2009 was a very lean year for Bellett motorsport . Vanita & I took the rally car to Sandown on the 25 july for the John Mott Memorial Sprint so V could use her racesuit for the first time & to see if I could catch Brett . I had a ball & caught & passed Brett on the last run ( he said he had a passenger!)
Now V wants a run in the blue car .
My next outing was the Alpine Rally run by the Historic Rally Association , on the 14-15 November 2009. It did not start well as my entry was knocked back ( you cant fit 200 entries into 115 spots ) . Then 2 weeks before the event we were accepted due to an incredible amount of withdrawals , so I had to suddenly finish a few jobs on the car , organise accomodation , etc
The rally was based in & around Lakes Entrance so we arrived there the day before & awoke fresh & ready to go . I should have stayed in bed . The one problem with so many entries leaving at 2 minute intervals - and you are car 113 - is that it sometimes feels that you are starting the rally the next day !
The first and second stage was run on the friday as a prologue to organise cars into fastest to slowest. My driver, Steve Piggott (I forgot to say that I was navigating ) did well & put us up the field a bit , but said the springs feel soft . I had taken out my very old pedders shocks & put in very expensive Konis' . Doesn't matter , continue on , I just want to finish ! .
Saturday arrived & off we went -again hours later . The roads were horrible - where car 1 has a nice firm road , car 113 has to drive on what feels like the beach . The sump guard was acting like a sled over the sand . Steve kept saying the car was hard to handle I kept saying go on . By the afternoon service at Orbost, all the oil had left the rear shocks & the rear end was bouncing . It wasn't until dusk , & we had the driving lights on , that I made the decision to withdraw . (insert expletives here ) So that was that . We met my nominated official , Gav , & bounced back to Lakes Entrance Other than the shocks & other niggles , the Bellett was flying . It had comments made about it at every control - it even made it into the HRA magazine Now I've abit of work before the next event in 2010 . -CRAIG
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