Gallangowan

[mattb]

Anyone competing at Gallangowan?

[AndrewD]

I'm out unfortunately due to work. I'll be over in Western Australia. Good luck to all the excels that do compete. Looking forward to hearing all your event reports.

[Hannibals handler]

I wont be there either....:(

[Dirkvhp]

Jas and I are in. The entry list appears to have one other x3 excel listed plus what looks like an x1 entered. Couple of dark horses!

Entry list is up on www.gallangowan.com.au/attachments/Seeded_start_order_Prologue.pdf (http://www.gallangowan.com.au/attachments/Seeded_start_order_Prologue.pdf)

if you're interested?

[anthony tanzer]

Car 40 is the Ex-Cullen vehicle now based up here. The driver used to run a Datto 1600, and on his last drive at Gallangowan several years ago placed outright in the Clubman competition from being seeded car 50 something (the clubman rally used to be a separate event and run on the Sunday).

[514MYE xcel]

Jamie Mack and i were going to take his excel road car for a run on the Friday come and try, but Jamie is working that day so we will drive up Saturday morning for him to Nav for Grant Brecknell ,

with a bit of luck the little excel will get a cage early in the new year and Jamie is champing at the bit to do some events in 2012

[Dirkvhp]

Well that was fun? The van Alphabet had an interesting run that seemed to begin the week before the event proper...

I took the car down to scrutineering on behalf of Jason where it passed with flying colours. It was only when I tried to drive the car out of the inspection area when a gremlin appeared, once I disengaged the clutch, it wouldn't re-engage...quick diagnosis and I found the problem..sort of...either a seizing clutch slave cylinder or something worse hidden away in the bellhousing. I managed to get it working again, enough to return it to Jason's and to let him know there was an issue...he took it to a mechanic during the week...problem sorted...or so I thought...

We arrived in Gallangowan late Friday afternoon to be greeted by the usual hospitality of the event and had a great chinwag session in the clubrooms over a few rums after we had set up our service area and had a little bit of a test run in the car. Before hitting the sack we managed to bolt the lights onto the car and check that they were pointed in somewhat of a forward facing position as they hadn't been used in quite a while. Come on Saturday and the event proper!

A relaxed morning ensued as we didn't need to have the car into the pre-start area until just after 11. I gave the car a quick once over and checked a few simple things...had to repair the windscreen washer bottle as one of the pump seals had perished to the point of letting all the water out as I poured it in..is there nothing that silicone can't fix?

During the morning the Excels of Peter Stewart and Scott Bolt arrived, it was a great to see two more new cars arriving on the QLD rally scene (Ed Williams’ and Ben Cullen’s ex cars respectively). Both cars seem to have arrived sans nicknames, Peter Stewart’s car has had the spudcooker cold air induction system removed in favour of something far more simple! I eagerly await the christenings!

After the driver briefing at 11:30 we got in the queue and eventually headed out of the pre-start for the short 4.2km prologue stage to determine the initial event running order.

There was a little delay when we got to the stage time control and cars were lined up on the side of the road, we pulled into the line and waited for our turn...we didn’t have to wait too long but it was a stinker of a day and things got hot quickly...we booked in, pulled up the start line...30 seconds...10 seconds...5.4.3.2.1...nothing...just a revving engine...the clutch gremlin was back...

We managed to roll the car down from the start line and out of the control area where we could work on the car. I was able to tap the end of the clutch fork a few times to allow it to return to the engaged position. We moved it a few times and it seemed to go away... the control officials were nice enough to allow us to reverse back to the start line and they gave us a new start time...after all, it was only the prologue, the times wouldn’t count to the rally proper.

But that was it...Jason had lost his nerve and we posted a suitably slow time which saw us seeded at the back of the field...We managed to get the car back to Service but when it came time to start the rally proper the clutch refused to cooperate and we missed regroup and the first two stages.

I managed to source a throttle return spring from Viv Gees, (Thanks mate, you are a truly a legend!) which I cut in two and fashioned into twin return springs which were dutifully zip-tied to the slave cylinder and clutch fork to try and help it re-engage...this seemed to work and we got the car out on the road for a test where it behaved...until it got hot again...we finally found that keeping the slave cylinder cool seemed to make the problem go away...this was helped by the day; missing the first two stages got through us through the hottest part of the day and the clouds came over and helped drop the temperature by at least five degrees.

We rejoined the event just before SS3 (8.2km) and headed out for a run, Jason seemed to be enjoying himself again and we had a good drive although I’m sure our times were quite sedate, we just concentrated on having a bit of fun and tried to forget about the clutch problem.

After SS4 (15.77km) we headed back to service, gave the car a quick once over, zip tied the rear bumper back on and concentrated on keeping the slave cylinder cool through a combination of the engine fans and a water spray bottle. As the light was soon to be gone we bolted the lights on and, after regroup, headed out to the longest stage of the day, the 32.53km Moonda Waambi stage.

I don’t remember too much detail of the stage except that it was long. We had a couple of close calls and the wild-life was certainly out and about in the early evening.

We started SS6 (6.84km) and after about 1.5km noticed that there was a little bit of smoke in the cabin and smelled the unmistakable sweet scent of transmission fluid...something was up at the business end of the car...Jason immediately backed off and we dawdled through the thankfully short remaining km of the stage and back to service.

Bonnet up and head under and I soon found that the gearbox drain plug was nowhere to be seen and the contents had gotten themselves acquainted with the top of the sump guard and the road between the start of SS6 and the service park...by this stage it was about 8:30 in the evening and Jason had had enough.. he decided to withdraw.. I tried in vain to source a replacement plug but after 20 minutes of wandering about the service park with my hand out (thanks to all those that offered support and advice) decided that Jason was probably right... off to the Gallangowan club house for a rum and a feed!!

Thanks to Jas for the ride and to all those that provided support and assistance before during and after the event, including Andrew Lenton, Peter Stewart, Viv Gees and Ross Perry. Apologies if I missed anyone out.

Also a huge shout out to all from BSCC who made the event happen with a special mention of Barry N, Margaret M and Trevor N, unfailing legends, the lot of you. :grouphug: Also thanks to all the officials, road blocks and especially the Gallangowan locals who know how to cook up a storm - the fire cooked beef stroganoff is legendary!

I’ll leave it up to Peter Stewart and Scott Bolt to post their own event reports but I understand they both finished and Peter tells me he had a great time in the Excel. I look forward to seeing you guys at an event in the near future.

[AndrewD]

Unlucky to hear about your adventures Jason and Dirk. Glad to hear you got a couple of stages in. Awesome to see three excels having a run.

I would like to congratulate to Tim and Adrian Dillon on another great drive. Backing up after there 1st outright at the last event. I believe they ended up about 6th or 7th outright. I also heard they were recorded as the second fastest car coming up to the spectator point with a speed of 157kph. Only an Evo 6 was faster with a speed of just over 160kph. Great work. Good to see the ex works lantra with some reliability and being driven hard.

[514MYE xcel]

Id just like to say a huge thanks to Peter Stewart for lending us the fuel pump out of his rally car at sometime after midnight so we could get home for James to start work at 6am ,
we had intended to give the excel its first taste of rally the day before in the come and try but due to James work commitments that didnt happen .

it seems that driving at or near the speed limit when returning from the spectator point and not doing something stupid like pretending to be a rally car driver for a change has been our undoing , it sounded like a little rock about the size of soft ball jumped out of the ground and flexed the fuel tank up and snapped off the fuel line fitting on the pump , the engine instantly lost power but we managed to coast to a stop at the T junction , on the main road ,
perhaps a little less thanks goes to all the other people that drove past without stopping to see if the car in the middle of the road with its bonnet up needed any help ,

[anthony tanzer]

http://www.gallangowan.com.au/main/page_results_20102011.html

Results are up. Only 7 seconds between the two Excels that finished at the end of day!:clap:

Tim must be pedaling quite well, as I see he just beat home the Rasks who were the runners up in the QRC last year.

[514MYE xcel]

great to see a couple of established old school rally boys come to play in the excels , I even heard Peter Stewart say it was about the most fun he had ever had in a rally car ,
next year might well end up being a really competitive year in the QLD excel series ,