and allow us to use them and the event may have had a huge road damage bill if it had continued. I don’t think our stage would have cut up too badly and it was disappointing more from the point of view that all those people gave up most of a Saturday and got to see nothing.
Me, well I’m into the whole thing so I’ll be back no matter what, but some of the others, especially the 1st timers, might think twice when asked again. I don’t have an answer, because I don’t think there is one.
Hopefully I was communicative enough and explained it well enough that they will give it another go.
Now it had been raining all night and was fairly wet in the forest but the roads were in pretty good nick and we hadn’t had any problems on our travels up and down the stage. 00 went through as did 0 and they were happy. (explanation: these are the numbers given to the course opening vehicles in a rally, they are event officials who do the final check of the stage to ensure it is set correctly, – signs, boards, personnel – and everyone is ready to go)
Then I got a call on the radio to hold the first car (which had just arrived and booked in) at the start until further notice.
Then came the call I didn’t want to hear, the event has been called off! What? Yes the forester had decided that it was too wet and that perhaps the roads might not stand up to 45 cars for too much longer. 5 stages had been run and some were to have been used again later in the day. Ours was the 6th and was to be used once. It was also the last stage to be used before they started to use the repeat stages.
So it really sucked that every official in the forest expect the 25 odd on our stage got to see rally cars in anger.
I don’t really have any problem with them calling it off, they own the roads and allow us to use them and the event may have had a huge road damage bill if it had continued. I don’t think our stage would have cut up too badly and it was disappointing more from the point of view that all those people gave up most of a Saturday and got to see nothing.
Me, well I’m into the whole thing so I’ll be back no matter what, but some of the others, especially the 1st timers, might think twice when asked again. I don’t have an answer, because I don’t think there is one.
Hopefully I was communicative enough and explained it well enough that they will give it another go.
More later. Ciao.
Tired
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I’m in charge on a stage this weekend and Juha is jealous. I’ll be tootling around in one of his favorite forests around Powelltown in Victoria.
Should be a nice day with a 47 car field and the 1st round of the Victorian Rally Championship (VRC).
This is a bit of a nothing post to test the blog editor I just installed in my browser.
Ciao
Tired.
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So, as usual I was surfing around, for nothing much in particular, and stumbled across WordPress after viewing someone else’s blog. Looked like it had more to offer than my previous blog site and wasn’t run by one of those mega internet mobs. So here it is, our first post on the new site.
I’ll be back later to ramble on as usual!
Ciao Tired
Sometimes I’m out there surfing around the net and something catches my eye. I wonder if it works?
Mike
Mike
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