haw001

I'd be lucky to get 24 days a year!

It's kinda a rolling twelve months. We'll get there eventually. I'm now living in Melbourne so the car is down with me in the workshop. Between here and April it won't get touched as I've got to get the other car ready for Targa, but after that I'm pretty keen to get moving on it. Lot's of weekends and late nights ahead of me.

We wanted the biggest, baddest rotors we could get... so had to get rid of the calipers. Going to just use the handbrake and drift every corner.

$500 for rear cradle and down pipe? I'll organise freight. Mark 0411 471 684

$500 for rear cradle and down pipe? I'll organise freight. Mark 0411 471 684

$500 for rear cradle and down pipe? I'll organise freight. Mark 0411 471 684

How much for the retainers please.

Not to beat the point to death (I've posted more than I do in an entire year!), looking at the results from TT2010, 1st in early modern was good enough for 17th outright. To get to top 10, would have required 11:20 less time. No easy feat even with good recky and good handling and big balls. Any way you look at it, power to weight is required if you want to break the top 10.

As to tyres, I always run H1 for TT. No tyre I have found will make the event in M1-3. We ran the H1 Toyo's at TT2010 and still managed to use them for THC. They were shot by the end, and TT was very wet so the wear was not as bad as it would have been had it been dry. Wouldn't have used them, but THC was only supposed to be practice before an engine overhaul and E85 for TT 2011. My problem is that I keep switching tyres year on year. I now have a collection of 3 brand new race tyres for spares and none of them are the same make!

I don't disagree with anyone, but having done 5 of these things, the event has certainly changed in the last few years. Yes it's all down to driving and handling when it comes to the tighter stuff, but there are a lot more high speed straight bits than there used to be, and if you can hit 260 quickly and hold it, compared to 200-210 under standard power, which takes a lot longer to get there, then you are going to knock off 10-20 even 30 seconds on some of the stages. This sort of time is the difference between 5th and 15th. However... as my history has well told, you need to finish to win. We were 2:09 seconds ahead of second place in 2007, which didn't mean jack s#it when we rolled it down the hill at Burnie at the end of day 4!

I think you'll find the caliber of car in early modern will be very high at TT2011. Big year for it, last I heard there are over 300 entries accepted. It's getting harder and harder not to be a checkbook racer in early modern. Oh for the early days! Gone are the days where my money was better spent on track days and practicing, than on engine improvements and better top speed. I'd be surprised if an E7 can make a top 10 outright finish, even with an excellent driver. Maybe with a few select parts under the hood, but even so...

I thought maybe I was the only one complaining about coverage. I sent an email to Mark Perry regarding how the showroom class with 5 entrants got more coverage than early modern which was by my reckoning the 2nd largest class if you compare to the whole of classic.

http://www.defnderneckbrace.com/ Mine arrived in less than a week. I sent a request to the company and they quoted $60 for freight to Australia. I had already bought one of a dealer in the US off ebay for slightly less (only a few bucks). Took a little to get into the routine of putting it on and belting up correctly, but easy once you got used to it. Once your strapped in, it's obvious how much it would help in a crash.

On the Hans device note from Kel, I picked up a DefNder from the states for $600 (thanks Aussie $). Still not cheap, but good quality, fits well, and looks like it will do the job at least as well as the Hans... not that I've got any intention of testing it.

Can anyone find out what caused them to go off. My explanation was a bit tongue in cheek!

Couldn't tell you who it was, but he owe's me two extinguishers!

I can't comment on anyone else, but here's my round-up of the event and how we went. The event overall was very slick, as you'd expect from Octagon. A few issues, but most would relate to it being the first time it was run. My biggest gripe was doing the prologue 6pm on Friday, then being stuck in town with the cars on display until 8:30. I have no problem with them being on display for the public, but we had to hang around for 2.5 hours, then drive back to Mt Buller, and for those of us staying in Mansfield, drive all the way back again to go to bed. I didn't get back til 11pm then up again a 6am to get back up Buller before the road closures. Park Ferme was a joke, I could just have easily kept the car in Mansfield, had a good night's sleep, and driven it up to Buller in the morning. The stages were excellent, on the whole more challenging than TT. As stated above, I think they were too fast for showroom class. Personally we went well. A little slow to start but not bad and picked up pace in the afternoon. The car handles very well, but underpowered for the class. I can get around the corners as well as anyone, but just can't get the top speed to be overly competitive. On the stages with long high speed straights, we lose 10 to 30 seconds easily. We were only going to have fun and get some practice in before over-hauling the car for TT2011 so I didn't really care (too much!). Hell, I didn't even bother with new tyres, just kept the same ones from TT2010 without even rotating them. Stage 6 was very interesting. We had a decent run, but as we flew through the FF, spectators were giving us the slow down signal. The evo that went through a few cars before us evident-ally gave themselves high fives for completing the stage, and promptly forgot to make the next turn and come to a stop. A tree must have taken care of that job for them because the car was smashed in the front and greatly on fire. We stopped with others and emptied two fire extinguishers on it but it was a gonner. Nothing will be salvaged from that car. [attachmen t=313066:06112010033.jpg] This screwed up the times, because we completed the stage but passed a car in stage, and also got passed after the stage was finished but before time control by cars that kept going. We were allotted a time of 8:20, which was wrong. After a bit of haggling and video footage proving different they adjusted our time to 7:14. Last stage of the day was Mt Buller, which was a heap of fun, but again, the car is not really suited for it. Needed more herbs to pull out of all the chicanes up hill. I think we did it in 9:20 or something, which is respectable. Didn't quite catch the mega horsepower Torana ahead of us, but it wasn't far off. We nearly caught the 33 GTR which was ahead of the Torana and must have been passed by it, so we were happy with the result. We were surprised to see that we were the top Skyline for the day with everyone else quite a ways down the list. I have no idea of the reasons, and I don't think that we were especially quick. I believe that snowman was about 12 seconds ahead of us coming into the last 2 stages, so he was faster during the day. I'm sure he'll post his story at some stage. We ended the day 5th in Early Modern. The car on the other hand, not so happy, tyres were red hot and so was the engine. I made the mistake of turning the engine off with it running hot (didn't know it at the time) and the temp jumped to 125 according to the powerfc. Not sure if this caused damage or the engine was just tired of being pushed through 2 TTs, rolled upside down, and then a THC, but on day 2 things started going downhill. The engine just didn't have the same power in the morning and it got progressively worse through the day. Down the straight on Big River, we topped out at 207 on the GPS, and even then it took a long while to get there. The last 2 stages of the day the engine was naked. Took an extra 40 seconds or more to complete Mt Buller. I even bent the gas pedal mount from pushing too hard trying to get more out of it. As if there is some stage in the throttle bodies past 'fully open'. Couple of things to note for next year. Despite what we thought, there is 98 readily available. We didn't need to get fuel filled privately and went to the pump every time. Also, you don't really need to get there too early unless you are doing a complete recky. We operated of bought notes with some extra pointers from Kel and they sufficed. Thanks Kel! Even getting there early on Friday was a waste of time and involved a lot of sitting around doing nothing. There's only so much to do on Mt Buller without snow. One last thing, that Wilkenshaw Holden was farking fast. I don't know how it corners, but off the line it left everything else I saw eating dust, including I'd say, the Lambo. It will be one to watch out for in the future. So, there you have it, my take on THC 2010. Will I be back, I'd say so. In fact if they held 2 of these a year, I'd probably prefer to do 2 HC rallies and skip Targa Tas. It's just a hell of a lot less expensive and if you screw something up, at worst you've missed a 2 day event, not a 5 day event.

M3R went off on the first corner over the bank, Kel and the other showroom car made the first corner, but couldn't make the second which was immediately following. From memory first corner was a 4 or 4.5 Left on the 1 to 6 scale, about a 7 on the 1 to 10 scale. Second was a tight right 3 on both scales, which is basically a 90 degree turn. Put the math together and the M3R couldn't wash enough speed to get round the first one as it was probably flying at high 200's, showrooms were able to get enough speed off to make the first corner, but you had to hammer down to make the right and had no chance. They need to either change the course or change the rules on brake to accommodate the showroom class. It's just too dangerous otherwise. Personally I loved the stage, it was one of my favourites. I hope they keep it. Very tight early on, then fast around the middle and then back to tight. I was sweating buckets by the time I finished.

Glad to hear Kel is alright. She seemed in good spirits last night, but don't let the story get back to my wife or Targa days are numbered. Big River stage was carnage. Lots of fun though. Wish my engine wasn't dying, but then maybe if I'd been able to do 260 on the straight instead of 207, I might have ended up in the bank to make it 1,2,3 cars.

Thanks, I'll compare it to the one I have. If I've got anything newer, I'll post it up.

Caltex Mansfield has 98.

What's the official/legal ruling on carrying fuel. I know we had the warning about being safe, but there was no clear cut definition of what is considered safe, and more to the point, what is legal. The only ruling I can find is that there is a maximum of 250L allowed per passenger vehicle, but no definition on how it is to be carried.

Has anyone got the latest High Country GPS kmz file? The one I have is from Sep 21, and I can't seem to find the link for the file anymore.

I'm sure this has already been covered somewhere, but can anyone confirm the bowsers with 98 for Targa High Country? I"m going to sign up with race Fuels as a backup, but I'd like to fill from the bowser as much as possible. Mark

Has anyone done a recky for THC that they are willing to share. I'm going to head up and do one, but I'd love to have a starting point and afterward compare notes.