trackdayweapons

So, arrive full of confidence, ready to thrash through the rally. Car is now handling well, and we’re good to go. Through scrutineering and wait for stage one.

Stage 1, off we go, car feeling good and it’s a racetrack so nothing is difficult. A third of the way through the oil pressure warning flicks up on the Pi, oh great, look at reading and we’re about 20psi too low. Having put in another weeks worth of toil on the car and it still seems to be firing well we carry on regardless.

Out of the stage and the engine’s dumped about half a litre of oil. Pressure readings varying from 0psi to 40psi. Change sensors, decide “fuck it” afterall, it’s only a standardish engine, and head out for stage 2. Stuart (codriver) decides to take coat with him such is his faith in the engine…

Out to Stage 2, going well, catching and passing a few of the cars ahead but engine sounding progressively more tappety. Screw it, flat out anyway.

On the exit of the stage, sounding more and more like a deisel. So, do we grenade the engine properly or salvage it? Stupid question, I pack my coat into the car, Stuart straps on the fogs and we head out onto stage. Good start to the stage, pass the car ahead on the first lap (30s), coming into the hairpin left by the pits and the car squirms a little, it’s pretty obvious it’s on oil, er, it’s own oil… at that point the smoke in the cockpit becomes apparent. Ah. Uh-oh. Off to the side of the circuit when it’s safe, engine off, flashlight and the engine bay is nicely coated with it’s own oil. Great. Coats on, wait to limp back to the pits…

And engine is dead, car was sold in the next week to a nice bloke who’ll be dropping in a 1600 and doing 20 rounds in it in 2007 and so the search begins for a replacement car…

Me again and I was privy to be at a test for the Vauxhall Monaro of Emotion Engineering which will be doing all of the rounds in the British GT series.

Basically the reason that the car was up there on the track was to map the lovely 5.0l engine , but they ran into some probems like the car would not idle and the track being wet and traffic on the track and such like, but i did enjoy the 150MPH ride to and from the track!

The Rockingham Stages was supposed to be a shake down for Rally Barbados 2007 but things took a turn for the worst with Gee’s engine blowing up and me freezing my ass off, but i managed to get some pics .

Seeing that Gee was running down in the order i decided to wander off and capture some pics . Although it being like 2 deg out wid a wind!

Well here is where it ends lol late into the afternoon Gee’s engine Blew up (R.I.P) not that we had minded because it gave us hell earlier in the year and it meant we could start drinking early that night.

Well twas an eventful rally , it actually got started for me in early april where I flew to England to help my friend Greame with his car as it was not finnished as yet , then after being kicked punched and pissed on we managed to get the car sorta kinda close to finished (40%) so as to finish it in Barbados. So back on the airplaine and fly back home, collect the car out of the port start to work and a couple weeks later Gee arrives to help put it back together.

Needless to say during this time we drank couple child servings of rum during, after and before the process of building the car. Well every thing was running kinda smoothly untill we went to fire up and found the map we had had been erased and we had o scramble to find some one who could write a map for the car, but a good friend of mine stepped up to the plate and gave us something we could work with which got us to the rally and through the rally.

Couple minor problems during the rally like the car trying to kill us on every stage did not bother us (we came to the fact we are gonna die any how) neither did the fact tht the car had little or no brakes, so we persevered on to finish 4th in our group and Greame finishing his first rally in 3 years in Bim (Barbados) .