It was an awesome event - I was officiating the whole week working Finishes as part of AutoSports team.
And yeah, fantastic experience with a lot of driving (we covered 3500kms in 1 week) but got to see a lot of cars in action, and got to chat to a lot of the drivers and co-drivers, Stokesy, Stig, Joe McAndrew, Jimmy McRae and others who I knew like Dermot and Brent Rawstron.
I did spend the whole time wishing I was driving as well - however I'll wait until I have a 6-8 more years Gravel racing before I tackle something like that (btw.. like Targa - $6K entry fee, but including fuel (total of 4000+kms driving, lugging around a service crew, accommodation, food, rebuild of car before and after, carrying parts etc etc.. I'd ballpark a good $40K for the event
)
I was also at the After Event Dinner, and even though that Auction did drag a bit, the video afterwards was awesome.
Pros:
* Travelling the South Island in 1 week
* A Cold beer / bourbon after each stage
* We installed a CB radio in the car we took. Funny as shit talking to truck drivers when you are over tired.
* Meeting a lot of top drivers - and actually getting to chat to them. And the cars too of course.
* Randomly finding the pub off The Speights ads in Omakau!
* Getting 2 pizzas for $11 at Pizza Hut by saying you are part of the SilverFern Rally in Blenheim
* Having an Official sticker on your car meaning you can park and drive anywhere you wanted, and no one towed you.
* Queenstown, just cos Queenstown is always awesome.
I have heaps more but won't bore you all..
Cons:
Very few.. however
*Yep, agree with Cahuna. So over the wind.
* Greymouth Sandflies. So over them too.
* $8 Bourbons at the After Event function. I was already short on money.
* Not having the Sentra to drive all the awesome roads. I had no idea we had so many cool roads in NZ, tucked away in the middle of nowhere. Makes the Waimak or the Port Hills Road look as fun as driving down Colombo Street.
* Idiots. The amount of people angry that we closed certain roads. Apart from the fact it was in all the papers, and signs had been put up warning of Road Closures at certain times and dates and even had letters delivered, some people still threw up a stink about being inconvenienced at not being able to drive down the road. And because I was an official, it was obviously all my fault, so I got the brunt of their anger. My response?
"Sure, you could head down there, but there is a rallycar travelling a good 140km/h+ heading the opposite direction, and trust me, he isn't sticking to the left hand side of the road"
One response I got?
"But c'mon man, the surf is really good, and all my mates are down there. Could you stop them for like 10 minutes or something? I'll be real quick?"
$$% Clown Shoes.
Anyway... heres my photo collection (quite a few taken from places Spectators couldn't get too..)
And because of the way I loaded them, if you hit SlideShow, you'll get them all from Latest to Earliest. Stupid Photobucket.
And sorry, you'll have to sit through the random roadtrip ones we took of us.
http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/n97/KahluaSilverFern/