105 Targa High Country Results

[Colin Byrne]

Hi Guys, We finished up at Targa High Country so I thought I'd give a quick rundown

Fantastic event, it'll be hard to make an excuse not to go again next year.  Both my dad and myself ran our respective cars.  Unfortunately I'd blown my new motor at the 6 hour so I was running my dads old and relatively tired motor in my car, but the rest of my mods appeared to be working well.  I took the car for a quick test drive before putting it on the trailer and as I pulled back into my drive way the clutch wouldn't disengage so unfortunately I had to pull the gearbox of again and replace the friction plate. The old one had total failed and friction material had jammed up against the flywheel, so I put my new friction plate in and it was game on.

Friday both cars went through scruineering with no issues and completed the preliminary run around Mansfield and then Saterday we headed off.  There where some incredibly fast stages and apart from the first stage down mount Buller that was easy to clear all stages we're competitive.  By lunch time on Saterday we we're in second place and had won a stage.  Then on the 6th stage of the day we got a terrible noise out of the gearbox.  Not knowing what it was we slowed down a little.  We determined that first gear was badly damaged so we completed the day without first.  It hurt us and we droped down to fith place.  We got to service pulled out the box and pulled it down.  The dog teeth and broken on first gear and let the syncro ring out which subsequently went through first gear driven gear and broke it, that was what was making the horrible noise.  We got out the trusty dremel and smoothed off the damaged gear scooped out all the debris and put the box back together and threw it into the car.

On Sunday we didn't use first all day so we lost time getting off the line on each stage and on hairpins.  We climbed back up to 3rd place by the last run but lost some time on the hairpins coming back up buller and just missed out on the podium by a couple of seconds and finished up 4th.  Still we we're happy with the result.  My dad had a strange engine miss which caused havoc but he also managed to finish, just.

At least we know the car has some decent speed, I've got some good footage and I'll post it when I get a chance.  I've got a lot of work to do before Tassie but we're looking good for being down at the pointy end.

[Neil Choi]

Well done Colin, you impress me with your NEVER DIE attitude.

Love to see some vision.

Cheers mate

Neil

[alfagtv58]

Great effort Colin. I hear stories like that and I realise I should just sell my tools as I can't do them justice

Look forward to the footage

[Neil Choi]

3 seconds

http://www.rallyresults.com.au/targa/THC2011/EarlyClassicF.pdf

[Frank Musco]

Well done Colin.