2001 Nissan Nightmoves

VCRS Rnd 4

30th June 2001

Heathcote

For the Never Say Dai Rally Team, the "Nissan Nightmoves" became more like "Trees in the Night DON'T Move" Yes that's right, with about 10kms left to fly on competitive stage 6, we slid wide on a corner and hit a tree head on.

With no real maintenance required after the Tunbridge trial, we had had time to update the car rather than repair it. This meant that the car was the best it has ever been, and along with a fresh service crew and low starting position (allowing us extra map plotting time) we started our first VCRS event with high hopes.

With work on the brakes and suspension pretty much finished for now, the car was tipping into corners nicely, though we did have some trouble with the front wanting to wash out on loose hairpin bends. A quick redesign of the factory air box as recommended by a number of other Daihatsu drivers has increased throttle response and more importantly it has given the car the extra little bit of pull (FWD) through the corner and out the other side

As we started out into the early stages of the rally the first thing I noticed were the number of tree stumps along the side of the road. In fact in many places the road seemed to slalom the tree stumps as if just for fun...... and it was

With the car handling so well and Deb's notes right on the ball, I was very quickly at ease with the rally. There were a few rough spots (all clearly marked in the notes) that we had to back off for, mindful of the fact that we still didn't have a sump guard.

We had an interesting moment about 9kms into stage one. The notes alerted us to a gutter across the road. As we approached I backed off, cleared the obstacle and then put my foot down again. I had just started to wonder why the organizers would caution such a small dip when we hit the REAL gutter. The front wheels must have just skipped across it, but the rears hit hard throwing the back of the car into the air. I couldn't say how much clearance we got under the back, but it sure felt impressive.

The end of stage three (of nine) marked the first service. This was just a quick check of the sump and underbody to make sure some of the large rocks we had hit hadn't done any damage and a wipe down of the windows because it was getting harder and harder to see through the blanket of dust. The most pressing maintenance matter to attend to was a glove box failure. The screws holding the hoop for the latch had vibrated loose and the lid kept dropping open. This was a bit of a hassle as the glove box was full of lollies for the officials on the night.

During this service break I caught Deb tucking into the service crew's fried chicken. Obviously the car sickness that had affected in ALL our previous events (including a withdrawal) was not an issue here in Heathcote.

Stages four and five were uneventful. A lot of fun but no dramas to report. The dream run came to an end on stage six.
Very early in the stage we missed an instruction in our notes. It was something fairly unimportant like a "straight on" which we had done anyway. As a result of this we had to gauge our next instruction on the cumulative distance we had covered on the stage (accurate to 100 metres) rather than our intermediate distance (accurate to 10 metres). As a result of this we took a turn a little too early and headed off up the wrong road for a couple of hundred metres. We reached the bunting that told us we'd come to the end of the road, turned round, drove back, resumed the correct rally route and moments later found the correct "turn left".
All this left us a little annoyed because we had been doing so well up until his point, and the car a little damaged as we had clipped the left hand rear corner on a tree stump in all the confusion.

As a result of our little detour we pressed on perhaps a little harder than we normally would. I was concentrating hard and Deb was making a big effort to make sure we didn't miss another call from the notes.

Then, we came up on what looked like a gentle right hander. The surface was loose and to make matters worse it tightened slightly in the middle. I simply misjudged it. (Yes, that's right. A clear admission of driver error. Get out the history books!!) We slid wide. I got on the brakes a little too hard. The front wheels locked up and we slid straight ahead. I didn't get off the brakes quick enough. I didn't get back on the throttle to try and pull our little front wheel drive out of the corner at all. Those unnerving reactions you require to drive a FWD well failed me.
We slid wide on the corner and smack into a large tree, right square in the middle of the front of the car.
Next thing I heard was the thumping and banging of all the debris being dropped from the tree high above us. I waited a moment to make sure it wasn't going to drop a huge limb on us before jumping out the car to start the mandatory setting up of the safety triangles to warn the following cars as they approached.
All this time I was asking Deb if she was OK. She was telling me she was fine, but she was clearly winded and being our first major "off" we were both fairly shaken.

Deb tells me later that apart from being winded, she also thought at the time that she had broken her leg. As we had hit the tree she heard a loud crack, and suddenly had a very sharp pain just below her right knee. As it turned out it was just a fairly decent bruise, and the crack she heard was a four inch long split that her leg put in the dash board

After a quick inspection of the damage (in the pitch dark) we elected to try and drive out the stage and to service which was not far away. With a cautious eye on the ever raising temperature gauge we limped out of the stage with bent steering and scrubbing, thumping and banging sounds coming from under the car.

At service it was quickly out with the lights and jack to inspect the mechanical damage, but it was soon evident that it was all over. The left hand front wheel was pushed up hard against the back of the guard, the engine mounts were broken and the cross member destroyed. The radiator was crushed with the damaged fan imbedded in the core. The front grill was even melted to the exhaust and there was no longer any sign of the Red Nose that we had on the car in support of red nose day (29/6/01).
The bonnet was beyond help, the front tie rail and radiator support destroyed. Further investigation also proved that we had bent the left had rail.


All that was left to do now was winch the shattered car onto the trailer and head for home.

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