3rd May, 2002. - Rally of Canberra - Day 1
The MRT crew of Brett and Andrew today succeeded in their first target of the
event, to finish!
Starting at car 20 the team were focused to "run their own race" today to be in
a position to attack on day two (Kowen Forest). Approximately 50 cars started
the event, notably many International crews including a Hyundai WRC.
The event started 10 am from Canberra city centre.
SS1 (9km) better known as "Mine Shaft", a well known Canberra spectator point,
the team were satisfied with an enormous leap off the steep entry. The car
landed awkwardly, but safe, nearly 3/4 of the way down the hill! (we will load a
Mpeg of this later next week).After motivating (team Driver) Brett to attack the
Mine Shaft, the crew were a little worried, his exuberance was a
bit more than planned and as a result set a top 2 "longest leap".
"I saw the crest comming and Andrew called it as we agreed, but I didn't back off as much as maybe I should have' Brett said. "The entry is blind and for the first 1/2 of the jump I couldn't even see where we were to land" he added. The car landed almost in the right hand gutter but escaped relatively OK.
It was later realised that possible gear shift linkage damage was done, that slowed the team on later stages.
SS2 (18km) was scary and slippery in the bulldust and it was noted by many teams to be like driving in mud.
SS3 was a shorter 7km stage and in a different part of the forest, but still slippery and very dusty in some places.
"I came out of every stage thinking we were getting beaten badly by other crews, when we all spoke everyone commented the same, with the slippery roads" Brett said. Crews had a regroup and service back at Canberra before repeating all the three stages again. By this time the EcuTeK, Ready Credit Subaru of MRT was starting to show some signs of the Mine shaft leap, with team driver Brett complaining of gear shifting difficulties. The crew pressed on and later completed all stages all but with limited results and gears!
"I think something bent on the mineshaft, as we did more kms the car was harder to change gears and by ss6 all we had left was 4th! The clutch took a pounding with the car having to even start the special stages in 4th gear, but managed to hang on and get the Impreza back to the evening 45min service at Canberra's Epic Centre.
The MRT crew were ready and the easiest way to resolve the gear shift drama was to swap the whole gear box and this was done with a new clutch in less than 40 mins.
Tomorrow's Leg 2 is 93 km competitive and Sunday is 105km, so there is still
a long way to go.
More news on www.rally.com.au and
updates here on Saturday night.
Our thanks to Neil Blackbourn for the
photos used on this page
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