Later today (Fri 6 March), we head away on our first
Rally of a very busy year. A little 2 day
event (with quite a small field), Hamilton to Hamilton.
Last Tues I collected the gear from Targa and also
David and Pieter who had flown up from
Christchurch - I also collected the Gear for Dale's start team.
Kevin collected the gear for Dale's team from us on
Wed and we prepared Chalkie for its
25th rally.
Our plans at the moment are to proceed quietly to
Hamilton this morning for final
documentation, Rallsafe pickup etc, then once Josh arrives after he has
finished work we go
to our accommodation at Waitomo to be close to our1st stage of the
event SS2 at Piopio
where we have to be on site at 7.20 tomorrow morning. Looks like an out
the gate time of
6.45 or so.
Our afternoon stage SS6 is at Benneydale after which
we head for Opal Hot Springs at
Matamata to be close to our 1st stage Sunday SS10.about the same time.
The afternoon
stage is at Waipapa (where I used to work) on the Waikato River. Once
cleared we can
return Josh to Hamilton to collect his car then head home tired but
happy once more!
Good evening all
Here we are at Opal Hot Springs in Matamata ready for
our 'out the gate time' of 7.30 a.m.
tomorrow.
We stayed at Kiwipaka in Waitomo last night just on
half an hour away from our 1st staga
SS2 finish.
For this we had Josh at Flying Finish, David on
Cards, Pieter doing logs and I did Road,
Board and Post Chief's duties.
David and Pieter jelled really well, and so did Josh
(on the surface). But for quite
understandable reasons he packed up early without being cleared. Yes we
know a real NO
NO. He also manged to leave one of the signs behind (shades of someone
else I could
mention!!)
The afternoon went much better- after all we had all
been a bit rusty to start with but had got
better as the day went on. A few comments from our 19 year old having
to put up with all us
'more mature' gentlemen. I forgot just how off putting teenagers can be.
Anyway - SS10 tomorrow morning, SS14 tomorrow
afternoon, then home again 'tired but
happy.
Hi again,
Bambina is now over - yep we are back home Tired but happy.
Last night we stayed at Opal Springs in Matamata.
The oldest and youngest had to share the double bed,
there were as can be imagined lots of
ribald comments probably the cleanest being 'but my sleeping bag only
comes up to my
nipples'! No further comments are necessary.
We readily made our out the gate time this morning
and were on site at SS10 in plenty of
time. David manned the flying finish on his own with the other three of
us at Finish control.
On some other occasions I have complained about the cold but this trip
it was just the
opposite! Boy it has been hot!!!
After being cleared we headed to our second stage of
the day SS14 over Arapuni Dam,
having to drive the stage meant that we were just a tad late. Although
competitors were
doing the stage in about 9 or 10 mins it took me well over 20!!!!!
Like the 2nd stage yesterday there was absolutely
nowhere we could put a vehicle at our
flying finish spot. Yesterday Josh actually had to climb a tree to get
out of the way, today we
had both David and Trainee Pieter somewhere hiding well behind the
fenceline. But with no
shelter and only a miniscule umbrella for shade unpleasant would only
just start to describe it.
However, once at our position it immediately became
clear that this was the very spot we had
had 2 rogue cars on a previous occasion and had been able to use the
CCTV to locate the
offenders.No such problems this time I am happy to say !!
Handed our Rallysafe gear (which worked perfectly) in
to the sweeper car, the rest of the
gear back to Targa on Wednesday.
David and Pieter made their way back to Duck Creek, I
took Josh back to Hamilton to
collect his car then headed home myself.
I repeat - home 'safe and sound' tired but happy.
Yes indeed another successful event. Home tired but happy on the Sunday night.
Timeline:
Tues 3rd March 2020
Collected the majority of gear from Targa Base, including that for Dale.
Then collected Pieter and David from the Airport that night - returned
to Duck Creek
Wed 4th March
Fitted 25w Fleetlink Radio, had aerial problems - it worked fine with
the aerial supplied for
Dale's set but not ours - susequently got a replacement aerial.
Kevin then collected Dale's gear and took it to back to Tirau.
Fri 6th March
Headed for final documentation at Hamilton, regrouped with Dale, Pieter
and David headed
off to our accomodation at Waitomo, Dale and I waited for the Rallysafe
gear to become
available, then I waited for Josh to drive down from Auckland when he
finished work.
We all stayed at Kiwipaka in Waitomo that night.
Sat 7th March
Timed SS2 at Piopio (we shall overlook for now the stuffup - even
though understandable in
the circumstances) with Josh on FF and Pieter, David and me at FC. We
proceeded to SS6
at Benneydale where we kept the same personnel allocation. But here we
had absolutely
nowhere we could put a vehicle at FF so after setting up the beam etc,
Josh had to babysit it
from up a tree! A fairly long drive once cleared to that nights
accommodation at Opal
Springs holiday park - chinese for tea, and I managed about an hour in
the hot pools.
Sun 8th March
Out the gate in plenty of time for SS10 at Matamata.We had decided to
realloctae staff
today so David was at FF and the rest of us at FC. We also had to
reallocte some block
marshals to protect us from rogue vehicles (sorry boys), then back over
Arapuni dam to our
final stage of the even SS14. One I well remember because of the
various rogiue vehicles
we had the last time we used it as a stsge. BUT here again there was
absolutely
NOWHERE we could put a vehicle at FF (I can't remember what we did last
time) so again
after setting up David and Pieter manned the position from well behind
the fenceline and
really cooked in the sunshine. No obliging tree this time and the flies
were not only
enormous but were there in numbers. This stage we had a group of
cyclists within the stage
during road closure, and more worrying the 10 or so Porsche cars who
wanted to make use
of the 'closed road; for their own purposes. We gave them the message!!
Head home
afterwards should have taken us through another stage so we decided
that discretion really
was the better part of valour and ignored our Navman to get to Hamilton
(for Josh) then
headed back to Duck Creek.
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