We don’t intend sending my laptop to Burnie as we have to carry this in the car, and that means weight. So there will be no photo updates until Sunday night …. and maybe not then either, as we will be partying.
I will try and post some text from these days tomorrow night and Sunday night … see you soon
As usual we were pretty keen to get started, so up at 6:30am off to wrest point to find out our starting order and time. We were early, extremely early. Staring at our watches and realising we had to wait another 2 hours before we started, we headed off to find the best coffee shop in Hobart … or maybe Sandy Bay. Well we found it and we enjoyed our regular cap and latte.
Back to the start we left and headed to Salamanca Place for the official start and were greeted by the “Dial Before You Dig” Guys attending the local Launch near the official start.
9 stages today, and still dry. This is not what we wanted, but we are coming to conclusion that it might not rain. We continue to do the rain dance.
We had a number of “moments” today. We watched 2 competitors (who had headed west … off road) as they looked in horror as we slid towards them during a very tight right hand corner in gravel. This is meant to be a tarmac rally, not an off road rally !!!
Being so dry the speeds today were much higher than we had experienced last year, and we were nearly caught out in some very fast flowing corners, as the car lurched from side to side and nearly visited a left hand bank.
In the final stage of the day, we arrived towards the end of Ridgeway Park to discover a competitors car blocking the road on the right, and the FIV (first intervention Vehicle) blocking most of the road. After grinding to a halt we cruised thru this stage and will be given a derived time by the officials. This time will be based on competitors around us, so we will monitor and decide if we are happy with this tomorrow.
At completion today we decide to rotate our Tyres and try and protect the grip levels front and back. Fortunately the Tyres we have selected allow this, which could give us an advantage.
We arrived a little later tonight at the servicing park, so we had a time pressure to get in, get serviced and arrive in the park control area before our allotted time. All done with minutes to spare.
Upstairs for a beer or two, then catch the shuttle bus back to hotel (Old Woolstore). We ask the driver where to go for a good Chicken Parma and Steak, and he took us to a local hotel that served fantastic food.
The shuttle bus service this year has been so good we will be voting this auxiliary service as one of the best provided by Targa 2006.
Tomorrow we travel from Hobart to Burnie, then down the West Coast on Sunday. We will keep you posted. Bring on the rain.
We have finally finished with Launceston and are moving to hobart for 2 days.
Another serious day with the sideling as first stage. Fortunately things were dry which alleviated the carnage, but we are still praying for rain to assist us moving up the general order.
The car felt much better than yesterday and the tyres are now starting to work. We are functioning well as a team and I am feeling very confident with the calls Paul is giving.
We stop at lunch at Bicheno where one of the lambo’s burst into flames today.
Once again the Technicians are extremely efficient, and by end of day the checking for stress on the car
is done in no time.
There has been a little drama over the last few days with one of the Turbo’s losing 3rd gear.
Tonight within a few hours the boys will replace this gearbox with one flown in today.
Jim Richards has a 16 second lead over Glenny, but Jim still needs relatively dry days to
continue to the podium in first place on Sunday
We travel to Hobarts south tomorrow, then back for the night.
Matt helping with the brake bleed …
Darren checking the wheels and brakes …
