The AMSAG Rosewood rally was yesterday. This is my 3rd time competing in it, and it has been a great event every time.
First competitive rally drive in nearly three years (!!) so was very rusty going in. Paulie was the Meat Flavoured Ballast. Seeded car #33 out of 53, which was about right.
Car did its stupid limp home thing on the first stage and limited the revs to 2000rpm for about half the stage. We were overtaken in stage. Cost us about 2.5 minutes and finished the stage in 42nd place.
Unplugged the water temp sensor before the next stage and it ran much better. Car was handling pretty well with the new rear suspension bushes tightening it all up, More rear brake bias was great - took a lot less effort to tip it into corners, and it is easier to steer on the throttle. 22nd in stage, and started to remember WTF we were doing.
Took the rear swaybar off at the first service, and it was heaps nicer to drive.
21st and 19th place in the next two stages, although I found reverse gear TWICE in Stage 4. First time I totally misread the corner and ignored Paulie telling me to turn right and turned left instead… ?
Second time was a “turn hard right” on a right hand corner… I nailed the right hander, but missed the turn. Not the only person to do this, but it was still at least 10 seconds lost.
Somehow salvaged 19th place in the stage despite my screw ups - probably due to the DNFs of faster cars.
Back to service and tried the new super-soft Pirelli tyres on the front and the new MRF tyres on the rear.
The second half of the rally was a repeat of the first four stages.
SS5 & 6 were pretty uneventful, although there was a clunk in the front end that we later worked out was the sump guard flapping around. 22nd and 20th place in stage, and up to 20th place outright.
SS7 & 8 in the dark were my first night stages. Struggled s bit with remembering how to drive in the dark, and with driving lights that don’t throw enough light down the road.
In SS7, I discovered an uncomfortable vibration through the floor on fast corners which I correctly assumed was a broken engine mount. 18th place in stage.
Took it a bit easier in SS8 to ensure that it would survive, still managed to finish 19th on stage.
Ended up 19th outright, which I am entirely happy with. Even if we had avoided the dramas in SS1 and 4 , it only would have moved us up about 3 places, so even that is no big deal.
while taking the car off the trailer today, I discovered that the diff was trying to escape. Four of the five mounting bolts were loose.
Narooma rally next weekend, with The Boy making his rally debut as my navigator.
Roy Meuronen took a bunch of photos, you can find his gallery here:
https://roymeuronenphotography.com.au/rosewood22/h3181b87d
