The event was several events all in one. Historics went first, followed by post historics, then modern 2wd followed by the 4wd.
First stage was ten miles, I out braked myself going into a tightened junction and had to hand brake it around, other than that no real mistakes, second fasted in the modern two wheel drive. We'd taken 34 seconds out of Steve Perez in his safari spec datsun also running in our class. At the end of the stage we changed rear tyres, they were down to the canvass in places
2nd stage we set fastest time but the engine stalled coming down into a junction.
3rd stage the engine stalled at two separate junctions, wasn't sure if it was stalling under brakes, at the end of the stage the rear tyres were finished, it was becoming a real handful trying to slow it up.
At service we elected to brim the tank in case it was fuel surge stalling the motor, lowered the brake pedal a bit so I could toe and heal easier. Tyre wise we were running on second hand Pirelli tyres, all of our rivals were fitting new rubber and I was drawing tread on the tyres with a black marker pen.... Still we had had a good morning, 0.7 sec off first place!
4th stage I was really getting back into the swing of things, the stalling was cured due to a full tank of juice, the tyres were struggling, we were down to the canvass, 6 corners before the end of the stage we punctured a rear tyre but we still managed to set fastest time and hence took the lead
5th and last stage, was actually stage 2 and 3 joined together. 5 miles from the end we punctured ( wore out!) another rear tyre, I kept pushing on but we dropped 50 secs to the Mk2 we were batting with, but just managed to hold onto second.
It was a brilliant weekend, the car is bloody awesome, I need to look at the static camber and also camber curves of the rear swinging arms to improve tyre wear. We destroyed 10 tyres in 45 miles.....
....and the noise in the woods, loads of people talking about it, lets hope it makes other people look at BMW as well
Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 1:50 pm
