I crunched my rally bugeye "Redcar" over the weekend on a bitumen
special stage rally in Tasmania.
Tried pace notes for the first time and somehow I thought we were heading
for a LEFT hand hairpin (after a flat-out left downhill sweeper) when in
fact
we were heading for a RIGHT hand sweeper. I was on the wrong side of the
road and despite best efforts we ended up running wide enough to slide
off the road down an embankment toward a water course. Didn't make it to
the watercourse though - a tree got in the way.
Luckily I was threshold braking from the moment I saw the corner and we were
probably only doing 20 or 30 MPH when we slid off. The tree that did the
damage was about 5" diameter and it was sheared clean off by the
lever arm on the shock. It also snapped the steering road at the point it
screws into the tie rod end. We finally were stopped by a large tree which
we
hit dead centre at 5 or 10 mph. Needless to say it smashed the glass bonnet,
destroyed the front guard, bent the left hand rail and buckled the LH
footwell
panels a little. No other mechanical damage. We did a bodgy repair (used
a *big* piece of tubing to bend back the lever, twist back the
a-arm/kingpin)
and I drove the car on and off the car ferry to get it home. The panel work
is all pretty straight forward and given that the body guy I plan to use
does only spridgets and has a full set of jigs just for them, it will come
up
at least as good as before.
We were running really well to that point, so far out in front of class it
wasn't
funny and a real chance of an outright podium place against some serious
competition (incl. Torana XU-1, Lancia Fulvia, Elfin Clubman etc.). We were
easily the fastest spridget by a country mile.
Pace notes are certainly a mixed blessing. You can go fast because you can
commit to corners you can't see yet. The flip side is that if you get out of
sequence, get a miscall or simply misunderstand, the chances of a crash are
*much* higher.
We weren't hurt at all, but it was disappointing. Unfortunately two people
died
on the other half of the rally (modern and super modified class) in the new
Subaru Impreza WRX STI. They also hit a tree, dead centre, but at over 100
MPH. The carnage level was much higher this year with lots of crashes
throughout the field, don't know why.
Next year I've decided to take a MkIV Sprite instead of the bugeye - a real
boot, space for a helmet hammock behind the drivers, real race seats and
wind up windows (and hardtop) to cope with rain a bit better.
Mike
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