Wow! What a fucking awesome weekend! We managed to pull off the "Steven Bradbury" from hell. Came home Sunday night with a 1st in rookie competition. We were beaten by the winner of rookie challenge on time but in class we were gifted the win by being the only ones to finish!
The first day on Saturday was excellent. It took us a few stages to find a good rhythm and when we did times started coming down to ones we felt comfortable with, although we certainly weren't troubling any of the big guys. The car was running perfectly, I had taken the boost down 19psi for some added protection for the driveline to ensure we preserved the clutch an box over the 2 days. 155km of special stages and nearly 400km liaison is going to find any weaknesses in the car.
By the end of Saturday we were doing times equal to the guys in modern competition placing between 20 - 25th. Well happy with that, much better than we had anticipated. It was our first run on these roads, our first time with our own notes written from scratch, and the longest competitive stages we have ever undertaken. With a start time of 7.30, and not getting to parc until about 8pm, we slept real well Saturday night.
Sunday morning had us at a town stage from hell. Malaga special stage was a 12.6km street race that was going to destroy brakes, tyres and suspension. Our first run was mint, got stuck right in and had a ball. Our time was really good, and we decided we could do better, that's when it started going pear shaped.
On the first run I ran out of brakes about 9km's in to stage. I keep this in the back of mind for the second run. During service we bled the fronts to get rid of the cooked fluid and lined up for run two. About half way in there is a long straight that sees you up to about 180km/h before a hard brake for the chicane, then another good squirt before a turn right. I boiled the brakes into the chicane and then for the turn right, I didn't give myself enough room and ran out of talent to recover. SMACK! Curbed it something cruel.
Managed to smashed the left shock top, oil cooler and a rim. Limped to a spot before we emptied the sump and took a seat to watch the rest of the cars enjoying themselves. When we were able to get the crew in, some well executed magic had us heading to the last city stage within about 40mins and still in the race. We looped the the oil cooler lines, put on the spare set of soft rubber and tidied up a few other bits. Through all that we dropped a few spots down in our category.
Then, that's when we started getting gifted. Malaga took its toll on one of the rookies we were racing, and while we were very carefully rolling around the last three sprint stages making sure the strut didn't end up coming out the bonnet, the guy leading rookies in his nuclear powered VII ended up stuffing it into a barrier on the second last stage. We couldn't believe it, we limped our steaming wreck over the line for the win.
Never stop trying until there is nothing left to try for.
I'll get some vids and shit up later on.