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DCC Crail Stages March 09 - Members Reports (updated 2/4/09)
Finished 4th overall, only 29 seconds behind the winners Tom Morris and Sandy Loynd in the Metro.
Photo courtesy David Scott Aiton.
The usual tarmac car is in the middle of a big re-engineering project after breaking nearly 20 quids worth of diffs, (or maybe in disgrace after being demoted from the club cards), so John hired a group N Evo 9 from Ireland. Less grunt and less brakes, left foot braking to try to keep the boost going but that made the brakes worse. Off the pace by Rinty standards, never higher than 6th fastest on any one stage, but kept out of trouble to finish 5th, nearly a minute behind 4th placed Bob and Pete.
I was looking forward to a run in this near ultimate tarmac Mk2, 6 speed sequential box and all.
Stage 1, 5-4-3-2-1 Vroomm, second gear, oh dear. Turned out a half shaft had broken and left a stub jammed in the diff, Keith had to butcher the bearing to get the diff out.
Oh well, if you can''t take a joke you shouldn''t have joined.
What can I say&I hate Subaru Gearboxes, I hate Subaru Gearboxes and I hate Subaru Gearboxes.
Having worked really hard as a team over the last 6/7 weeks getting the car ready for our first outing of the year at Crail, the old Gearbox problems strike again after only 2 stages (I really hate & etc!).
Having bought, stripped and fitted a Sti Gearbox over the winter, we had hoped for it to last for the next few events, however this wasnt to be. We are all totally gutted and I feel that Stuart and Graeme deserve better given the time and effort that they have put into the cars preparation.
The 1st Stage was slippy and eventful due to the front brakes completely disappearing about half way through the stage and only braking at the rear of the car that led to lots of sideways entries into every corner. Additionally we were seriously held up by another car, which resulted in stones being thrown up and our headlight and windscreen being smashed. (I could say more but I doubt if any of it would ever make it into print.) We returned to service to check out what had caused the problem and found that the brakes needed bled. We fixed this and headed into the next stage.
Half way through the 2nd stage 3rd gear exploded!
We finished the stage, 17 seconds quicker than our first run and returned to our service crew. After much debate, and overcoming the massive disappointment we all felt, it was decided that to withdraw from the rally was the best course of action. We felt that by continuing we would only cause more damage and would probably not finish anyway. I think this secretly pleased Stuart Millar who was still recovering from going through one of the bale chicanes at close on 100mph flat-out in 4th gear!
This weekends setback has made it clear that standard Subaru gearboxes are just not up to the requirements of the BMM Motorsport Team! We are now on the look out for a more substantial and robust gearbox that will last longer than one event, stand up to my driving and improve our tempers we dont ask for much & lol! The joys of motorsport&.
I would like to thank all of our sponsors and those who have helped us over the winter months. I can only hope that our reliability problems will be sorted out by our next event when everyones hard work will be rewarded with a finish and good result.
Stuart Baillie
www.bmm-motorsport.com
Ian drove the Mercury Motorsport Escort in his usual exuberant style, front wheel waving in the air. Bit worried about noises from the back; later discovered the Watts linkage had come away from the axle, but the gremlins work was in vain and the car survived to finish 13th and 3rd in class 4.
Seems to have been a tidy, uneventful rally by Rosss standards, finished 8th overall with only a couple of tyre scuff marks on the car. A disappointing day for the cable tie and tank tape industries.
Finished 43rd no more details.
After a large amount of work straightening the car after a weeton kerb at the end of last year we were ready for another go.
SS1 About half way through the quaife gear lever came of the selector leaving us in 3rd so we coughed and spluttered to the end. Managed to fix lever at service. 72nd on stage
SS2 Swapped wets for inters which were much better. Caught up on yellow mk2 and hit a lorry tyre trying to hard to pass it . 48th on stage
SS3 Much better car jumping out off 2nd gear so had to hold lever when in 2nd. Ok time. Loosing a bit of coolant. 23rd on stage
SS4 Car ok exact same time as ss3. Again loosing a bit of coolant. 25th on stage
SS5 Car driving ok. Better times. Again loosing coolant. 20th on stage
SS6 Car driving ok. Had something go under bonnet (puff off smoke or coolant) with about 1 mile to go so backed off a bit. Cylinder head gasket had gone blowing end tank off radiator.
Enjoyed the event but a bit dissapointed with the various problems
Gear lever jumped off. Jumping out off 2nd gear. Hydraulic handbrake sticking rears a bit. Cylinder head gasket gone. Hit lorry tyre, hope its not bent a hub. Could not buy tyres I needed. STRC screen sunstrip fell to bits. Driver needs to learn to brake later. but it was good fun.
Finished 26th Thanks very much to Graeme for servicing and the girls for the food.
Now to prepare the car for the Jim Clark Reivers. This is our first real rally, pace notes, no room for errors. Any help or advice would be greatly appreacited. We have a terratrip in the car but not a clue how to work it.
Derek and Douggie
Retired after losing coolant. It ran out of the big hole that a con-rod had made in the block.
Finished 28th no more details
Finished 22nd and 4th in class 4.
A fire on stage one forced Lachlan and Greg in car 53 to stop on stage at DCC Crail in the first round of the STRC.
After investigation the oil level had been too high and the excess oil was spraying onto the exhaust resulting in flames from under the bonnet licking up the windscreen. Lachlan noticed the heavy smoking and flames and immediately backed off and looked for a suitable place to pull over. The crew was stopped on stage for just under a minute and fortunately when they did manage to pull over the fire had extinguished itself, but the damage had been done to the stage time and this set the challenge for the rest of the day.
The wrong tyre choice of full wets on a dry stage two made progress difficult but cmr-rallying.com pressed on changing to dry tyres for stages 3 6. The wing mirrors lasted a full three stages before they were removed, not by choice& Debris from a well battered bale chicane saw Lachlan out brake himself and slide into the bales damaging the light, wing and demolishing the wing mirror. Not wanting to have 1 odd mirror, the other was removed in similar fashion on stage five.
The remaining stages saw some solid times posted with precious seconds lost stuck behind other cars but such are the joys of single stage venues! The final results showed CMR second in class and 37th overall. From losing almost 1 minute stopped on stage one and the subsequent time lost restarting, 32 seconds behind 1st in class will taunt us with what could have been!
Next up for CMR-rallying.com; Ingliston and a few changes to the car including adding a shift light (or even a rev counter!) to stop Lachlan wasting time banging off the rev limiter!
A massive thanks to the service crew for all the work put in on the day and during the off season, bring on Ingliston!
Finished 45th, 7th in class 2
Stage 1 With the recurring misfire finally banished and a brand new set of brake pads, the wee car felt sorted at last and we were really looking forward to a day''s playing at Crail. We started off by having mother of all moments on the first high speed corner; cold tyres, wet
track brain fade = 90mph at 90 degrees to direction of travel! Anyway, we got away with that, then the new pads started to fade until&.. no front brakes at all coming into a chicane. We went through the tyre wall sideways, panning in every panel on the drivers side, but without damaging any of the important bits. We lost about 10 seconds or so getting going again, then took it a bit easier to the finish, still with no front brakes. Stage time - 9.11.
Stage 2 After a bit of work to the discs and pads, we were off again. The brakes still werent quite right, but getting better. We caught a mini on this stage and spent a ridiculous amount of time stuck behind him. When we did get past, the red mist came down and you guessed it, I put it off again! Rejoined behind said mini! Stage time - 8.33
Stage 3 Brakes gradually getting better (apparently 1155s can take an age to bed in, even more so if youve just cooked them on the first stage). No offs this time, but scudded the passenger door mirror off a bale so hard it smashed the passenger Perspex and landed in my lap (mirror reusable; window not; nuts a bit sore!). Stage time - 9.02.
Stage 4 Brakes almost as they should be this time, but I was still giving them a wee feel for confidence before hitting them hard on any of the fast stuff. The stage went well, but we crossed the finish line with oil smoke starting to fill up the interior. A quick investigation by the service crew and it was game over. A couple of bolts had come loose in the clutch housing and taken out the gearbox oil seal. We considered topping up the gearbox oil and carrying on, but risked knackering the clutch and LSD, not to mention the possibility of fire! Stage time - 8.45. To rub salt in, in the other half of our team, Neil Thompsons brand new engine lunched itself big time on this stage, with lots of bits making bid for freedom through the block!
I hadnt really been checking stage times, so was both surprised and pissed off (at retiring) to find that we had been lying 3rd in class, one second of my mate Stevie in 2nd, and 10 seconds off the class lead. Stevie finished 32nd o/a and 2nd in class, so it''s a case of "look what you could have won!" I now have a silly wee bit in the gearbox to replace and most of the body panels to straighten, but hay was it fun&.? Damn right!
Cheers,
Gavin.
Feel that any report of a completed rally will sound like gloating but here goes... This was my first rally as driver and Graeme''s in either seat. Plan was to keep going and not hit anything. Might sound unambitious but after navigating for Stuart Baillie a couple of times last year I wanted to try something different. Had a great day and owe a big thanks to all those that supported and helped out to make up for the driving crew''s mechanical uselessness
Finished 48th overall.
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