PHaT MR30

My dad was down at the FF of Cygnet yesterday and couldn't believe how shit the road condition was through there. Prime bit of road, but the council obviously don't care about it as some of the apex's had huge potholes, which were filled with gravel and by the end of the day empty as it was spread across the road One of the bigger problems though was the locals trying to ruin the event. They deliberately took down the road closure tape after the road was closed and drove onto the stage, it seemed orchestrated as it was probably 10 or more in convoy according to dad.

Ive got another two you can have damo, trying to clear out some junk!

I am just glad the didn't muck with my favourite stage Paloona. Pieman will just be a stage on the same road that Reece Dam was on (it is Pieman Rd afterall) wonder what direction it will be in though, You know the story about alexander the pieman?

I got permission to recce in rally car at THC in 2010

Whats the story there? Who is this Turnbull snoozer and how can you have a gap of 3:00 at the front of EM against regular competitors in hitlers 'peoples car'?

Looks like Brendo's been promoted to RX8? and Simon Evan is in showroom! Either way majorly tough competition! Just looking forward to putting last year behind me and getting back in the silly seat! Might even go do that Cradle Coast rally for a bit of fun.

Locked in for TT this year, should be good! Still getting used to the idea of wearing a beret and eating baguette's though

I just spoke to him, He said a 20b PP would be fine.. He can do a good deal on apex seals

I think 1 had an engine in it no gaurantee it was running though

Speaking of lack of electronic talent, I was at a mates post wedding bbq a few weeks back and as you do... end up in the shed! Wow, his Rx7 has some cool stuff on it.. IE four link, Harrop adjustable sway bar, watts link, floating hubs with adjustable camber. Pretty much the whole rear end was very tasty. Engine bay was looking pretty tasty too, I guess thats why he has been IP state champs a few years in a row. There was no less than 5 rotors in the shed, imagine the noise

Still haven't figured out how he did that...

Which cars were you working on Roy? Did you see the tassie boys in the Dirty 30 (R30 Skyline?)

Going on the photo's on Tim's facebook it was pretty horrible

They do themselves a disservice having their events either on the same weekend or close to other events (IE the Alpine Rally was on in Lakes Entrance this weekend).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B04TMkvQLXE I lol'd

FMT200 is the bees knees from peltor, i'd suggest tracing back to the power source along the power wire to see where its going to or going past. I used one a few months back in Les Walkden's Pajero. Had to buy an adaptor to go to my Stilo ($80!!!!! for 10cm of wire with a plug on each end), but it worked perfectly.

I have the 12V Stilo WRC DES System, at first I was disappointed it was 12v and looked into getting a separate battery. Ended up hardwiring it to the battery and its been pretty good. It has a switchable filter which makes a big difference (and on gravel a HUGE difference). We are also using the Stilo WRC DES Helmets which made a big difference from the Arai Jet used previously. Uploading some footage to the tube from last weekend.

I know what you mean about set up, we didn't touch anything on the car all weekend except tyre pressures. Had Johnny Down working on the car a few weeks prior to the rally and he spent ages dialing in springs/shocks, alignment, diff maps, engine tune, everything and it felt spot on. He knows his shit, having worked as an engineer for various WRC teams such as Peugeot, Seat etc and Jaguar F1 team! Feel sorry for him though as Justin Dowel certainly keeps him busy fixing the car! Its funny the politics even in Australian rally, all the top photographers are briefed on who to shoot, IE take pics of the first three cars and move to next stage! So it was really hard to get good quality shots as most were just snap happy spectators, but I did find this guy who took some of my favorite pics of the weekend, thanks to macrophotographics.com

Its really hard to compare them back to back as the car is set up so different to when we ran on Pirelli's, It woudl be nice to compare all the Khumos, it would be nice to try the 800 (open tread pattern) in a hard compound (we only tried mediums) to see how they go. the 900 (closed tread) in Hard was better wearing, and on the hard packed road gripped well and obviously showed in stage times. Pirelli is more expensive too I think? and there isn't much available.

Few pics courtesy of Aiden O'Halloran, more to come

Fantastic Effort Jason!!! We also had a great event at Rally Victoria. Allthough the lead up to the event was stressful, went to pick up the car and it had no brakes on it so had to get some air freighted in from V-Sport and because we went from running in just the VRC to the ARC had to install a firebomb (not a bad idea though). Oh and we had planned to run on Pirelli's (which we had a stockpile of) but again cos we were running ARC had to run the control Khumo tyre. Did a pretty good recce and wrote some notes we were happy with, could have done better, but a last minute terratrip problem meant we had to guestimate. On the friday we took it easy to get a feel for the car, notes and being actually able to go at a decent pace knowing what was ahead. Finishing Heat 1 in 10th outright. Saturday we fitted a new set of Medium 800R's and set on our way. There had been big storms a few days prior and we expected the roads to be much the same as the previous day. They were far from wet! We used up those 4 tyres in 2 stages! and had to struggle through the next two stages, both of which were 20 odd km's long each, to the next service where we made the decision to fit some 900R Hard's. This allowed us to pickup the pace in the afternoon stages (which were a repeat of the morning stages). We were faster on each stage in the afternoon and on the penultimate stage managed 4th outright which was very pleasing. The final dash around the super special stage we were fastest outright and finished Heat 2 in 6th outright. Final result being 6th outright overall, we were very happy considering this was only meant to be a shakedown for the car and crew. Amazing to be trading time with ARC regulars and big names of the sport. Apparently we were invisible to photographers so I haven't got any pictures yet, but will be sure to post them up.

He may be the man, but as you know. Chicks don't dig us for our beer guts and lack of money!

Definately paying her by the hour

Woo claims he has to work, but really he is just swanning round the peninsula on his jetski preying on unsuspecting little girls... or boys lol!

Just think roy, after this weekend you could be a pay day away from a rebuild... lol!