Starion "competed" at Alpine Rally

[RallyStarion]

Hi All, Thanks for the great words of encouragement before & after the event, and what an event it was.

Rain, Hail, Dust, Bog Holes 30+ meters long that sucked the car into it and stopped it from 120kph in 4 car lengths so you only just had enough time to grab 1st gear and try to keep going thru.

Lost a lot of time on Saturday with a blown turbo gasket on the 3rd stage of Saturday morning & only giving us 5lb of boost instead of 20lb for the rest of day and then on the long fastest 37km stage a plug lead fell out of a coil pack giving us 3 cyl for 23kms.
Lost a lot of time.

Turbo gasket fixed on Saturday evening and boost was back, the car was setting top 10 times Sunday morning only to put a hole in the side of a new rear tyre 2km from the end of a stage and we slowed down to get to the finish of it.
Changed wheel (only carry 1 spare) and drove the next "Hospital Creek" stage with caution as I didn't want another flat. Then the wheel probe for the Coralba died and we had no distance measurement happening. We slid wide on a bad downhill approach to Hospital Creek (that was cautioned) and slid into and up the embankment, bending the drag link and punching the tyre off the front right hand rim. Struggled to the stage end (4 km) and managed to borrow a wheel from another competitor in an XR8 Falcon.

Car fixed at next service plus 5 new tyres and it ran well to the end, apart from cracking the exhaust badly underneath and an overshoot that cost us about 30 seconds.

Like I said what an event. I have in car footage of most stages but have no idea how to post it.
Due to the weather we only used about 12 tyres and the fronts could probably have done the entire event.

The car averaged 2.1 kms per litre on competitive and 5 kms per litre on transports (sorry about the wrong figures before) and we used Caltex Vortex as that was all there was available in town.
Without the problems we could have been as high as top twelve but that"s rallying, and it keeps dragging you back.

The response the car received was fantastic and many people talked of its past with fond memories.
Keep an eye out for pics and footage on You Tube and the "Alpine Rally" web site, some stuff should turn up as there were people everywhere.

Till the next event.
Thanks again
Brian.

[Alspos]

Thanks for the wrap up Brian :beer Shame it couldn't have gone a little bit smoother for you.

[enthuzed]

You finished! Sounds like it was a tough event...
Looking forward to the YouTube links!

[JJH]

Must be very satisfying to finish the event so strongly having gone through all those challenges, very inspiring Brian.
It's a real blast to see the Starion flag flying high at these events.