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TARGA 2010Sweet Sixteen….
What a great photo! Here we are still giving it heaps on the penultimate stage of 2010 Dunlop Targa NZ. After an amazing week of hard competition, we crossed the finish line in Wellington for the 16th year in a row, having completed every stage, winning the Historic Category for a record 5th consecutive time and also completing the grand slam of winning the coveted "Index of Performance" trophy for every event in 2010. We love our car! Pre-event The 'honeydew list', following our successes in Targa Rotorua in June, was not long. The major decision was to install our spare engine and run it in prior to the main event, thereby ensuring that it would be able to be swapped and ready to go immediately if something happened to the race engine. It was just as well we did this well in advance… The spare engine was built up using brand new parts from a used block and crank that I scored from Germany a couple of years ago. I managed last year to save enough cash to buy a brand new 8-port cylinder head from my good mate and Abarth-guru, Paul van der Heyden, from the USA (www.scuderiatopolino.com). The head was fitted to the block last year but never ran. With the help of my son Scott, who is an apprentice mechanic, we swapped the engines over and fired up the spare. All was sounding OK except for the strong smell of coolant! Oh-oh… It was then I noticed coolant being blown out of #3 exhaust port slip-joint… Oh-oh again. After closer examination, there appeared to be a flaw in the port casting which allowed a stream of coolant to pour straight in from the water jacket… Arrghhh!
After speaking to Paul, it was decided to strip the head and ship it to USA for repair and if it could not be repaired, then it would be replaced. After attempting the repair, Paul advised us that we would need a replacement. This was fine except the next batch of castings would not be ready until after Targa so it meant we would not have a complete spare engine. In previous years where we have had engine problems (and the 50bucker came to the rescue) the cylinder head was untouched so we were able to re-fit this onto the spare block. Without any other alternative, we hoped the same would hold true for 2010… Oh dear… Day 'minus 1' Phil Sutton (co-driver extraordinaire) flew up from Wellington and we finished off final prep-work and loaded up Big Bird ready to head north. The balance of the main items on the 'honeydew' list was mostly completed, including Dunlop delivering the tyres to us in time and Dave fixing our wayward wiper arms. It left Phil and I to mount our latest experiment: a 12volt hairdryer to demist the car!
Now lets see ya fog up! After last years amazing rain/hail/snow (all in one day!) we really needed to do something to better clear the windscreen. Of course, by doing all this work in preparation of it being wet and cold, we joked that now it would be sunny and hot. As it turned out, it was no joke! With our other team members joining us the next day ( Dave Jowett, who we would pick up on the drive north and Gary Finemore, who flew in from attending the Gold Coast V8 races ..bastard), Phil and I joined fellow Targa-ist Lindsay Lyons (who co-drives for Mark McCaughan in the 125T) and our respectives at our local October Fest to… Umm…. Get into the spirit as it were. We hoped to be sharing another beer in a week's time in Wellington.
Love the hat Lindsay…. Day 0 – Prologue After picking up Dave, we arrived at documentation for the usual blah-blahs and then were sent on our way to Hampton Downs racetrack where we were to hold our two Prologue stages for the day. Phil and I aren't big fans of Prologues being held on tracks, as they serve no resemblance to the real world of rallying. Having said that, I guess the organisers get a little tired of plonkers crashing out on Prologue stages and also the difficulty of getting timing crews trained. The Abarth is not a track car, and with Hampton Downs being a huge horsepower circuit, it is rather dull for small cars like ours also. The best part of the Prologue stage this year was that you were able to take passengers rather than have to use your normal co-driver. Phil suggested I take Dave around for skid, which was a great idea. Dave certainly came to realise that a co-drivers job can be busy at times and also saw that while the Abarth may be slow up the hill, nothing could catch it under brakes or through the chicane!
Trust me Dave… We'll take it easy... Hee-hee After our last run, the car felt fine and we were about to drive back to Parc Ferme when the TV crew come up to us and tried to convince us to buy an in-car High Definition video camera. From this year onwards, Targa will be streaming footage on the website taken from the cars and of course, if we do something exciting, it means that having in-car footage means a higher chance of getting on TV. Naturally, I made the executive decision to buy the unit (sponsors note!) and had it installed by the TV guys in readiness for an interesting week. Phil of course sighed, "Another thing for me to do!" as it was his job to turn the camera on and off at each stage and to get the footage to the media van at the end of every division.
Great in-car camera footage… Plus it captures sound… D'oh! The Fiat Team this year consisted of us in the Abarth, Mark McCaughan, and Lindsay Lions in the 125T, Pete Dudson and Dave Hannah in the 131 Abarth and Philip Pearce and Steve Rogers in the 124BC coupe. We all hoped to continue our 100% finishing result by Marque again. After locking the cars up for the night, we all shared a fine steak and after picking up Gary, retired to our motel for the first night comforted by the fact that thanks to El Niña, the weather looked pretty nice for the week. Time for a decision… Day One - Auckland to New Plymouth It would be a big day today with over ten hours in the car, covering almost 200km of special stages and about the same in touring stages. There are some whopper stages today; the third stage alone was the longest in the event at 51km and with Stages Six and Seven totalling another 76km of coastal back roads, it was going to be a lonnnggg day. In previous years, the weather had played into our hands; the closer we got to Wellington, the more the roads became narrowed, twisty, and perfect Abarth roads. Add the usual mix of rain the further you go south and our usual plan of starting out slow and saving our push-on efforts for the last day made sense. But not this year. Coupled with the fact we had a beautifully prepared 327cuin Monaro in our class, the long range weather forecast (which showed nothing but sunshine all week) meant we decided to flip-flop our usual tactics and this year start out hard and hopefully catch our opposition napping. The plan was to secure a manageable gap by the end of Day Two before we hit the fast big-car stages around the centre of the island and to maintain that to the end.
Gravel… Errrk… The car felt strong from the get-go and we certainly were not hanging about during the morning stages. The 51km Rangitoto stage, even with gravel splattered everywhere, was a fabulous stage for us but we were looking forward to service nevertheless. Lunch was at Otorohanga and all Fiats made it in but it was a close call for Pete in the 131; he had hit a vintage horse-drawn plow that a farmer had painted white and used as a driveway ornament! The handle went through the driver's side rear window a mere 50mm away from Pete's head… It doesn't bear thinking about really. He finished the stage and with a bit of panel work and plastic for a window, he would be fine for the rest of the week. We were parked next to a large professional rally crew transporter when Dave pointed out that we too have suspension components cable tied to mesh in Big Bird too… Ummm… But we only have one L
Yes Dave… We are just like them… We were lucky this year to have a full compliment of service crews unlike previous years. It meant that on the long stages down the inaccessible west coast, we were met by Pete's crew Grunta and Stacey who drove in early. With only a 30litre tank (and consuming 5km/litre at race speeds) we usually have to be pretty careful on this day and conserve fuel. Knowing we had guys at the mid-point made a huge difference in confidence. Thanks guys! The final service stop was at Mokau, home of the Whitebait Fritter.
When in Rome… Also at Mokau was Aussie V8 Supercar driver, Shane van Gisbergen, fresh from his successes at the Gold Coast 400. Shane and his dad were driving the Zero car for Targa this year. Shane is only 21 and a great young Kiwi with a fabulous future ahead of him. He absolutely loves our car but he thinks we are nuts! He tried the Abarth on (he is my size!) and came away confirmed in that view.
Yes, Shane, you can reach the pedals… No, Shane, you cannot have a drive...
Phil and I giving Shane some pointers… After a long cruise into Parc Ferme, I noticed the clutch wasn't feeling 100% so at service, we got the boys to check the cables. All seemed fine and with a bit of an adjustment, we were good to go. After the usual regular wheels-off service checks, we polished the car and went and had a smashing Italian (of course!) meal with Team 125, who were both very happy to have made it to the end of the day. Tomorrow is Whangamomona… Yee-haaaa! Day Two…New Plymouth back to New PlymouthDay Two signaled the shortest day of racing with only four stages. Upside was, two of those stages would be in classic Whangamomona! The day dawned bright and sunny and all was boding well. We had a good lead after our efforts of yesterday but we needed to keep up the pace, as the roads were twisty. The car still felt strong and we were looking forward to driving it hard, always ensuring to keep it on 'The Black Stuff'. After a fabulous barbeque breakfast cooked by Kaimata School, we set off for the day's first stage. As we were queuing up for the start, Phil must've been focusing fairly hard as he didn't notice the camera car popping up beside us. The camera car driver, fellow Fiat Club member Alan Fretwell, let me know that he wanted to follow us for about half distance where he would stop and film the rest of the field. He then reversed and slotted in behind us. I may have forgotten to mention this to Phil. Hee-hee! Away we went and as the in-car footage will attest, while Alan was behind us, we had nothing left! 11/10ths I think is the expression. It was on one particular little corner on the 32km long beauty of a stage, I got a wee, "Whoo-hoo!" from Phil as we bounced sideways across the road, all wheels in the air! What Phil didn't see was what I saw in the rear view mirror: a very crossed up Subaru! Haha! Alan should know by now that we take very odd cornering lines! Alan peeled off so I backed-off just a tad. At the end of the stage, Phil comments, "What was up with you in the first part of the stage? What the hell did you have for breakfast? You can't keep on driving like that! We'll either crash or break things! My God, it's only Day Two!" I then fessed-up and told him we had the camera car behind us. As captured beautifully in broadcast-quality HD video, Phil calmly comments, "You p***k. You didn't tell me? You bastard! That explains it then…" It went on for a bit like this and we had a good laugh… Well… At least I did! After the Inglewood Jumps stage (been there, done that, got the photo) and a quick service, we rolled up to one of the great roads in NZ: State Highway 43! Yep! We close a state highway and go berserk! God I love NZ!! Just a little air this time… For the second time in two days we were very grateful that the Fiat Team had sufficient crew to help each other out. Usually we have no crew at Whangamomona, as once in there, they are stuck all day! For us, it means that if we have issues on the way back out; we would be in bigger trouble. This year, Mark's crew of Simon and Brian took their support van in and as Dave had never been there before, he tagged along for the ride. This stage is 40km of amazing road, over three saddles and two valley floors. We do it one way and after lunch, repeat it in the opposite direction. For the last two years, we have managed to do exactly the same time in and out, our aim again for 2010. Unfortunately on the incoming run, the boys forgot to re-fit the dipstick spring at service. At 8000rpm, it was pumping out a bit of oil onto the exhaust which occasionally filled the cockpit with smoke and that is somewhat disconcerting! On top of that, the clutch was playing up. I was not getting enough pedals, which indicated that the cable was on its way out. With all the saddles, we were constantly changing from 2nd to 3rd and back and even with double shuffling, I was managing to beat the synchros and poor old 2nd gear was getting a caning! I ended up having to slow down the changes… Bugger! Our main concern was getting to the end of the stage without the cable going 'pingggg'! Once we hit Whangamomona, "Lucky Dave" drew the short straw to change the cable. Lunch was provided by the rural folk of The Republic of Whangamomona, which meant meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, and salad (lettuce). I think they still hang vegans in this town…
Servicing at Whanga…. Yes they are Dave's legs… With the clutch done, we gave it heaps on the return journey and as expected, we were a little faster on the way out than in but only by about four seconds. Sadly, we could not make identical times for three years in a row. We had a ball though; the car was flying! Grunta and Stacey were spectating at a side-road and commented that at that corner, every single car lifted except for us!
It is today! Sadly, Mark and Lindsay didn't finish the stage as they broke an axle partway in. This meant that they had to wait for the entire field and the sweep car to go by before the crew could come and rescue them. By this time, they would have missed the rest of the day's stages and so instead elected to repair the car on the side of the road. They were well into the repair, with Lindsay putting out the picnic table and firing up the kettle for a coffee, when what should come over the hill towards them? A blonde, female, Swedish tourist who was cycling around NZ. Yes. You read correctly. A Swedish blonde. Obviously the repairs apparently took a little longer than necessary and being gentlemen (???) they offered to give "Emma" a lift into the nearest town. The bike went on the back and Dave just had to keep her company on the bench in the rear of the van.
Men doing manly things while blonde Swede looks on. When we finally met up for dinner after service, Dave and Simon both continued to regale this tale. Again. And again. Yes guys, it is amazing that: a) Someone would be cycling that road b) At that exact time c) That she would be blonde and d) Swedish. Remember though: what happens on Targa, stays on Targa! As we all retired for the night there were clouds building, so maybe we would see some rain after all? Another big day tomorrow… Day Three – New Plymouth to Palmerston North We awoke to some drizzle so maybe the hair-dryer could be tested after all? We circled Mt. Egmont with some tricky and fast stages and then made a bee-line for the Manfield racetrack for the final stage of the day. Until then, we had over 100km of special stages and couple of hundred kilometres of touring to get through. The engine in the car was built my good mate Geoff Lord (who passed away a couple of years ago) and has been a solid engine for nigh of seven years now. We noticed during the year that is was "breathing" more and more as the compression rings were wearing, so was anticipating swapping it out after this Targa with the new spare and giving it a freshen-up. The first stage was indeed drizzling and as we rolled up to the start, Phil and I could note that horrible sweet smell of hot coolant. The temperature had been running on the hot side of warm all week, which we had put down to the sunny days, we incurred. But with the morning being cool and damp, concern started to show. About half way in, the power started to tail-off a tad and all of a sudden, the cabin filled with steam! It was like a Turkish sauna in there! It made for interesting driving let me tell you! Drizzle on outside, cloud on inside! Clearly something had come adrift in the cooling system (it was the radiator cap as it turned out) and water was slowly being pumped out. From the outside of the car, it looked like we were on fire!
So Johnny, do you like Gladiator movies? Even been to Turkish steam bath?
See the footage on youtube ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo4rYuTpGMs Phil watched the gauges like a hawk and whilst we were obviously losing water, we reckoned we could get to the end of the stage. We did but only just. As we were stopped handing in our timecards, the temperature started rising fast! We needed water and service was still 20km away. We decided to keep going and get as far as we could. We would ring the boys to de-camp and meet us mid-way. Onto the main highway back to Inglewood and the temperature only kept soaring so we decided to stop. The only fluid in the car was in our drink bottles but we needed a lot more than that. Phil then spies a creek and sprints down through paddocks to fill our bottles. In the meantime, a car pulls up and it is the newly elected Mayor of New Plymouth, and ex- Minister of Transport, Harry Duynhoven. Harry is a classic car guy and seeing us stopped there, he rushed up to ask us what we needed. "Water," I say. With that, Harry does a U-turn and says he'll be back in three minutes. He returns with a huge bucket of water and a siphon hose from his property just up the road. We start the engine, fill up the system, and put the cap on just as the boys turn up in Big Bird. They follow us into service and as we are late, we have little time to check much of the engine; we just hope that the overheating didn't cause any damage. The following stages were run in beautiful sunshine so we kept a careful eye on temperatures but all seemed fine. It was on the touring stage before lunch that things started to feel so-so. First, the engine developed a small mis-fire and then really started running rough. We crawl into service at Wanganui and when we stop and restart the engine when we see clouds of steam come out the exhaust… Oh-oh. Oh well…. I guess it's head gasket time! We were pretty worried by this stage that the previous overheating may have warped the cylinder head and without a spare, we had no choice but to swap the gasket, cross our fingers and hope. Luckily, the engine access is easy on the Abarth and being a push-rod engine, it's pretty easy getting the head off. Sure enough, the gasket had blown at No.1.
Assume the position … And… GO!
More green stuff where it shouldn't be… Luckily for us, the lunch break was extended so we finished up and started to drive out of service when… Arrghhhh! NO BRAKES!!! To say this was a little surprising is an understatement! How can this be? There was no time for a diagnosis, we just needed some brakes. Bleeding them revealed a huge amount of air in the rear circuit and try as we may, we could not see any evidence of fluid loss. Being a rear-engine car, we run a whole lot of rear brakes and so to lose them really makes for… Um… An interesting drive. But we had more good luck on our side as the sweep car waited for us to leave service, ensuring that we would not miss the stages… Thanks guys! The brakes behaved themselves for the rest of the afternoon but I found myself left-foot stabbing the middle pedal as we raced towards big drop-off corners just in case. We also decided to short-shift for the balance of the event, changing at 7000rpm instead of higher (bursts to 8000 are pretty frequent!) in an effort to prolong the head gasket in case the head was warped.
We made it to the last stage at Manfield racetrack but way out of sequence. We had been mixing it up with the fastest moderns so spent most of the time trying to stay out of their way…. Mind you, we did get it up on two wheels a couple of times! And a, "Woo-hoo," was heard from Phil too!
Looks nice on the track, but not our domain. Service was at Palmerston North's main square. Along with the usual detailed checks, we tried to find any reason for the brake problems. No fluid leaks were apparent and we bled the brakes again to release more air. We also took the opportunity to replace the faulty oil pressure sender, which was sent down to us overnight by Mal Simmonds (www.fiatparts.co.nz) … Thanks Malkie. Tyres were swapped with new ones especially on the front. The next couple of days, provided things would hang together, would be fun! We had another late meal, but a good'n, at our favourite steak place and we were ready to hit the sack. Tomorrow, we would head south to Wellington… Day Four… Palmerston North to Wellington Due to the terrible storms that ravaged this part of NZ a month ago, we lost one stage due to the road being washed away! But it still left us with seven stages totaling 157km and 350km of touring to complete so it would, by no means, be a "shorty" then! The field was re-seeded overnight but due to the odd calculation methods used, faster cars that maybe missed a stage or two were wrongly slotted further up the field. This is why we ended up with a very fast BMW right behind us on the stages this morning. Many of the roads there are balls-out fast, so we kept an eye on the mirrors in case they caught us. The first stage started out flat and flowing but after 20km, it turned into an up-hill and down-dale twisty piece of blacktop that really kept us busy. We were caught and passed by the BMW at about the 18km mark but as we started to hit the real twisty stuff, we were catching him! Boy that was fun! I was tempted several times to out-brake him into blind corners, but the slight, "Ahem!" from the co-drivers seat, followed by hail of gravel hitting the car every time we got up to his bumper, kind of subdued me. The in-car footage from this stage is great by the way!
See the footage on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVArmDgULZg Next up was Marton Stage, home of the famous Cop Corner, which is the same spot we laid the Abarth down for a little rest last year. With the eyes of the world upon us, and the in-car camera just to make sure, we had two options: Do it like we did last year or do it right! To the sadness of the assembled media, we took the fast line but we had the musical horns blowing! TV3's Shaun Summerfield came up to me later and expressed his disappointment: "I told Nightline to be ready for footage!" Oh well, Shaun, maybe next year we will reverse up eh! 2009 = Show… 2010 = Go! The morning stages around the Wairarapa include the famous Windmill Alley, which, for the first time ever, we ran in glorious sunshine!
The car was going well and we were still driving it fairly hard. Changing at 7000rpm didn't really slow us down too much and was much easier on the engine. The temperature, while still on the high side of normal, didn't go berserk either, which was great! Lunch was at the famous Tui Brewery where we were accosted by this poor, young girl who clearly could not afford to buy enough clothing. Gary in particular felt very sorry for her, offering to keep her warm… | ||
