Just arrived home from the rally (was servicing for car #25 - Toyota MR2). It was one hell of a week!
I'll be diarising the week in the next few days for our club mag and will post it along with some pics, but in the meantime:
Highlights
* Not working
* Seeing some of the most spectatular scenery in the world up close and personal
* Beautiful cars up close and personal
* Watching Stig's driving.
Low points
* The 14 hour engine change from hell in the MR2 causing us to miss all of day 5, finally finishing it at 9pm then driving from Chch to Blenheim and arriving at 2am.
* The wind. I'm totally over it!
* Driving solo, flat out all week trying to keep up with the service schedule. 90-95% of the miles I covered in the 4WD over the week (full lap of the South Island) was at full throttle.
* Getting a speeding ticket driving home today while driving the slowest I have all week!
Murphys Law in action.
Stumpy did roll on a SS that had been cancelled, everyone had to tour through it. However the organisers didn't change the target times, meaning the crews had approx 75 minutes to tour a 91km twisty gravel stage, service and then tour another 13km to the next stage. Where he went off it was basically white-out conditions - the car had actually stopped but he was teetering on the edge, slipped and rolled 7 times. Not a happy camper!
You guys probably saw the yellow Mk2 Escort in the river on the TV news... he was a mate from the car club, they managed to dry everything out and get the car going again for day 5. Funniest thing was the service crew were all geared up to wash the car at the end-of-day service and he brought the car back completely spotless!
It was definitely an interesting week. Right now I'm so tired I don't know if I would do it again but I'm sure in a few weeks I'll have forgotten all the crap parts