Hellyer Rally 2008 Tasmanian Rally Series Rnd 3 14 June 2008 Hellyer Gorge Area The Never Say Dai Rally Team recently packed it's bags, and boarded a ship… to Tasmania. The land of apples, potatoes, fine beer cheese wine and chocolate… and some of the best rally roads in Australia. The preparation for our 'over seas' adventure was a little different than that of a normal Victorian round. Given the space limitations we had to think very carefully about what we really needed to take with us and what we could afford to leave behind. It would be heartbreaking to get all that way and have a silly little problem that we could usually easily fix, put us out because we left the parts back in Melbourne. Also we had to make sure we were able to make the car mobile again in a worst case scenario just to get it back on the boat to come home. Some minor damage incurred at our previous event, the Bonnie Doon Rally, was repaired in time for the trip. The rear struts were stripped, cleaned, fitted with new seals and reassembled, when in reality they require a little more attention than this. Apart from this the car received a full spanner check and routine change of all lubricants to ensure that it was in A1 health for our big adventure. We've been looking at our tyre options for a little while now, as our stock is running low, and we were never really 100% happy with the last batch we bought. After much tyre kicking and quizzing others about their choices, we opted to give Dunlop a try. Through our sponsor Tyrepower Mornington we purchased some SP83r. Tyrepower made arrangement to obtain the tyres out of Stuckey's via a pony express system to avoid incurring us any transport costs. This was set in motion two weeks out from the rally. A public holiday and an unlucky sequence of events left us sweating right up until just hours before boarding the boat. We finally got our tyres, just as the guys at Tyrepower had promised. Our service crew for the event, fellow CCRMITers Terry and Robyn, met us at our place to finish loading up the vehicles before we set off in convoy to the dock through Thursday evening peak hour traffic. It's not easy driving a rally car in traffic at the best of times, but when it's dark, wet, you're loaded to the gunnels with spare parts as well as sleeping gear and clothing for an extended weekend, and you're on a deadline to catch a ship… then it is a truly stressful experience. As we approached Station Pier in the stop-go traffic it became increasingly difficult to select first gear to move away from lights or pedestrian crossings. My mind was racing through all the potential causes of this problem. Could there be a fault with my so far bullet proof hand built gearbox? Or was it the four year old clutch of unknown origin? clutch cable perhaps? Why now!?! By the time we were in the queue boarding the boat, it had got so bad that I was forced to switch off the engine to engage first gear and then start on the clutch. It was obviously a stretching clutch cable (and in my mind, liable to snap completely any second now). Next dilemma was whether or not I had packed one. In all our efforts to travel 'efficiently' I couldn't remember if we threw one in or not. I knew we had a spare throttle cable - you can't go fast without a throttle cable - but I don't think I stowed a clutch cable. As most of the Victorian rally folk gathered in the Deck 9 Bar, talk centred on our little predicament. After a few phone calls before we lost mobile coverage, I was assured that a cable was available and would be at the start of the event on Saturday morning for us if required. Sigh! Thanks Jesse. Now to relax and enjoy the somewhat bumpy ride across Bass Strait. While on the garage deck on Friday morning waiting to disembark, I took the opportunity to lift the bonnet and see if I could adjust the cable in far enough to allow me to properly drive the car. It took about 8mm of adjustment to bring the pedal back to where it should be. We departed the boat without any further dramas and after clearing quarantine all agreed it was time for breakfast. Three Victorian rally cars burbled their way into Devonport, parking boldly outside the visitors centre with the impressive Spirit of Tasmania as a backdrop… A photograph waiting to happen. Before breakfast (and now in proper light) many heads crowded under the bonnet of the Charade. Terry pointed out that it looked like the plastic sheath that protects the outer cable was bunched up at the bottom. Sure enough there was about an 8mm bunch at one end. It looks as though the outer cable had slid into the adjustment ferrel, shortening the outer cable, rather than the inner cable stretching. Unhooking the cable at both ends and sliding it freely back and forth in the sheath proved that the inner had not started to snap strands. Happy with this we hooked the cable back up and decided that if it makes it all the way to Burnie without any further problems, then it has slipped as far as it can and it should be fine for the event. Breakfast time… Banjo's! After breakfast we convoyed up the coast to the industrial sea side City of Burnie. The clear open highways of Northern Tasmania were like floating on clouds after the push and shove of the Melbourne melee just twelve hours earlier. Passing the rolling hills and massive plantations we were offered a hint of what was in store for us on Saturday morning. After arriving in Burnie and checking into our accommodation we spent the remainder of Friday relaxing, indulging in gourmet cheese tastings and checking out the local galleries and scenery. Saturday dawned bright and clear… and bitterly cold!! Blue sky and sunshine as far as the eye could see, but you didn't dare leave any skin uncovered for fear of frostbite. Trav and Jo had joined us overnight, driving up from Hobart to complete our crew for the weekend. We packed up the service vehicles and headed into town to find out what Tasmanian Rallying was all about. The start area was outside the local surf club. This would be an ideal setting, if it wasn't cold enough to freeze the nuts off a penguin. Still, when we arrived, some of the locals were getting around in t-shirts and commenting on what great weather we were being treated to. Hmm. After an informative briefing in a conference facility overlooking the picturesque coastline we all bundled back down to the cars to get under way. The event took us South West of Burnie to the area around Takone. Within ten minutes of our start in the city, we were passing through little rural towns and into open country. Half an hour later we 'turned right off main road' and into control. Layed out in front of us was some of the most breath taking rally country we have ever seen. We were stunned. The usual line up before the start of the first competitive allowed time to adjust tyre pressures, chat to some of the crews around us and take in the view. It was possible to track the cars starting ahead of us as they snaked through the undulating hills sprawled before us, right up until it was time for the next car to depart the start line. It was so awe-inspiring that we even forgot about the cold. Our turn. Ten seconds! Five, four, three, two, one GO! We were off into the fast winding stage we had just been admiring from our lofty vantage point. Downhill from the start, left hand kink into a downhill, slight right… I drove it like a NANNA!!!! I don't know. There were a lot of unsighted bends on or after crests. Maybe I was just a bit nervous about the prospect of rolling a pancake back onto the boat at the end of the weekend… I just don't know. Loads of blue metal rocks on the stage make it bloody slippery and was hammering the underbody. There were whole sequences of instructions in the road book that were like pacenotes. Never mind calling the distances. By the time the calls left Deb's lips we were on it. And in a flurry it was done. 8.75 Kms and stage one was completed. God that was fun!! SS2 was fast and smooth at the start. A clear swept line on the road as we blasted past driveways and farmhouses. 1.9 kms into the stage there was a caution: R.G.R 40M bitumen T.H.L Spectators. We bustled in slamming it back through the box, engine on the rev limiter, a dab of hand brake, a squeal from the navigator and a spin!! Recover gracefully, only to have Deb chirp down the intercom, "Not quite!" Towards the end of the stage, we pass a council road works sign warning of soft edges and suddenly the characteristics of the road changed. Soft and wet. The preceding cars had left deep wheel ruts and we were tram tracking in a straight line. I braked early for the next turn expecting to slide forever on the wet clay, only to have to accelerate up to the corner. This foreign surface, though soft, offered unbelievable grip. Slowly I developed a faith in the road surface and the car, pushing it just that little bit further into each corner, defying what my brain was telling me… "This looks like wet slippy clay and if you drive fast you're going to be left hanging from a tree.". Stage two complete. Ooo Yeah, that was better. The next stage had some long uphill drags, which didn't really suit the Charade, but we had a crack And then it was service. With no problems to report, we simply checked the car for any signs of damage or freeloading blue metal, and poured in some fuel. Stage four saw us run the reverse of stage three, back down the hill. We had the little Charade wound up as much as I dare. Stage Five was also fast and saw us run back over some of the soft grippy 'clay' roads. SS5 also saw us again tackle the bitumen corner we had spun at earlier in the day, only this time it was a right hander and slanted uphill. This time we got the approach and the drift right, but I grabbed the wrong gear out of the corner and we bogged down embarrassingly for a moment before I got my $h!t sorted out and steamed up the hill. SS6 was like a roller-coaster with beautifully cambered left right combinations reminiscent of New Zealand WRC roads. Then it was time for service and lunch. Once again it was a simple case of washing windows, checking underneath for stone damage and throwing in a little petrol. As for lunch… nothing but the finest bakery bread with ham and salad and local smoked cheese, all washed down with a Gatorade. The stage after service saw another road surface the likes of which we'd not experienced. This was a green grassy moss like covering, baby-bum-smooth. Once again, where you'd expect it to be slippery there was in fact a good amount of traction. The only problem here was a green road, with low green verges and the sun in your face is very difficult to read. A couple of kilometres in to SS8 saw a couple of big drops, and although they were in the notes, when you turned over the top of them it took your breath away for a moment as the road disappeared beneath you. By stage nine the sun getting so low in the sky that the event organisers felt the need to add warnings to the roadbook at the start of the stage. We where forced to slow about five and a half Kms into the stage, where the Excel ahead of us on the road, had had a big roll, no doubt caught out by the blinding sun on the tricky downhill right hand bend. After another layed back service break we bypassed SS10, cancelled by the organisers in order to finish the event before sunset, and headed straight for the final stage, The Last Blast! In line with the name of the stage, we decided to have a bit of a go in here. Part of the stage we had driven earlier in the event during SS8 including those exhilarating drops. By now it was starting to get dark, and being an all daylight event, we hadn't brought with us any spotlights and so we were reliant on our standard headlights. A Road Goes Right gave us a bit of a scare early in the stage, and then it was onto the drops offs. Four Kms into the stage we turned hard left where previously we had turned right. Now on the new section for the stage we had another 'moment' negotiating a S.O then 50M R.G.R over CREST onto BRIDGE NO SIDES then T.L. I think it was a little brain fade from the drivers side, as Deb had called it clearly. Over the crest we slid wide on the R.G.R, and headed sideways for the drink. We managed to stop the slide just as we reached the edge of the bridge and somehow even managed to get the car to change direction to negotiate the fairly tight turn left on the exit. Not tidy, but we were still on the road. With elevated heart rates we pressed on. Another few K's down the road and there was a little mix-up in the notes. This resulted in Deb calling as we approached a crest at high speed, "Two Hundred Metres, Turn Right on Crest … THAT WOULD BE HERE!!" The result was a third gear spin as I tried to keep the car out of the minefield of stumps and logs that was the cleared plantation directly in front of us. "Too late!" I yelped as we just managed to bring the car to a stop, still on the road but facing completely the wrong direction. Grabbing first gear I flicked the car around on the handbrake to face the right way, catching in the lights as I did, a glimpse of a group of people standing at an unofficial spectator point. It turns out the locals know about this particular turn and it's always good for a little action!! Hmmm. The rest of the stage was incident free, and as we crossed the finish line we were buzzing, both with the adrenalin from our near misses during the stage, and the realisation that we had achieved what we had wanted to do from the start of the season, and completed an event in Tasmania. The Tasmanians party hard, but we couldn't keep up with them there either. We headed back to our seaside accommodation and we were in bed before midnight. We had netted 12th outright and second in class. Most importantly we had had a ball and we were already hatching plans to return to the apple isle for another round of the 2008 Series. With no boat back to Melbourne on Sunday, we had a day and a half to relax and unwind in beautiful Northern Tassie. On Sunday we took in the market and some attractions at near by Penguin before lunch at Fish Frenzy (best fish and chips in the Eastern half of Australia) back in Burnie and a stroll on the beach. On Monday morning we headed back towards Devonport, indulging on the way in some of the more bizarre retail experiences that Tasmania has to offer. Once again most of the Victorian crews met up on the return boat trip on Monday night. Dave Lambie produced a deck of cards and the hilariously rowdy game of "Bull$h!t" that followed cleared the entire deck. We finally settled down for a few hours sleep before disembarking to negotiate Melbourne morning peak hour traffic. Congestion, horns blaring, impatient pedestrians running the gauntlet. Why the hell did we come back to this?? Tassie, we're coming back just as soon as we can! A huge thankyou to Terry, Robyn, Trav and Jo for all their help on the event as well as providing service vehicles and paying their own way. Deb and I really couldn't have experienced this without you. A huge thanks also to the Tasmanians for making us so welcome and to Scott Spedding for being the driving force behind getting many of the other Vic crews down to Tassie to make this a truly memorable adventure.