Day One of the action, Friday

Today started off by being pounded into shape again by my chiropractor. Annoying really, wish life could just stop while the rally is on. Another example of this being the bills that turned up...

So it was Day One of the action, and no less a word than 'action' could really describe it. Stage One at Pirongia started off with a bang, Henning Solberg losing power steering and dropping down to near the bottom of the field in the overall classification. Many other stories to be told, Loeb had a moment, Andre Meier had a huge moment, bumpers - back and front - were lost and finally by the end of Stage 2.2 (Organisers had to split the monster 40 odd km Waitomo stage because of the slips near the middle) many had found some sort of rhythm. Mikko had a slight lead coming into the morning's service, followed by Loeb and Latvala. EDIT: Oh and Atko binned our NZ/OZ patriotic hopes by rolling his Subie. Rats. Expect Subaru WRT to keep being quiet about everything, they've been trying to limit their exposure and promotions while they get the new car up to speed (thanks Tom for the insider!).

This is about when my job started. And I really can't help freaking out about time and where I'm supposed to be and when. Stress and I don't go well and I'm thinking that maybe I should try and get into team PR because I don't know if I can hack this stuff. I don't know, I will probably feel differently in the morning.

Anyway, so what freaked me out was also scaring many other media, while Lance found the whole thing hilarious. We headed down to the media interview area, finding that the first four cars timed their entry to time control somewhat perfectly, so that they didn't have to talk to any media. It's not just about team tactics for road position, but also hugely about media tactics. What Lance found so funny was that the media had no idea what to do with themselves. Their precious top drivers wouldn't talk to them!

Luckily for me though, the PWRC drivers are very co-operative. I was able to get through them and then talk to some of the locals before shooting up to transcribe what I'd got.

In all seriousness, today has really done my head in.

Uhh, this afternoon the lead got within 0.7 of a second of being changed over to Sebastien before the big drama happening when Seb stopped just before the penultimate stage and was unable to restart the car for 3 minutes, incuring a 30 second penalty for being late into the stage. Day two start order has ended up being Hirv/Loeb/Latv/Sord, after Loeb's mishap/stunt and the subsequent team orders for Latvala to slow and secure a better road position for tomorrow.

So for my early evening job, I ended up being able to get about 10 PWRC quotes, down to Paddon, West and Taylor (the kiwis competing in the PWRC for this event) before literarly sprinted up out of the media interview area all the way through the pavilion service park and upstairs to the media room to pass off my digital dictaphone to Lance for transcription. Then sprinting back downstairs to witness the End Day One Press Conference, so that I would have a fair idea of what was talked about when it came to me transcribing it. Took me about an hour to then transcribe the 10 minute - 1,500 odd word press conference and put it into FIA Release format.

Shaping up to be an interesting event from the rallying point of view and a stressful event from my point of view! No, pictures for today, sorry. Too busy to even think about cameras.