Home News Headlines Wallpapers

Saturday May 1st - Day 4

Every day so far we had arrived at the marshalling area at the requested time, only to wait for hours before getting the car on the road. Today we decided that we may as well sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast and read the local papers, which consistently devoted several pages to the race. Bad move. This day things were running on time. We were late getting the car out of the shed. All the cars in our category had already hit the road, and again we found ourselves mixed in with the modern cars. There was Kevin Bartlett again. "How come you're back here starting with us?" he asked. "Have you had a problem with the car?" No, Kev, I admitted, we're just late all the time. Our facade of being the professional racing team was quickly crumbling.

The first targa of the day was around the Domain in Hobart, the botanical gardens area. We did it comfortably, with a large number of locals lining the road to cheer us on.

For the long touring stage from Hobart to Launceston, I handed the wheel over to Alan for the first time. With sheer irony, the first time we stopped at a check point, a child came running up to the window and asked for the navigator's autograph. What could I do but sign, while Alan fumed at the injustice of missing out on signing the first autograph of the race.

We comfortably made the next two targas, one of which involved three laps around Simmons Plains raceway. Driving on a racetrack felt amazingly safe after some of the roads we had driven on. There is a great sense of security in knowing what is around the next bend. We toured on to Deloraine for lunch, and were amazed on parking to be approached by several children asking for our autographs, or in a couple of cases by their mums, when the kids were a bit shy. Not being accustomed to having strangers wanting our autographs, we felt quite famous. Again, many locals had turned out to welcome us to their town.

The first stage after lunch was Cethana, just for something different a very hilly, windy stage. My brakes began to fade badly as we dodged the many crashed cars through the never ending down hill hairpins, and we blew the stage by quite a bit. After the stage had ended I confided to Alan that we hadn't had any brakes for the last half of the section. I could tell he was grateful that I hadn't told him until it was over by the way that he almost collapsed with appreciation.

At the next stage, Colin Bond in his MR2 sat behind us on the start line. Perhaps the knowledge that he is a famous ex-Alfa GTV6 driver inspired me, and I drove like a demon. He eventually got past us on the long section but nobody else did. Perhaps I pushed it too hard. Heading through the hills towards a hard left hander, grassy bank on the left, sheer unprotected drop over the side of a mountain on the right, I braked hard but not much happened. Pushing harder and harder on the pedal, of course the wheels eventually locked up. That nasty sliding feeling again, as I tried desperately to pull the car up and get it around the corner. We headed for the outside of the bend, both of us believing in that moment that we were headed over the cliff to a painful death. There was not even a solitary guidepost to stand in our way. Perhaps the training at Murcotts surfaced in my subconscious, perhaps Alan was praying, I don't know, but somehow I managed to get the wheels rolling again and the car slithered back to the left hand side of the road. We breathed a sigh of relief, but too soon, as the car headed for the grass at the left hand side of the road. We rocketed into the grass and began to climb the bank, but the angle of the rise seemed to deflect us back onto the road, and we hurtled back onto the bitumen and continued as if nothing had happened. It was all over in an instant, and must have been a fabulous show for the spectators sitting on the corner. It was a bit of a heart stopper for us, let me tell you. However we went on to post our fastest time of the day, no harm done, and knees like jelly. One of the instructors at Murcotts once said that the colour of adrenalin is brown, and this day had me ready to order a brown corduroy racing suit. Consequently we took the last stage of the day, Riana, fairly carefully, with the brakes seemingly barely able to pull up the car. We saw many people go off around us, and we were content to get the car and ourselves home safely.

The touring stage back to Burnie presented what was probably one of the strangest experiences of the race. Stopping at a particularly crowded checkpoint in what seemed like the middle of nowhere amongst the cow paddocks, we found not only a control official waiting for us, but also a bride and groom, bridal party, guests complete with champagne glasses, and to top it off, a band. Yes, a wedding reception was taking place on the side of the road, on a cold night in the fields of Tasmania. I had to hand it to these people, they had style. The bride and bridesmaid insisted on a kiss, but fortunately they were standing on the navigator's side, so Alan performed the duty while I reached for the camera.

The day ended at the service station, topping up for the next day. The GTV6 used a minimum of everything throughout the race, petrol, oil and water. We found ourselves parked next to David Brabham in a Porsche 968, and again we found someone whom we though of as a racing mega star chatting to us as if we were collegues. He related some of his adventures of the day, and it turned out that his navigator, Graham Ward, had once raced GTV6's in Europe, so I was treated to some free tips on getting the best out of the car. That night the cars were put on display for the people of Burnie, who turned out in their thousands on a cold night. Hey Hey It's Saturday did a live cross to Glenn Ridge, who related the details of his roll over that afternoon.

On to Day 5...