Bronte - The Return

When you heard from me last I was eagerly and nervously awaiting yesterdays rally to put what I had learnt into practice. On Saturday morning we went down on the stage at 5:45am to take pace notes as the later part of the day was packed with other commitments. This was my first time on the stage in this configuration. While doing pacenotes I couldn't help but notice that the cost of making a mistake while taking Barry's advise was high. Apart from the occasional messed-up corners like the 90 left at the bottom of a gravelly hill that quickly follows a blind crest, there were countless culverts tucked away in the ideal driving line waiting to take out an unsuspecting driver as it did in on a number of ocassions in August.




Making proper notes was key!


Anyway so we reach the stage, check in, get scrutineered, the usual stuff. I was being nonchalant but I had intentions of pushing hard and putting licks on some people but the car had a slightly different idea.


So Stage 1... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... "Stay centre into 90 right uphill bumpy"... As I hit the bumpy section the shifter came out of the gate and the gear jumped out so I put it back in and I'm driving up the hill holding the steering with my right hand and keeping the shifter in with my left hand. This continued for the rest of the run so most of it I did with one hand which contributed to a run off or two ;-).


We had this problem before and thought it was the shifter bushing and made some adjustments to the rod to compensate but there was nothing more we could have done in the pits.

For the second run we decided to go with the voice activated shifter. Ancil held the pace notes in his left hand and the shifter in his right hand. As he called the pacenotes I clutched and called the desired gear. That worked pretty well but half way through the stage we started to lose power. To be safe we limped to the nearest checkpoint and pulled off the road (big up to the marshals on checkpoint 10). On first check we saw that the tensioner for the alternator had broken (leading to the loss of power), this was caused by a broken cam cover / engine mount (it's a french car...don't ask), which was caused by a broken rear engine mount which is what was probably causing the gears to come out. Luckily, because we pulled off there was no further damage.


Next Steps...

1. verify that  there was no further damage
2. check the box of spares
3. Get the replacements online or get them fabricated if necessary

Photos courtesy Trinituner and Nicholas "Dumplin" Bhajan

TTRC Test and Tune

Today TTRC had a test and tune day so naturally I took the car down to get some much needed seat time.

When I arrived there were fewer cars than expected which suited me just fine. Before getting into the high speed part of the days proceeding I invited Ainsley Lochan, one of our top three drivers to run through the stage with me giving me pace notes as he would have done it. This proved very useful as his style of pace notes was a lot simpler than mine while being more descriptive. This is definately one of the changes I will make going forward.

Finally it was time for the high speed stuff. I started off relatively slowly and increased my speed bit by bit as I got more used to the stage.














Upon returning to the pits for a break, Barry McKenzie, another one of our top 3 drivers gave me some pointers on how to make the "90s" faster. "Turn in, tap the hand break (rather than holding it as I did before), turn out and turn back in. So I went out for a few more runs with that in mind.

After the lunch break I went back out with Barry navigating...that was an experience. He explained the science behind his "balls to the wall" style and insisted that I try it. While he's shouting "keep left" and "don't lift...DON'T lift" over a semi-blind crest my mind is thinking "It's Barry...he knows what he's talking about" while my right foot is thinking "flick both of you..I'm coming up". On each subsequent run I got my right foot more and more under submision...

In fact now looking back, the two times I nearly ran off the road was when I lifted...

A few more days like this and I should be good to go....for now I'm looking forward to the next event on September 19th to start putting what I learned into practice.

Photos courtesy Nicholas "Dumplin" Bhajan

THA Rally Festival - Saturday

Pre-Rally
6:15am - 6:45am - breakfast
6:45am - 8:30am - pacenotes

At around 8:30am while Justin and Ancil were double checking pace notes...

I was lying down contemplating life...

Having owned the car for 3 days and thus not getting any seat time apart from my drive to work the day before I was wondering... How does the car handle on gravel? What is the learning curve like? What might go wrong?...

Either way my game plan was to take the first half to feel out the car and based on my times work out if to push a bit in the afternoon period. 

Rally Time

This is the moment I'd been waiting for. I knew once the first run was out of the way I'd be cool. The first run was really slow. I was surprised at how slippery the stage was and needed to get used to how the rear of the Clio responded. In each consecutive run I consulted different people and made slight adjustments to my driving style to see which best suited the car.

During the lunch break Jamaican driver Bobby Marshal (arguably top driver in the caribbean in that class) gave me some pointers which I played around with for the remainder of the day.

Results

When results came out I was pleasantly surprised to realise that we had placed 3rd in class...

Overall Winners

1st John Powell / Nicholas Telfer (Tdad) 11 mins 38 seconds
2nd Barry Mckenzie / David Campbell (Tdad) 11 mins 51 seconds
3rd Harold Morley / Geoffrey Goddard (Bdos) 12 mins 05 seconds

4WD group, class 2-N
1st John Powell / Nicholas Telfer (Tdad) 11 mins 38 seconds
2nd Harold Morley / Geoffrey Goddard (Bdos) 12 mins 05 seconds
3rd David Coelho / James Harris (Tdad) 12 mins 14 seconds

4WD group, class 3-A
1st Barry Mckenzie / David Campbell (Tdad) 11 mins 51 seconds
2nd Kumar Ramdass / Matthew Russell (Tdad) 12 mins 47 seconds
3rd Gobin Mahadeo / Justin Gittens (Tdad) 14 mins 59 seconds

2WD group, class 2-3
1st Bobby Marshall / Anand Awai (Jca) 12 mins 53 seconds
2nd Donald Gopaul / Michael Dinnoo (Tdad) 13 mins 12 seconds
3rd Roger Mckenzie / Joshua Plaza (Tdad) 13 mins 39 seconds
Sean Hinds / Ancil Callender (Tdad) 13 mins 39 seconds

2WD group, class 2-4
1st Rezan Mohammed / Arshad Mondro (Tdad) 12 mins 55 seconds
2nd Shelford Robinson / Rajesh Jairam (Tdad) 14 mins 31 seconds
3rd Ansel Ali / Ken Mohammed (Tdad) 15 mins 40 seconds

I have a whole lot to learn but I'm satisfied with my development thus far.

THA Rally Festival - Friday

This weekend was the THA Rally Festival (in Tobago). It would be my first time competing in my Clio Sport so I naturally I was very anxious to get this first event under my belt.

The Recce
On Friday morning, my Co-Driver Ancil Callender, and ex Co-Driver Justin Gittens (now Co-Driving for Gobin Mahadeo) decided to kill two birds (excercise and pace notes) with one stone. We ran the stage (by foot) and ended with some Ab Ripper X. Great way to start the weekend!

The Motorcade
Later that afternoon the 25 competing cars set out on a drive through the streets of Tobago. For the most part cars were moving at about 40km/h. There were two or three times when a  gap was presented we pushed our car for short bursts. On one of these ocassions I decided to "mash out"... run out 1st gear, 2nd gear, 3rd gear... All of a sudden I hear the engine revving freely... and I stopped getting gears "I doh believe this!!!...nah!!! nah!!! not the gearbox!!!... NAH!!" I exclaimed. After playing around with the shifter and magically getting the car in 3rd gear Ancil assured me that the problem was the linkage for the shifter cable. Needless to say we had to do the rest of the motorcade in 3rd gear which was a pain.

The Fix
After the motorcade, scrutineering and opening ceremony we went back to the hotel on the flatbed (thanks to "Stouty") where Ancil fixed the linkage. I did a few road test, limed and went to bed a bit concerned.

*sigh*... what will tomorrow bring...

My New Ride

Car: Renault Clio Sport
Suspension: 50mm 2-way adjustable DMS
Engine Management: ViPEC V88