The Taranaki Rally was just a one day event with documentation and scrutineering on the Friday night. So Andre, Hamish (one of the service crew) and I took the service truck down Friday afternoon with the rally car on the trailer behind.
'Scrutineering' was a two minute affair, we didn't even need to take the car off of the trailer! This is because it had already been scrutineered recently and the main thing they wanted to look at was the turbo to check for tampering.
Up at 5.30am, quick breaky then down to the Warehouse to get the car out of parc ferme, wish Anton and Dave luck and then shoot out to Stratford to set up for the first service.
The team, well, mostly just Andre and Brendon, have been finding themselves a reputation for mucking around and doing stupid things in the service park. At Stratford, we found a clock tower that the boys found delight in climbing...
The Stratford service was a quick spurt of 15 minutes but due to there being no time control for services, the service was slightly shorter to give Anton and Dave enough time to get out to their next stage. Two minutes to pack up and we were all back into the service truck and the rangey (Range Rover) and on the road to Inglewood.
The Inglewood service was again without time control and only 15 minutes. We were more into the swing of things by then and had everything finished on the car before they had to move out again, so it was a little less stressful.
In an aside, while we were in Inglewood, a couple of guys rolled up in a Nissan GT-R V-Spec. Now I can honestly tell you, there are moments involving certain cars that I remember more clearly than anything else. This was one of those. This car is amazing, all dark charcoal-huge rims, the only thing that spoiled it was to find out later in the day that it was an automatic - that broke my heart. The mighty GT-R (released end '07) replaces the Skyline which has been around for many years.
After Inglewood, it was a casual pack-up and drive out to Okato on the other side of New Plymouth for the last service of the event of about 20 minutes. Because Anton was running high up in the field we were able to get the best spots for servicing and Okato was no exception, because of the way we positioned the truck we were able to get packed up and out of the little town with no time lost after servicing. This 'strategic time management' enabled us to get out to see the last stage of the day.
Stage 8 was the last stage and because there was no re-group at any stage of the day everyone was still running in their start of rally positions, regardless of times. This was good for the spectators because the front running guys that had had problems during the day put on a bit of a show by doing wheelies when they came to the junction.
At the end of the day the team of Anton Meier and Dave Devonport came home in 8th place overall and gained points by coming 4th in the North Island Series.
The Stratford service was a quick spurt of 15 minutes but due to there being no time control for services, the service was slightly shorter to give Anton and Dave enough time to get out to their next stage. Two minutes to pack up and we were all back into the service truck and the rangey (Range Rover) and on the road to Inglewood.The Inglewood service was again without time control and only 15 minutes. We were more into the swing of things by then and had everything finished on the car before they had to move out again, so it was a little less stressful.
In an aside, while we were in Inglewood, a couple of guys rolled up in a Nissan GT-R V-Spec. Now I can honestly tell you, there are moments involving certain cars that I remember more clearly than anything else. This was one of those. This car is amazing, all dark charcoal-huge rims, the only thing that spoiled it was to find out later in the day that it was an automatic - that broke my heart. The mighty GT-R (released end '07) replaces the Skyline which has been around for many years.
After Inglewood, it was a casual pack-up and drive out to Okato on the other side of New Plymouth for the last service of the event of about 20 minutes. Because Anton was running high up in the field we were able to get the best spots for servicing and Okato was no exception, because of the way we positioned the truck we were able to get packed up and out of the little town with no time lost after servicing. This 'strategic time management' enabled us to get out to see the last stage of the day.
Stage 8 was the last stage and because there was no re-group at any stage of the day everyone was still running in their start of rally positions, regardless of times. This was good for the spectators because the front running guys that had had problems during the day put on a bit of a show by doing wheelies when they came to the junction.
At the end of the day the team of Anton Meier and Dave Devonport came home in 8th place overall and gained points by coming 4th in the North Island Series.
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