Ok, in true 2 Brits style, its now been a month since we won the 2014 Empire State Performance Rally, so it's probably about time I wrote a little something about it!

Wow, where do I start? What a weekend!



Let's set the stage here a little. As we have announced before, this season is dedicated to tarmac rallying. Since 2008 we have competed on gravel, mud, snow, ice and a lovely mix of them all in the 2010 Rocky Mountain Rally, but other than test days at Cayuga Motor Speedway & the regional event based at Shannonville Motorsports Park we have never competed in a full tarmac closed road event.

Objectives of the event? Finish!, don't blow up the engine, test out our new DMack tires and figure out how to handle the car in a completely new rally environment. Sounds simple enough. 

Our expectations? Put in a decent effort representing the Canadian rally community, not make complete fools of ourselves and finish in a respectable position considering the tarmac experience we had coming into the event, knowing we would be competing against some very quick & experienced teams.  We were originally hoping for a top 5 finish. We knew that the majority of the ESPR competitors were 'regulars' and would know the roads well with our only possible saving grace being a rumor that some of the roads had changed slightly and therefore competitors may be seeing some parts of the stages for the first time like ourselves.

Car preparation for the event was no easy task.  The majority of the prep was done before the Shannonville Stages Rally, Round 2 in the Ontario Performance Rally Championship (see "on route to Shannonville Stages Rally" in the blog) . Using SSR as a shakedown for ESPR we found the issue with the transmission jumping out of gear was still ongoing.  Further alterations were made to attempt to correct this issue. We also found at SSR that the rubber front suspension bushes were not up to the job and (on the advice of good friend and fellow Canadian competitor Chris Martin) switched them to polyurethane ones. 

So other than the usual bolt check, fluid check and general all round cleaning, the car seemed good to go.....other than a drive clean......and therefore stickered plate.....oh and race gas!!

Yes, of course its too good to be true when you think you have everything planned out in advance, come on...this is rallying we are talking about here.  Once it was confirmed we could run on a temporary plate sticker we were able to finish packing the car and gear and concentrate on picking up the race gas that was being mixed last minute, and setting off on our 9 hour journey to Rock Hill on the Thursday afternoon.

Nick was flying into an airport 90 minutes away from HQ, hiring a car (the recce vehicle....hey it got off lightly, its a tarmac event, at least it wasn't our usual gravel beating) and meeting us there.  The 'plan' was for myself to make it to registration Thursday night in order to gather up the competitor pack, organize what we needed for tech and start working on my recce plan and route book. 

Unfortunately the "we couldn't get our hands on any race gas" from our regular supplier Thursday afternoon had us scrambling to find something other than fresh air to run the car on.  Nick was questioning whether he should get on the flight to New York.....to which we replied "just get on the darn plane, we'll figure it out somehow!". Several Google searches, phone calls and emails later we found a supplier over the border in New York State that sold an equivalent, and could get us a barrel, but closed at 5pm.  Touch and go if we would make it, but we had to try!

Smooth sailing over the border meant that we made it to the gas supplier just after 5 but he waited around for us with our event-saving barrel of race gas.  Fantastic! Now to make it to registration in Rock Hill before it closed at 10pm.  Lets see....Google maps says Lockport, NY to Rock Hill, NY is 5 hours.  Add to that a truck towing a trailer......with a dog on board stopping every so often, and not leaving Lockport until 6pm? yeah, not going to happen.  Eventually pulling into our accommodation around midnight with Nick just arriving himself we were going to have to get some sleep and head into Rock Hill early for registration before recce Friday morning.

Registration & Recce - Friday April 25th

Up bright and early for a 0700 registration, who needs sleep before an event anyway?

Centred in the town of Rock Hill, New York, the Headquarters for the Empire State Performance Rally is based a the Rock Hill Fire Department.  Fantastic location and great hospitality shown by everyone there. 

After meeting event organizer Fran Gager (who had been extremely helpful to us leading up to the event), and getting ourselves registered it was time to head out on recce.  Good friend Donal Crooke who had also traveled down from Ontario with co-driver Bruce Leonard had advised us the best route for recce would be to start with the stages furthest away near Monticello - Kutcher's Run and Anawana Lake (same stage but run in both directions), head over the top to Meegan's Flags and therefore Neversink Drive (which was 3/4 of Meegans), before heading back into Rock Hill to recce Fireman's Run and Charlie's Bluff.  The Monticello Race Track would be recce'd on the Sunday morning before we ran the stage. 

All in all, recce went well.  Course notes were supplied in the form of Jemba, but where possible, we prefer to write our own, so it was important for us to schedule our recce time appropriately.  We were able to run 2 passes of each stage, and I found we made a lot more changes to our notes on the 2nd pass compared to when we run on gravel. Second pass through you can usually go a little faster, and it seemed we were changing the speeds on a lot of our corners from the first pass. Tarmac was going to be a lot quicker than gravel and we therefore had to note our corners for more speed than we were used to.  This meant marking them as a lower grade of corner, ie. 4L- instead of a 4L+  etc to slow us down more into them.  Nick also noted for less grip that we actually had in the rally, therefore taking a more cautious approach in the notes.  As long as the notes were consistent, if we found on stage we had been a little too cautious, he could change his driving style accordingly.

Obviously with it being tarmac roads, not all of the stage was made up of twisty technical corners like we are used to with the logging trails at Tall Pines for example. So in most of the stages, to keep the speed average down and slow us in any dangerous areas that we could have reached ridiculous speeds (although saying that, as you will see with the Meegan's Flags stage we managed to reach some pretty spectacular speeds on the faster runs by the river) there were chicanes in place.  Well marked in both the routebook and on the stage road itself for recce.

As usual we had a "...300 over squirrel...." note in there, and down by the river on the Meegan's Flags & Neversink Drive stages, Nick was quick to point out the depth of the water being very shallow.  The stage was run along the riverbank with a few trees separating us from the water.  Not my favourite part of a rally I will admit, but it is always good to take in your surroundings, not just what's right in front of you. 

Having always competed in kilometres I was constantly reminding us both it was in miles, and with no stage marker boards set out yet, it was important for us to make sure we knew exactly where the starts & finishes were.  One of my favourite notes in the route book was for a stage finish, marked as "at small fir tree"!! haha

Tech, Shakedown & Parc Expose - Friday April 25th

With recce complete, it was time to head to tech and get the car prepped for the afternoon Shakedown.  As it was a NASA event we had to take off all of our Canadian Rally door cards and windshield banners etc, to make room for the new stickers.  Sad to see them being peeled off, but the car looked fantastic with the new decals!

Once the couple of issues we had at tech were all ironed out we received the go-ahead to take part in the Shakedown. 

Shakedown was being held over near Monticello utilizing a section of the shorter 2.85mile (4.5km) Kutcher's Run stage that we would be seeing on the Saturday leg of the event.  This would be our first time on a tarmac stage at speed with the rally car set up for such conditions (Rallye Defi in Quebec has a tarmac stage but we run it with a gravel set-up), so it was both exciting and nerve wracking.  Exciting obviously because we were back in a rally car, but nerve wracking because we really didn't want to do something stupid and end our rally before it had even begun!

We managed 3 or 4 runs through with no car issues only driver issues! hahaha, no not really, just a bit of a grandma first run through, getting a feel for the road, and the way the car handled it.  There were a couple of corners with gravel on the inside, so of course Nick was drawn to those! (as subsequent photos and videos of the event will show!) but it was good to get out there and push the car to see how it reacted to the surface, speed and nature of the road in a non-competition setting before the real fun stuff started in the morning. 

Once Shakedown was complete, there were a couple of hours for Iain from Planet Motorsport to make sure the car was looking & feeling good, gassed up and already to start the event.  We would be going from service into parc expose then on to parc ferme for the night, therefore it had to be rally ready before we put it to bed!

Parc Expose was held on the main street so spectators, teams and crew could all mingle and inspect the competitions' vehicles!  Even the heaven's opening couldn't put too much of a dampener on proceedings!

Following parc expose and the Rally Car Parade down the main street complete with Rock Hill Fire Department trucks and lots of spectators, we headed to parc ferme for the night.  Forecast had been for sunshine, but the rain, which looked like it might go on for a while, had us worrying the dry tarmac tires we'd put on the car probably weren't the correct choice!! We'd have to wait and see what the skies were looking like in the morning.

All that's left to do is pack everything away in the trailer and head back to the hotel....oh and work on my notes until about 2am! That's usually the way it goes!!

Bring on 2014 Empire State Performance Rally......we're ready for you!!

What a great day of Tarmac rallying, with a little bit of dirt added for some excitement. Starting the day off with a good idea of what we wanted to get out of it, which is always well intentioned, we didn't think we'd be quite where we ended up (but pretty close).



Starting the day off we really wanted to see how the DMACKs held up from a cold start. Track temp wasn't exactly balmy so we figured they would last for a good portion of the day. The first stage is always a bit jittery when you haven't driven the car for a little while, so we really didn't know what to expect from the car, tires, or driver!!

At the start of the first stage we knew we would have some competition from the group, but unfortunately one dropped out all too soon. Lining up behind Ian and James, we could see them have a poor start with the car obviously having issues right out of the gate. Shame really because they're always fun to have around for the day and Ian knows the track well from what I understand.



We ultimately were following behind Peter Thompson, who is always incredibly quick at Shannonville and definitely has the equipment to have a great result. With Martin Donnelly behind us, also very quick and competent on Tarmac (no surprise really given that he's Irish. I'm pretty sure it's a genetic trait!). Warren Heywood rounded out the group, he would also be very competitive although perhaps a little bit underpowered against the stronger running open class cars. Good thing he is able to drive the pants off his car to keep up!



Starting the first stage was all about getting used to the tires. We went out well but had to remember to keep it sticky and tight, as opposed to slidey and loose which would be how we normally run! Car felt great for the whole run and we had a good mix of on the limit braking as well as some slightly sideways action, courtesy of Warren making some large cuts and dragging a bunch of mud out onto the track. He'll deny it vehemently, but the colour of his car at the end of the event didn't lie!



Favourite part of this section of the track was probably the chicane before the pit straight. We had a fairly solid line coming through and the felt good and strong pulling out. Good practice for ESPR since there's a number of chicanes there to break up the faster straights.



Coming into the end of the stage, we felt like we'd gained a little time on Peter Thompson, however Martin Donnelly pulled in a little sooner than we would have liked, meaning he closed the gap a bit and gained some time on us.

Second stage time and we lined up for the recce part of the stage. We haven't run Shannonville since they introduced the gravel section at the back of the track, so this was going to be new to us. As we came through on recce I could see how it was possible to go off in here and really ruin your day. Even running through slowly there were obvious dust problems and the tires didn't want to grip at all on the loose stuff.



We started off the stage fairly strong but soon realized that although the tarmac is fun once in a while (or all year as with the case for 2014) the gravel is really where I'm most comfortable as a driver. It felt like each time we hit the gravel section we may have picked up some time on the other competitors. At times as we came through it was a little dusty, but staying committed to the notes, we pressed on and made up time. There were only a couple of slightly loose moments, but still in control and we finished the stage with very few issues.



Although we didn't know where we were sitting on the day, we know now we dropped 24s on the first stage and only 4.5s on the second stage to then leader Martin Donnelly.



All good and on to service.

Service number one and there weren't really any problems to fix. More tire discussion than anything else to figure out what to test or go out on for the next loop. Iain from Planet Motorsport always has some interesting advice from a number of years in Canadian rallying and we decided on running the Michelin's for the second loop, partly to see the comparison and partly to save the DMACKs for ESPR.



Out we go for the second loop which was the first pass of the long stage with the whole pack running together. We knew there would potentially be some passing in this group, which can be interesting, but also a little odd for rally drivers!



Everything was going well and we were catching and passing a few cars, but after about 3 laps we had an issue which I'll put purely down to inexperience on tarmac. We didn't know at the time, but we had a long lock up on the inside front tire coming into some heavy braking. Huge plume of tire smoke (which was thought by the crew in the stands to be any number of things from lockup to blown engine) and we had an issue. We kept pushing but the car felt like it was running on a flat but with none of the negative affects. Since we had a lot of laps left to run and didn't want to damage the car if 'something' let go, we decided it safer to pull off and go to service. Thanks to the unique setup of Shannonville Stages rally, there's open service and you take the time penalty on the stage. A shame because we were running well, but necessary.



Pulling into service we had the Planet Motorsport crew check out the issues and found a substantial flat spot on the right front tire. The car was up on stands and it was decided to check it out for any other ill effects. Upon closer investigation it seems there was a bushing that was failing and needed to be changed out. With some help from Chris Martin and of course Iain, they had it changed out pretty quickly and got us ready for the restart on the next stage.

Restarting the third loop of stages, the flat spot had really cost us a lot of time. The restart rules allow you to take the fastest time on the DNFd stage plus a 5 minute time penalty. This would effectively put us way out of contention unless other people also had issues.

We went out for the final three stages and had a relatively trouble free loop. Some great fun at the back of the track through the gravel and some interesting progression throughout the day.

On the final stage, we really felt like we were pushing the car and setting some good times, which was evident by us winning the stage by 8 seconds over Peter Thompson. Unfortunately Martin Donnelly retired earlier in the day so we weren't able to see how we're stacking up to the early leader.

Overall a great rally day and we had a lot of fun, but waiting for the results and podium was a great display of sportsmanship and patience! Nobody really had an idea of where we had finished with almost everybody having an issue throughout the day and taking a 5 minute penalty.

Results were recalculated about 5 times with errors caught by different people, but ultimately we came out with a solid 2nd place overall, narrowly missing 1st place by 8s had we taken off the 5 minute penalty. Peter Thompson took the overall win with a solid drive.

Time to focus on prepping for ESPR, which is why I'm sitting in Chicago airport right now, drinking a Sam Adams, waiting for the flight to Westchester, NY.

First rally of the season!!!! Excited to be getting back into the car after 4 1/2 months off. Missed the smell of race gas, the adrenaline rush, the camaraderie of our crew & fellow competitors.....oh and my race seat! I LOVE my race seat......

So it's the Shannonville Stages Rally today. Close to Belleville, Ontario, SSR is the 2nd round in the Ontario Performance Rally Championship. The only OPRC event on the 2 Brits calendar this year unfortunately but I think the others will make up for that!

SSR is a tarmac event held at Shannonville Motorsport Park. Although just to keep it interesting they throw in a short gravel & dirt section to check you are still paying attention. As we tend to predominantly race on gravel the car had to go through a couple of alterations in order to handle the tarmac better.

So to start off with let's talk brakes.

When we rally on gravel we run Subaru Group N four pot calipers (on the front) with Ferodo DS3000 pads. Tire manufacturers only produce 15" tires for gravel and therefore in order for the wheels to clear the calipers we are limited to the size of brakes we can use.

For tarmac we are able to obtain 17" (& greater) tires, therefore larger rims & bigger brakes. We choose to run 17" tires as opposed to 18" as it gives a little more movement in the sidewall & a slightly more progressive breakaway, suiting Nick's driving style a little better.

This enables us to fit Brembo calipers and larger Ferodo DS3000 pads, giving us a larger braking area and therefore more stopping power! We also fitted slotted rotors to improve breaking.

Next up: Suspension

Using the same DMS suspension that we use for gravel we just lowered it and altered the settings. We left the gravel springs on which you wouldn't normally do for track racing but mindful of the jumps & rougher surfaces of our other 2 tarmac events this year we need more ride flexibility.

As well as altering the settings the whole suspension was removed, cleaned & serviced.

Rebuilt the steering rack

With a number of years under its belt the steering rack started to have a little bit of play in it. Not a huge issue on gravel but on tarmac where you need a little more precision we decided to have it rebuilt.

The rest of the checks & improvements were either fixing issues we had from Tall Pines or our regular routine bolt check.

One issue we found at Pines was that the car was jumping out of 3rd gear. We found the gear linkage was too close to the bodywork and not letting it engage fully. Modifications were made to the linkage & hopefully that has sorted out that problem.

During the bolt check we also found we had sheared a cross member bolt, so that was replaced along with fluids and a wiper blade that may or may not have been taken at some point over the winter for my car......

Once this was all complete, all that was left was an alignment and a good cleaning! With taking the steering rack out and adjusting it the alignment is necessary to ensure the wheels are sitting how they should and that the steering wheel is centred.

Now we are ready to go rallying!!!

The aim of the event for us today, along with having a ton of fun as usual, is to get a feel for the set up of the car & test our new tires!

Along with our regular Michelin Pilot Cup tires we have brought with us a set of DMack DMT-RC T7, basically a medium compound tarmac tire.

As well as the dry tarmac tire we also picked up a set of wets, the DMack DMT-RC W2. Which we hopefully won't have to try today but will more than likely need for Scotland in October!!

Once we have gotten a feel for the DMacks we will switch back to the Michelins to finish the day, as don't want to waste them before we get to put them to the test out on a closed road rally stage!!

Good news - temp is above freezing, very few clouds in the sky, and Nick made it up from Ohio as he's currently tucked in behind us on the highway!

Let's go racing!!!!

Entries are now complete for Shannonville Stages Rally & Empire State Performance Rally (ESPR). Looking forward to those events.

Major planning in the works for the October running of the Mull Rally. Even get a mention in the Mull Rally newsletter this week!!

http://57north.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/i/83AB7153664B9F06

As a lot of you will know we (as a team) are taking this year off from rally in Canada in order to prepare the car for a trip to Scotland (hopefully-fingers crossed still) in October this year.

The Mull Rally based on the Isle of Mull, off the western coast of Scotland is a tarmac rally that has a long history with our family.

Both parents have competed here in the past, Nigel as a driver and Lou as a co-driver, for separate teams (before we were born, so YEARS ago!!) and close family friends still compete here every year. Some of our fondest memories as young kids are our vacations up to Mull with close family friends watching the Mull Rally. Nick was quite young so he probably doesn't remember the rallying quite as well as I do, but I still remember the excitement of our parents waking us up in the night to go watch some of the night stages.

With a 'Mull Reunion' in the cards, dad felt it was only fitting that we should take our car over & compete.

I say our entry is still in the 'fingers crossed' stage as it all depends on our ability to obtain the appropriate licensing & eligibility of the car. So the organizing of all that is what is occupying our time currently.

Like I said, Mull is a tarmac rally & other than a stage at Rallye Defi & a couple of Shannonville events, all our events have been on gravel or snow & ice. The car is currently with the crew at Planet Motorsport getting any issues cleared up from Tall Pines last year & making any switches necessary for tarmac rallying.

Our current aim is to enter Shannonville Stages Rally(our only OPRC event this year) in early April for some prep time with a tarmac set up before heading to the Empire State Performance Rally in New York at the end of the month. Hopefully ESPR will give us the chance to get a feel for the car in a stage rally setting; allow us to better judge breaking zones, see how the car handles on tarmac tires with a different set-up to what we are used to etc. I say "we" but I suppose that's for Nicks' benefit. It allows me as the co-driver to see what kind of crazy speed I'm letting myself in for, while having no control over the vehicle itself! Then again, if I didn't love it, I wouldn't do it!

So right now, CRC licence applications are complete, ESPR early entry will be complete by the end of the week, and our Shannonville entry should be in soon after that.

Stay tuned for photos & details on the changes we are making to the car for these events as well as write ups on the events themselves.

Another early start to the day had us removing the car from overnight storage at 0645.  After adding the new @2britsracing vinyls that showed spectators how to follow us on Twitter throughout the rally & making sure my belts were adjusted after shakedown, all we had left was to check into Parc Expose and wait for the adrenaline fueled day to begin.
The great thing about Parc Expose is that it gives us a few minutes before the drivers meeting to relax and time to chat with fellow competitors.  It's also an opportunity for fans & spectators to be able to take an up-close look at the vehicles and ask questions if they want to.  We always keep a few stickers & post cards handy to give out to people, its great to see their interest and enthusiasm for what we do.

Time off the start line at HQ for us was 0918, heading to Upper Old Hastings for the first stage of the day.  With a total of 16 stages, 190 stage KMs and over 300 transit KMs, it was going to be a long day!
After the shakedown Friday night, Nick had made the decision to start out on our Nokian Hakkapeliitta ice tires.  The rally schedule was such that we had 2 stages then service: Upper Old Hastings then Old Detlor.  U.H. was icy on recce, as was the majority of Detlor; we were expecting snow for the first few KM of Detlor but overall it would be pretty polished, so the ice tires were the logical choice.  If he felt we'd made the wrong choice of tire, we only had 2 stages to battle through before service where we'd be able to switch them if necessary.

Transit to the first stage is always a little nerve wracking, yet exciting, and having not competed since Pines 2012, it seemed to be a little more intense than usual.  The media team had fixed 2 GoPro cameras into our car with an audio feed.  One camera facing out the windshield and one facing back into the car to catch our reactions on the stages.  I think this added to the tension a little, knowing that someone else will see all our footage & hear our pacenotes and reactions.  It's also a team joke that I'm not the most reliable at turning our own GoPro on and off.  I think we have more transit footage that stage footage to be honest!

Stages A1, A2

Pulling up to the start line of stage A1 we fall back into our old routine like we'd just rallied the weekend before, not 12 months ago.  At the start of every stage we ALWAYS go through our safety check: it usually starts with Nick asking "Belts tight?"....yes.  "Helmet done up?"....yes.  "HANS attached?".....yes.  Then I go through the same questions to him.  It might seem a little excessive to some, but having had a rather extensive crash in 2010, safety of ourselves in the vehicle is a HUGE priority when we race. 
I then go over the first handful of corners for Nick, whilst keeping an eye on the clock.  Once the start lights turn on its 15 seconds to stage start......10 seconds.......5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!

The 11.09km of Stage 1 goes reasonable for us.  Setting a respectable 9th fastest stage time, we felt the ice tires were a good choice as it was incredibly slippery.  The suspension felt like it was hopping a little and we were getting some noise in the front right, but the car seemed to handle the stage well.
Next onto A2 - Old Detlor.  12.12km of snowy wooded trails, opening up to a short tarmac section then onto wider polished icy roads.  The northern section of the stage incorporated the popular Tait Farm intersection, the Iron Bridge spectator area and the final corners up passed the spectators and VIP tent to the finish. 
The first 1/3 of the stage was on the trails through the snow.  The ice tires proved to be very much the wrong choice in here & Nick had a bit of a battle with the car if it got off line.  However, once we made it through that section it was incredibly icy from then on.  The short tarmac section was as interesting as usual with us VERY sideways and close to the mail boxes - got to give the spectators something to watch right?!

The rest of the stage went ok with us setting an 8th fastest stage time.  Nick felt it was quite slow and was a little disappointed with our performance, but the time didn't really reflect that.  So the first 2 stages done & back to service. 

Notes for Serv 1:
- Hopping back suspension
- Front right noise
- Brakes smelling very hot
- Switch Tires
The next 3 stages were going to be a repeat of U.H., then Iron Bridge North (last 1/2 of Old Detlor), then the Peanut stage.  Knowing Peanut was mostly snow, Nick felt it was sensible to switch to our Yokohama AO34 snow tires.  Not as good on the ice as the Hakkas, but wouldn't be too bad, and if we did get off line they'd handle the snow.  The AO34s also have a thicker sidewall than the Hakkas, being a rally specific snow tire & therefore, we felt, a better choice for the rougher Peanut stage.

On arrival at service, we tend to sit in line at time control for a few minutes waiting for our check in time.  We use this time wisely to go through any issues with our Planet Motorsport mechanics, listing off the things we need to take a look at and giving them a general overview of the car's performance. 
No one other than Nick or myself are allowed to touch anything on the car until we are checked in for our 20 minute service so you will see crews standing with visible distance between themselves and the vehicles.  However, as has happened in the past, Nick or myself are allowed to do any repairs, or prep work for repairs while we wait, under the direction of our crew if necessary.  Hasn't happened often, but when every minute of a 20 minute service counts (as in the case of changing a shattered rear strut for example at the 2008 Rallye Baie Des Chaleurs) anything we can get done to it in the couple of minutes we are waiting in line is useful.  When we check into service, you will usually find me out of the car so that as soon as we are into our minute, Nick can drive the car straight to our crew, while I wait for our time card.  May only be the difference of 30 seconds, but you never know when you might need that extra 1/2 minute!

No issues found with the front right, tires were switched, and no brake issues found either.
The suspension however was another matter.  The breather tubes for the rear suspension had sucked in water, this had then frozen and caused the struts to stiffen up.  Hence why the car was hopping in the back end. A couple of heat guns and 2 big guys (Nick & Nigel!) jumping up and down in the trunk seemed to resolve the issue, and we were good to go!

Stages A3, A4, A5

Once out of service, regroup & refuel, we headed out to the next set of stages. A repeat of Upper Hastings, Iron Bridge Northbound (Northern half of Old Detlor) and then Peanut.
Nothing too exciting with the first 2, and even though we had switched to the snow tires, our second pass of Hastings was actually 4 seconds faster than our first pass (6th fastest stage time), and we set a 7th fastest time through Iron Bridge.
Then it was onto Peanut. 
At 14.27km in length, Peanut is notorious for its roughness and tricky narrow route through the woods.  It then opens up for the last 5km onto a wider faster road to the finish.  Proving to be as challenging as ever, we managed to slide straight through 3 of 4 T-junctions, and even with warnings of "caution turn 3R very slippy" for the 4th, we still ran very wide.  Those mistakes gave us a 10th fastest stage time, yet we managed to hold onto a 6th place overall up to that point.

With Peanut completed it was back to service.  Not a lot to do this time.

Notes for Serv 2:
- Popping out of gear - We found the car jumped out of gear several times on these stages. Not sure exactly what could be done about it, but we added it to the list
- Check the suspension again - Still didn't feel 100% so need to check it. Going into the longest leg of the rally next so better to be safe than sorry.
- Check the AO34s to see how worn they are and decided whether to switch to a new set.
- Lights on - Even though we were checking into service around 1pm, with the next loop of stages taking us through 80km of transit and about 58km of stage mileage, it was entirely possible that if there was even a slight delay in the rally then we would be running stages as the sun was starting to set. Not good when the last stage in the group was the wooded Egan Creek stage. Hence the lights.
Everything got dealt with, including changing our coolant overflow bottle....AKA a gatorade bottle....which somehow seemed to have sprung a leak!
The AO34s we had on looked good so we decided to leave the same set on and save the other tires for later,  with a lot more stage mileage still to go.
No visible suspension issues, and not a lot to be done about the shifter jumping out of gear.
Lights on and off we went to the longest loop of stages: Iron Bridge South (7.99km), Middle Old Hastings (7.28km), Lower Old Hastings (14.5km) and then Egan Creek (27.46km).

Stage A6, A7, A8, A9

Stage A6 Iron Bridge South was again mostly uneventful.....but very slippery, with a 2km section of it covering the Shakedown stage, so incredibly polished.
Coming down the off camber corner just before the bridge itself we started to get a little wide and for a split second it looked like we weren't going to recover from it, but Nick managed to regain control and we made it to the bridge without taking out any trees!! Of course, spectator video footage only shows the bridge crossing, so we look like we're out for a Sunday drive........but trust me......we were moving a lot quicker than that!!!

Iron Bridge was definitely not our favourite stage of the day, and our suspension didn't like the huge jump mid-stage but we managed an 8th fastest stage time putting us into 5th place. 

Next up were Middle and Lower Old Hastings. Basically the notes read "jump into jump...into big jump....into stay right over huge jump...." with a few corners thrown in for good measure.....oh yeah, and on ice......
Hastings and I are not best of friends, whereas Nick LOVES the stages. The more air the better in his case!
With a 6th fastest stage time (only 0.1 seconds off the 5th fastest stage time of Besner/Ockwell) on Middle Hastings, I think it was the longest 7km of my life!! how we made it through I'm not quite sure.....well I am...it was all down to Nick, as my co-driving skills for that stage were pitiful!!! Knowing we had to do a second pass of it in the dark was not sitting well with me.  I believe our tweet for that stage went something like "Crazy middle hastings.  Nick loved it. Kelly hated it".  Enough said!

Transiting to Lower Old Hastings A8, the car suddenly died as we were driving.  It started straight away, and we dismissed it as just a strange occurrence. Until it happened 2 or 3 more times leading up to time control at the stage start  With the last time taking much longer before it would restart.  The issue seemed to be the ignition, as all power was completely lost, and it eventually started after fiddling with the key and keeping our fingers crossed.  Not a great feeling when we knew we still had 14km of A8 then 27+km of Egan Creek to go.
After Middle Hastings I was determined to get my notes back on track and we were going well, right up until the point where we lost all power going over a crest midway through the stage and managed to coast to the next one. 
Now stopped on stage with only 60 seconds separating us and the next car, Nick usually gets about 5 seconds to start the car/get us out of a ditch/fix the issue etc before I'm unhooking the intercom, popping my belts, out the car and grabbing my triangle. No luck with the ignition, so off I run back down the stage with my triangle to warn the approaching cars  of our disabled vehicle in the road.  As I'm running to a safe enough distance that will give other competitors time to see me and adjust their speed accordingly, Nick manages to start it.
I hear this, yet I'm unable to do anything until the next car has passed us.  Its very important to wait until the next car passes you as it then gives you essentially 60 seconds to return to your car, belt up and get back on the road.  If you don't wait for that car, and you remove your triangle and now have your back to traffic, the other vehicles have no warning that you or your disabled vehicle are there.  VERY UNSAFE!!!!!
Once I know the other car has seen me, and having slowed them down enough for them to pass our car safely I am able to take off running back up the stage.  Yes, us co-drivers very often get quite the workout too you know!
Having secured my triangle and belted up we can take off again.  However, I didn't even get chance to plug in my intercom and see where we were in the notes before Nick was pulling over into a driveway only a handful of corners on from where we had stopped.  FLAT TIRE!!! Normally we would drive out on it, but Nick must have felt it was not handling well for us to pull over mid-stage and change it.
So once again, belts off, triangle out, and I take off running back down the stage again.....note to self.......must train harder at the gym......
While changing the left rear tire, I notice we had also blown the left front tire.  No idea where or how we had done it, but now our quick tire change was turning out to be a long affair and as the clock was ticking, we were sliding steadily down the results board.
After taking us more than 10 minutes to change the 2 tires (including digging out the frozen ground to get the jack under the car!) we were now back on stage.  However.......because nothing is ever simple, the intercom system is not working, and while attempting to fix that, trying to find where we are in the pacenotes at that point is very difficult.  When this happens, Nick just starts reading the road to me so that I can find where we are, so we tend to look for a corner, uphill note or big jump that stands out.  However, before we can find that, we catch two cars. 
So now we have no intercom.....no notes.....and we are behind 2 other rally cars. Suddenly I find where we are and I'm now yelling as loud as I can to make myself heard.  We manage to pass the 2 cars on stage, and try to make up as much time as possible.  Finally reaching the end of the stage, I don't think I had much of a voice left!! Obviously we were the slowest car on stage, a full 13 minutes behind where we should have been sitting, dropping us down to 17th place. 
No time to really worry about that now, we needed to make it to the next stage and find where we had to slot back into the pack.  Still had 27km of Egan Creek to run!!

A9 Egan Creek stage at 27.46km is my favourite stage at the Tall Pines rally. Starting off the first 4km fast and flowing on icy wider roads it soon takes a T right uphill into the narrow, wooded trails, requiring your full attention, accuracy and quick hands if you want to drive it at any form of speed! It then opens up, like Peanut, for the last 8km of the stage.
No sooner had we turned into the woods and we blew a flat front right tire.  Trouble was, NO SPARES!! Oh well, 20km on three tires & a rim it will have to be! Even if we'd had a spare, we probably wouldn't have pulled over on stage to change just one, but it would have been nice to have that option.

Losing about 1.5 minutes on that stage due to the flat we set a 10th fastest stage time gaining us a couple of spots back up the results table into 15th. 
No fresh tire to change to we headed back to service with a very noisy front end & nick checking brakes every so often to see if we'd managed to chew through a brake-line yet with any remaining tire debris. Nope, still got brakes, good to hear!
No ignition issues on that stage or the transits but we couldn't rely on the fact it had fixed itself so on the service list it went.

Notes for Serv 3:
- Fix ignition!
- check for front right damage due to flat debris & running the mileage we did on a rim
- Check centre differential issue? - with all the noise from the flat & the subsequent handling problems Nick was unsure whether we had a diff issue or if it was all due to the flat.
30 minute service this time in which they determined no centre diff issue, was all handling problems due to the flat or non-existent tire.  Ignition was checked, wires were tightened, and no really obvious problem was found. We did, however, change the front right tie-rod end, as it was showing some movement. May not have been a huge problem, but better to be safe than sorry!
Although we decided to play it safe lighting wise and put our pods on at 2nd service - checking they were still working well from Shakedown the night before - we didn't actually need them on stage, and therefore we never checked them in 3rd service.....so they should still be working......right? hmmmm sat in refuel & Nick says "so, I think we have lights out!" sure enough, only 3 of the 4 pod lights were working. Luckily it was only one of them that wasn't on, and shouldn't pose too much of a problem on stage, but it would be nice to rally through the woods at crazy speed, on ice, in the dark, with as much light as possible.  Moral of the story? Check lights EVERYTIME before leaving service. 

Stage A10, A11, A12, A13

The next loop of stages was another grueling 51km, incorporating, Middle Hastings, Lower Hastings, Egan Creek and the in-town 2km spectator stage of Golton. 
Middle Hastings A10 was not getting the better of me this time, & although we hit some huge jumps mid-stage, it seemed the stage and I had called a truce and I actually thoroughly enjoyed it! Nick didn't seem to have an issue with us missing lights & we ran a 7th fastest stage time - granted, slower than our daylight time, but that bumped us back up the results board into 13th place.
Next up, Lower Hastings. Time for Nick to show this stage it wasn't going to catch him out twice in the same event.  Notes were spot on, no flats, no ignition issues, no intercom problems.......know what that gets you? 3rd fastest stage time behind Crazy Leo and Antoine L'Estage. Thanks, we'll take that!  Can't wait to see the in-car footage & fingers crossed someone caught us coming over the flying finish because that jump was HUGE! On recce we had discussed the new extension of the stage to incorporate the jump and in our opinion it didn't add any value to the stage itself, but its in the notes & the route book so its part of the stage and therefore will be taken at a safe rally speed.  I think Nick's words at the time on recce were "wow that jump's huge! No need for us to go flying over that".  Even our notes say ".....40 over Bridge.......150 CAUTION! HUGE jump over finish...". So as we were approaching it at the end of the stage I read the notes & wait for him to back off the accelerator, read the note again, stressing the 'HUGE JUMP' part (I know he knows exactly where we are, we discussed it at the stage start!) ....and I wait......still waiting.......nope, apparently we're not taking it as slow as we had originally agreed to because as we are airborne and literally counting the seconds before we come back into contact the with road again, I'm seriously wondering if we will ever touch down.  There may have been a few choice words after that landing, but hey, AMAZING stage finish, car & driver handled it well, so who am I to judge!
That stage performance put us back into the top 10 as we headed to the second pass of the 27km Egan Creek stage A12. 
Once again, going out to prove something to the stage that cost us a couple of minutes the last pass through with a flat tire in the first few kilometres.  Unfortunately we were unable to get a clean run at it suffering another flat tire almost the same distance in as the first pass.  So once again we drove probably 2/3 of the stage with a flat.  The time lost stopping to change it on Egan would seriously outweigh the time taken to drive out on a flat so we just kept going.  Losing 2 minutes from stage winner Steve Hobbs, we still managed to set a 6th fastest stage time, moving us up into 9th position overall. 
Similar to the Peanut stage, Egan finishes up with the fast 8km stretch of wide winding iced gravel road. Like the first pass, this part of the stage on a flat front tire/rim is rather interesting.  One section of our notes reads "...40  Cr 4L Don't Go Wide..." but with the car not being quite as co-operative as we would have liked, it decides to do its own thing and...yes you guessed it.....go wide....heading straight for a drop off. This is my cue to close one eye, brace my feet on my footplate, and hope that Nick can persuade it to keep its wheels on the road.  We manage to make it round the corner, without incident, to which Nick pipes up "guess it wanted to go wide....".  Not funny little brother.....not funny......
One of the more well known obstacles on the Egan Creek stage are the water crossings.  Depending on how active the beavers have been at damming the streams, & how cold or dry the weather has been, can change the terrain every time we race there.  Obviously in the middle of summer when we compete in the Black Bear Rally, 3 out of 4 water crossings are dry. The Pines in November however? Ice and deep water. We noted a couple of the crossings as ice on recce but there were two that were particularly interesting. One was a very dicey ice entry with a short tire blowing, wheel bending, very unforgiving gap in the middle before a solid ice exit. The other was a downhill icy entry into a DEEP water splash. Admittedly entering the water crossing faster than we probably should have, the resulting photos from Peter MacDonald's well found media spot made it all worthwhile!

After changing our flat tire by the road side beyond the finish control for Egan it was now onwards to the in-town Golton Spectator Stage (A13).
To those of you that don't know about the Golton stage, it is the same 2km course that we use in the MLRC Rallycross Events, held during the year.  Nick knows the course well, and other than the addition of the jump, the course is virtually the same for the rally.  We never write notes for Golton, but I do every so often add in a verbal  "don't cut" note to Leo's corner, or a "caution" to the chicane on the back stretch. Mostly I leave Nick to it and just enjoy the scenery. Which is what I was doing, on our approach to Leo's corner (3rd to last corner of the stage where Crazy Leo had the unfortunate incident of rolling his rallycross entry a couple of seasons ago), until the 3L disappeared from view and we were heading straight on into the brush.  Thank goodness it was one of the only areas that didn't have snowbanks, trees, huge rocks, a ditch or a tire wall, because we weren't stopping.  I think I just gave nick the "Really?" look and shook my head while he reversed and put us back on the stage in order to finish and get our time.  Tells me he turned the wheel but the car just didn't want to do what was asked of it! Sometimes it does have a mind of its own! A 9th fastest stage time, left us in 9th position overall after that stage.

Notes for Serv 4:
- Change right wiper blade
- Check front right flat damage
- Check tires for final loop
Final 30 minute service of the rally.  Its been a long day up to this point, but we just have a couple of things to check and then 3 more stages left.  Interesting stages left in the dark, but we've almost made it. 
No damage to the front end with tire debris, wiper blade changed, tires checked and given the ok.  One last thing to do and that's switch the spares over in the trunk and replace the flat tire.  Which would be simple enough to do if we didn't just pull the trunk access handle off! So out comes the angle grinder to cut a hole in the trunk.  Wish I had some photos of that being performed, but I think my phone was getting a quick charge so I could keep up with our Twitter updates. Hole cut, makeshift cable tie handle replaced, hole patched with duct tape and we could check out of service.  Guess we will worry about a more permanent solution to the hole in the trunk at a later date!

A 20km transit brings us to our 2nd pass of the Peanut stage.  Remembering from our first pass that the junctions were incredibly slippery I tried to stress this in the notes.  We had much better luck with them this pass, other than one where we still gave photographers a bit of a scare.  Like I'm sure most drivers do when they make a mistake Nick wants to get back on track as fast as possible and try to make up the time he just lost, which at this point is too crazy an idea to entertain when we just want to put in a clean run and finish. Its the co-drivers responsibility to be the rational one and calm their driver into a more sensible and appropriate speed. Which is what I found myself doing after that little off.  The rest of the stage went well, other than catching a slower car on stage and losing more valuable seconds.  Not a lot can be done when you're on a tight section of Peanut in the trees, there's not much room to pass, so you just have to wait for your opportunity and make your move.  6th fastest stage time maintains our 8th place overall.
One more down.....one to go!

Final stage of the night. Old Detlor Night section.  9.46km. Once again starts off on the snowy wooded trails, finishing up with the faster more polished section, and ending at the Tait Farm corners.  The snowy trails went much better this pass as we had our AOs on compared to our Hakkas from earlier in the day, and the stage in general went well. No incidents, no crazy jumps, just a clean & tidy run leaving us with a 5th fastest stage time.

Although we'd put in a good effort on those last few runs, it wasn't quite enough to make our way up the results board further than 8th overall.  Cruising back to service we were slightly disappointed with the result but in the end we did well to climb back up from our Middle Hastings issues that put us way down in 17th. 

All in all? Great event.  Exhausting, challenging, exciting, and a whole ton of fun as usual! We wouldn't ever expect anything else from the Rally of The Tall Pines! 8th place overall in the National and 5th in class (Open 4WD), and 4th in the OPRC results.  A FANTASTIC result for great friends & fellow competitors Chris Martin and Brian Johnson who won the event overall, and a huge congratulations to all that managed to finish this challenging event!

Thanks to our service crew from Planet Motorsport who, although we didn't bring them anything too challenging for a change, kept us going throughout the event. 
Also a big shout out to all the event organizers and volunteers for taking the time to make sure the event happened. Without them all we wouldn't be able to be out there having so much fun.
One thing we did try to do at this event was keep our followers updated on Twitter, which was a lot of fun. I had Nick asking me at the end of the stages "did you tweet our stage time yet?!" I'd only just been handed my time card back!!!    So thanks to all of you that cheered us on, and followed us throughout the rally. Hopefully we were able to give you guys a little bit of an insight as to how our stages had gone.

Very appreciative of the great photos that were taken of us out on stage and at service & re-group.  Thank you very much to all the photographers that allowed us to use their photos on our website & facebook page. 

Cheers Tall Pines, it was a blast!!!!