Rosewood Rally was yesterday.
I drove, The Boy navigated.
We were seeded 42nd out of a 64 car field, which seemed a bit generous but not ridiculously so.
Day started hot, dry, windy and dusty. Was pretty gross, even when it became overcast and the heat dropped off a bit.
Stage 1, we were both rusty, but not terrible. I nailed a perfectly called “turn right at T-junction” … except I turned left… 😆
37th outright.
Stage 2, feeling ok, less cobwebs, getting better but The Boy started feeling crook towards the end.
Weird/bad call right near the end of the stage saw EVERY car turn up a wrong road.
32nd place on stage, 33rd outright.
Service was mostly scraping dirt that had built up inside the rear wheels and made it feel awful on the tarmac transport sections.
Stage 3, more of the same. Lots of navs getting crook - combination of the heat, dust and the roads being twisty and undulating.
34th on stage, 32nd outright.
Stage 4, Roads were ridiculously slippery at the start - it looked like dry gravel, but it felt like greased ice. Hilarious and frustrating at the same time.
34th/29th.
Lots of mechanical DNFs ahead of us, making the results look a bit flattering.
Second service was more of the same, although Pete found a few loose bolts in the front of the car.
The Boy’s car sickness was turning into a desire to sleep. 
Stage 5 was a repeat of SS1, except I didn’t screw up the TR@ TJ this time!
22 seconds faster than the first pass, 31st in stage, 27th outright.
Stage 6 was 5 seconds slower than SS2, because I was feeling sick too…
Made the same mistake at the end of the stage - not everyone else made the mistake this time, but most did!
30th on stage, 27th outright.
Amusingly, long time mates Blake and Steve were dead equal with us on overall results.
It had become clear that the mechanical carnage from the first half of the event had given way to lots of people crashing… the unforgiving roads were clearly wearing people down.
Final service was very straightforward - getting the dirt out of the rear wheels mostly.
Stage 7, The Boy was suffering but still doing a great job.
I realised that I was driving conservatively, and tried to push… but my heart wasn’t really in it.
5 seconds slower than SS3.
26th on stage, 21st in event.
Stsge 8. I spun in the slippery crap at the start, and did a terrible job of dealing with it.
Pretty much assumed that Blake & Steve would be uncatchable now.
11 seconds slower, 26th on stage again, but finished the event in 19th outright.
19th is six places ahead of our best hope at the start of the event.
I don’t know what happened to Blake but we ended up finishing a minute ahead of them, so that was unexpected.
In the end, 40% of starters DNF’d. Anything above 25% DNF rate is usually considered a tough event…
Heaps of navigators got sick, and even a few drivers were car sick - definitely a tough event!
I am not pretending that I was driving well, but this is the first time when I began to feel like I was actually doing the FWD rally thing somewhat competently.
The Mirage is a ball to drive, handles well and has good brakes …but it really needs better gearing and/or more power.
The gap in the ratios between 1st and 2nd costs heaps of time on tight uphill turns - and there were plenty of them yesterday.
The were many times when it was lugging away in 2nd gear, accelerating very slowly - but if I went back to 1st gear it was immediately bouncing off the rev limiter.
It’s not an issue on more flowing roads, but it was punishing yesterday.
The lack of outright power also means that it doesn’t have speed/momentum at the base of big uphills and it has to go down gears rapidly.
So I am going to spend some time working out the best way to jump.
Those plated rear arms copped an absolute hammering yesterday. Again, no specific hits, just the constant spray of crap off the front wheels… 
