Day 1 Sydney to Parkes

Well we’ve made it to the end of day1.  We have completed three of the 33 stages that make up the Australian section of the rally.

The start was pretty chaotic.  They only had room for three cars max in the start area and they didn’t have a marshalling area.

 We left five minutes later than we should have and 5^th on the road rather than 3^rd.  Fortunately we were able to make up the time on the run to Sunny Corner.

Sunny Corner was massively slippery.  We were a little despondent after having had two overshoots and dropping what seemed like a lot of time but in later conversations with other crews it seems two overshoots was the norm and everyone was laughing by the start of stage 2, Mount Canobolas.

Mt Canobolas was fast, had water in some of the dips and was slippery towards the end.  And our wipers stopped working which made the last few km interesting!  This was fixed as soon as we meet the service crew.  It was a plug popped out, no doubt in one of the harder hit dips.

The 3^rd stage was Back Yamma.  40 something kms of grotty tracks mixed with high speed straights.  Rumour has it that quite a few car have got lost, missed passage controls and generally done damage. There was mud in the dips and bog holes as well as dust on the bits starting to dry out.  Little stumps on the edge of the road are near impossible to see with the sun in your eyes. 

But we have survived the day and will see what tomorrow brings.  Looking forward to seeing some results.


later: