Faber I.T. Rally Team

Robertstown Walky 100
31st May 2008

With other commitments delaying the start to our rally season it was with much excitement we headed to Robertstown for the Robertstown Walky 100, Round 2 of the South Australian Rally Championship.

Using the lovely Mintaro Mews as our base for the weekend we headed from there for the short drive over to Robertstown on Friday morning. We had done this event last year so Recce Day was to be fairly easy. With usual co-driver Ashley Chabrel overseas on his honeymoon Susan Haby joined me in the Subaru. Recce was fairly uneventful. We concentrated at the first half of the day getting our notes checked from last year and writing for the first time the new stage "Who's Julia". We finished Recce at about 2:00pm and headed back to Mintaro Mews for a nice warm spa.

Saturday morning started early with a quick drive over to Robertstown to meet Joe who brought the car up from Adelaide that morning. We did a few last minute checks and put the car through scrutineering without and hastles. We then headed out on the main road to calibrate the Terratrip as it had reset with a battery unplug over summer and I hadn't recorded the code anywhere. Note to self, put it on a sticker on the Terratrip!.

Then we had a wait of about 2 hours before we had to start. Joe had done a great job over the break with the WRX and we were ready to go. Heading out to stage one I was a bit nervous. A new co-driver, new suspension, new wheel allignment settings and a new year.

When we got to the start line we were notified that SS1 had been downgraded to a transport stage only. There were some sheep loose on the road which were unable to be cleared in time. This we didn't mind too much, it gave us a chance to check our notes and work on our timing before we go back to that stage in the afternoon. We still had fun on the stage and threw a few rocks about at the spectator point that was still packed with fans.

We then transported over to stage 2 "Scruby Reverse". There was a reasonable wait at the start line, then it was get ready and get the mind into gear. 3, 2, 1, GO!!! and we were away. My smile wasn't about to last long. I failed to hear a call for the 6 Right over crest and we hit it pretty much flat out. Luckily over the back of the crest there is about 15m of clearing before the paddock fences and although we left the road we didn't hit anything. I could feel straight away that the rear left tyre had punctured and with only 5km remaining in the stage I immediately decided to continue on as a tyre change would have cost too much time. Extreem caution was required for the rest of the stage as it really didn't want to turn right but I wanted to push on and not loose too much time.

We changed the tyre after the stage which took about 5 minutes as we were in no hurry. Need to work on this a bit though. There was an optional refuel back at Service Park which luckily we didn't require as we had heaps of fuel left and we needed to hurry over to stage 3 as we were starting to cut it a bit fine time wise after the wheel change.

The new stage 3, "Who's Julia" is a nice open and fast twisty stage on the Adelaide side of Robertstown which ends with a tricky run up through so trees on a grass track which I was looking forward to. We were going well but had developed a misfire at about 4000rpm which was annoying and didn't provide much confidence in the corners. We went ok considering and was really enjoying the handling of the car. It turns in really well now and it was taking some time getting the confidence to get into the corners faster.

We then transported back to service park and fitted the spotlights as we had worked out it would be dark by the time we finished SS6 before the next service. We reset the computer to try and workout why the misfire was occuring. No CEL error codes appeared and the reset didn't fix the misfire. Joe did a great job as usual and we were ready to head out again.

SS4 was the rerun of the first stage of the day "Dips End". My driving was a bit all over the place due to the misfire and the extended summer break and Susan did a great job with the notes as the timing must have been really difficult with my driving. I finally got into a comfortable rythim about 15kms into the stage and the stages has a whole heap of terrificly difficult jumpy, rocky bits of road. It's awesome to drive fast and was a great challenge. The car can go a lot faster.

Over to the rerun of Scrubys Reverse and we had a clean run through, it was enjoyable not to go off the road and drive consistently. Declan Dwyer had gone off the road which was sad to see, never like seeing the front guys out of the rally as it makes for a good fight for the spectators to see the front guys challenging all the way to the finish.

We again bypassed the optional refuel at service park on the way over to the rerun of "Who's Julia". We had a good run through this stage again but the misfire was getting worse and it was incredibly hard getting into the corners not knowing if the car would have the power to slide around correctly. I decided to shortshift and try to not use 4000rpm in the corners at all. It worked to make the handling more consistent but it just wasn't fast. We beat our previous run through here by 1 second which was good considering the car at this stage.

Back into Service Park for the second service and a quick bite to eat and a drink before the night stages. We worked on the misfire problem still and taping up a few dust leaks which we hadn't noticed over summer.

Out to the first run over the night stage "Roast Lite". The stage runs along the ridge to the West of Robertstown and the breezes over the hills normally keeps the dust down. This wasn't to be the case and we had the most challenging SARC stage we have ever done. There were several points where we had to all but stop which was annoying, we were just loosing too much time. There were bits where the dust was not so bad but we still struggled with mis-aligned spotlights. A quick check after the stage to straighten the lights properly was required.

Fortunately the officials had noted the dust trouble and the usual 2 minute gaps were extended to 3 minutes for the rerun of Roast Lite. It didn't help our car speed much but I learnt a fair bit about night driving in this stage. We got through incidednt free which was pleasing and we headed back for Parc Ferme.

A big thankyou to Susan for a spot on job co-driving, it was a big task and she completed it without complaint and was first rate by days end. A top job to by Joe Bongiorno, your effort is always appreciated and totaly respected. Congratulations to Matthew Selley for his convincing victory and it was great to also see interstate competitors Molly Taylor and Brendan Reeves over here competing in what has to the best pace noted state championship in the country.

The roads for the Robertstown Walky 100 were challenging and fun but we really needed to have competed before hand just to iron out the bugs from the summer development work. We'll be better for the experience for the Sprint Auto Pars Rally SA in July and my driving will be more aggresive with the car sorted out.

Look forward to seeing you out and about in the forests.

Andrew Gooley

Next Event: Walky Park Trophy Day Series Rd.2 Truro SA. 6th July 2008. Walkerville All Cars Club

Robert Burrows drove our Subaru RX Turbo as the fast sweep car. He did a great job on his first pace noted event and the first time in this car. It is the toughest event of the year in terms of different types of roads and he did a terrific job to get to the finish and was really starting to enjoy his time in the car. I hope he can compete at Rally SA in the RX Turbo in July.