The Queensland round of the Australian Rally Championship series doesn't form one of the rounds of the Queensland Gemini Rally Series. But the temptation to compete against some of best was too much to resist, so the 70hp Gemini was entered at the tail-end of the impressive start order!
Hurdles
The first hurdle was the cost, assisted by some sponsorship from Dialog. To compete in an ARC round is not cheap - even in a Gemini - and that's barring accidents. Entry is $600, upgraded licence $300, tyres $500, accommodation and meals for crew $500, fuel $300 etc, etc. $2500 for a long weekend is a good way to blow cash fast, but it's worth it.
The other hurdle was the idiot who normally sits in the critic's (ie Navigator's) seat was unavailable, due to a work commitment. It takes a long time to become a good team under race conditions, and having a substitute navigator wasn't going to make the exercise any easier. Peter Baker was the unlucky volunteer, a veteran of the Queensland Rally circuit, occasional Clerk of Course, and Gemini series secretary. Hopefully this raft of experience would make up for our unfamiliarity in working together.
Book-in was Thursday night, with our team driving the rally car up from Brisbane after work. The Pro teams had been there for 3 days already. They aren't allowed on the stages, but some sections of forestry are closed to allow them to practice and set up cars. It's a late night with paperwork and notes to check, but the morning is worse. Friday morning sees us up - on Peter's insistence - at 4am, and heading off to the stages for pace-noting.
Pace-Noting
It's an hour drive from Rally HQ at Caloundra Ridges Resort to the start of the most distant stage. The Gemini had to be scrutinized that morning, so it was left with the volunteer pit crew. This meant the car for the pace-noting had to be sourced elsewhere, and unlike Mr. P. Bourne, we didn't have a spare turbo 4WD Liberty available. Instead we somehow conned Peter into letting us use his Excel, under warning not to tear the exhaust off like happened last time it went over these roads.
I should have known better than to let the Navigator drive, but it was his car. Peter drove to the start of the first stage, with me clinging to the grab handle thinking back to how Excels (don't) rate in crash tests. The headlights sucked, and he was running wide a bit too often - I mean I drive a rally car and I was scared! Sure enough, a tightening right-hander and late braking had us touch the dirt and instantly slide sideways off road into the drainage ditch.
First 'off' for the weekend and we hadn't even got as far as the first stage; great start!
That this was going to be a good laugh for the other competitors was going though my mind when Pete slammed reverse, smoked the tyres and amazingly started the car moving backwards half in, half out of the ditch. Reversing flat to build up speed, and not looking back, he got it back on the road. A quick inspection revealed no major damage, except to the front bumper; it was dangling a bit - looked like a real rally car. Nothing a bit of Gaffa tape wouldn't fix however, with Pete earning the name of Gaffa for rest of his life....this wasn't the first time.
Dawn met us at the start of the stage - perfect timing despite the delay - with the Excel about 3rd on the road. The rest of a long day was spent doing three passes over each of the stages, me rattling off notes, Pete attempting to understand my noting system, and simultaneously give directions. Normally you make notes on the first pass, check and modify them on the second, and do final cleaning up on the third; we just hoped to get enough information down to stay on the road.
Pace-noting is not a time to thrash the Excel, despite the nice stretches of dirt. The roads are limited to the standard forestry limit of 50 km/h, with severe penalties for speeding. After a while the notes start to become automatic, and corners get a rating without thinking as you approach and go through them. This is a good thing - you don't want to be worrying about understanding your notes part way though a rally. It has to be a second language. Even with all this preparation, it still feels different at rally pace, and mistakes in the notes can be very costly.
Noise Testing
Upon returning to Rally HQ, we found that life hadn't been boring for the pit crews that day. Although the Gemini passed with flying (albeit rusty) colours, they had decided to do noise tests on the cars - with some spectacularly bad results. It was impossible to buy steel wool anywhere in Caloundra that day - every bit was sold to pro rally teams!
There were multiple solutions to the noise problem. Possum's team failed the test, plugged in the laptop, adjusted a few numbers, and passed easily, though they were seen using the laptop later, presumably to re-adjust things back...
Bates' team actually modified the exhaust with a muffler and baffles to quieten down the Corolla, but the most entertainment came from the Silverstone team. Many of the teams failed 3 or 4 times, but none like these guys. They tried jamming anything in sight up the exhaust - steel wool, T-shirts, tools, but every time they started it, it would blow it out within 10 seconds. The solution was to drop the entire pipe, jam it in at the turbo end, push the car up to the scrutineers, start it, noise test it, and stop it ASAP. All this in the hope that whatever was jammed in the pipe would take a little while to work through all the way to the back, even with 3-inch mandrels. It did work though, and a quick blip on the throttle cleaned it out soon enough, back to its usual raucous self...
Walking around all this expensive machinery is very impressive, although the cost is daunting. Some things are a little overboard, like the driving lights on the Subaru team's trucks. Hella Predator Xenon Discharge lights on each of them, worth $1600 each. While I can't afford them for the rally car, they run them on the support vehicles... At the equivalent output of 200 watts of the whitest light possible, they draw only 35 watts!
First Stage
Competition started technically that night, with the Gemini seeded towards the rear of the field, although not last thankfully.
Number 66 out of 74 cars to be exact.
The first stage was a transport to the ceremonial start at Caloundra. This is the opportunity for the general public, sponsors and media to get a good look at the shiny cars, with no dents or dust in sight. It is a good feeling to go over the ramps - in previous years I had been just another spectator admiring and dreaming. The range of entries was quite varied, primarily consisting of 4WD turbos, with the odd surprise thrown in. Viv Gees was there as always in the mighty 2-door XB V8 Falcon, a car totally unsuited to rallying, but which he pilots with precision that has to be seen to be believed.
The real stages started in the morning, with a bitumen hillclimb. Both the Gemini and I are not set up for this type of stage and performed woefully, even against the other Gemini in the field. Hopefully the dirt was going to be another matter, however. After a brief service, it was out into the stages for some of the fastest roads in Queensland. For a rush, there's not much that compares to crossing a single lane bridge on dirt at 180 km/h, but I seriously recommend a cage and harness.
The Gemini performed well and reliably, with us passing Yorkie in the other Gemini after he had a minor 'off'. Even having the new navigator wasn't a big problem, and things started to flow. There were 14 stages to do that day, some over 30km long - and that's a long way under these conditions. After every 4 or 5 stages there is a service, and we had assistance from the professional team next door while their Evo Lancer was out. They had accidentally taken our spot, so offered to help service the Gemini in apology; this is the type of attitude that is so prevalent in the sport.
The old Gemini must have been shocked at having a speed service done, with multiple jacks, rattle guns and people at each wheel - I know I was!
Alongside Number One
As a nice coincidence I frequently found myself waiting for time control along with the Number 1 car, Possum's Subaru Impreza. I admit we jumped on the opportunity for photos, although his team looked a bit irritated when we slowed them up during refuel. Unfortunately Geminis don't have quick fill fuel systems for service, unlike the WRC Impreza. But if he wants to donate one.....
The final four stages of the day were at night and I could feel the fatigue starting to take effect. Dust is the biggest problem at night, as with no wind it hangs in the air and despite having six lights on the front, you can't see. Sure enough, on the third night stage we ran wide on a corner that I should have recognized (I ran the spectator point there last year) and tore a tyre clean off the rim. About 3 minutes was lost on the side of the road doing a 'rapid' (slow and swearing) change in the dark, the distance remaining being much too far to drive on it.
The adrenalin of that sort of incident will often throw you off and it is difficult to get back into the rhythm. It was only 5 kilometres further on that I ran wide again, this time with the tail. I saw the stump and managed to miss it, but it turned out that it clipped the back while I was busy keeping the front wheels on the road and heading in the right direction.
Injured
These things generally come in threes so it was time to worry about what was next. Sure enough, on the same particularly long stage with still another 5 kilometres to go, on a particularly hard landing I heard a muffled groan from Peter. The notes stopped being called, and I had to slow pace as well as trying to ascertain if we needed medical help. Pete kind of pulled it together enough to get us out of the stage. On the hard landing he had jarred his neck badly and was in considerable pain. Amazingly he decided to finish the short last stage and we did a reasonable time before heading back to service.
Back in service around 10pm the team did what they could to patch up the rear of the car, while Peter was checked out by the doctors. Unfortunately the report that came back wasn't positive, and with a possibly damaged disc, they advised he not continue to race. If he did, the consequences could be severe and permanent.
I couldn't believe it!
After all that, the car was still intact and raceable, but I had broken my Navigator.
In rallying you race as a team: Driver, Navigator and Car. As such, substitution of any of these is not allowed and so we would have to withdraw from the next day's competition. The only consolation was that the Gemini didn't look like some of the other cars - either having rushed panel beating done, or on trailers out of the race. Steve Wall in the Byron Bay Hat Co WRX was one who had a car looking decidedly second-hand.
The funniest scene in service was Steve Shepherd's car (GSA Wholesale Suspension). Both Steve and his father George race Group A Evo 6 Lancers, and they also happen to supply the tyres for the Gemini series. He had told us just the other day what the front end of an Evo 6 Lancer was worth with bonnet, guards, spoiler, intercooler etc. Well he had rubbed it on a bank and damaged every one of those expensive carbon and alloy parts he had listed to us a week before! The funny bit was they were stripping George's road Evo Lancer for parts, to get the race car back into the competition. Hope it wasn't a long walk home for George.
With us out of the race the next day it was down to spectating and commiserating with the other teams that had broken their cars.
Recovery Car
Just for fun we decided to do one of the stages as a recovery car after the rally finished - using a Nissan Navara.
This was provided the final entertainment for the weekend. About 2 kilometres in we came onto the first car on the side of the road. A Datsun 240K with a mammoth motor and smashed diff. Taking it under tow we headed out of the stage. After talking with the Datsun driver on the radio however, we convinced them to let us turn around and tow them back into the forestry. That way both we could both complete the stage. The officials manning the corners must have thought we were all mad.
The next vehicle off was a Mazda 121, over the edge of bank and 15 metres down. This was time to engage 4WD and pull him up with a couple of snatch straps. Amazingly we saw him driving the car home to Brisbane that night.
The final rescue was the most interesting. An Evo III Lancer had lost it coming over a very high speed Right on Crest and headed into the scrub. The car had spun around, sliding 150 metres before ploughing tail-first into a large pine tree. This effectively transformed it into an Evo III Mirage Hatch, the entire boot now being level with the back wheels.
The first step to get him out was to clear the lantana. This is tough stuff, and leaves stinging prickles in your hands that hurt for days after. With perfect timing a local timber cutter turned up with the biggest chainsaw I have ever seen and with only a couple of words proceeded to make a clear path out through the scrub. The owner and driver of the Lancer were concerned over the front of the car, as this is where the expensive bits like spoiler and intercooler are mounted. He was rather shocked then when we started to pull him out. It appeared he hadn't seen a snatch strap before, and even in 4WD, the Navara was spinning wheels pulling the Evo. It shook him up a bit them when we got a run up and started snatching the Evo III out of the scrub by its very expensive front end. It worked a treat though, the owner being impressed enough to offer a test-drive once it was repaired. I'm going to hold him to that - I am sure an Evo Lancer is more fun than a Gemini...
Next Year
Hopefully we'll be back to race next year, and make a few people laugh at the idea of a Gemini competing against WRXs and Evo Lancers. All I can saw is that driving anything in a rally is better than sitting there driving a remote control watching and it on TV. If you can't afford to race, at least get out there and spectate, or assist as on official.
Rallying is one hell of a way to race.
Oh, and if you think you can't be competitive in a Gemini, Yorkie took out 3rd place in the Queensland Championship Outright this season, with a Laser driven by the Carrigoonies coming first. 4WD turbo's aren't everything - just ask the guys with them that got beaten....
