Alfas on the Shitbox rally

[Stuart Thomson]

Fat Boy Racing has landed back in Melbourne.  Three gruelling days drive from Cairns, nowhere near as much fun as the trip up.

I have removed the stuff I brought back and taken some pictures of the inside of the car and the damage to the exterior that I can find so far.  Things that don't work now that I know of, the heater (as the heater tap leaks on my clutch foot), the heater fan, the CD player won't eject the CD that's in it, the engine temperature gauge, the fuel level gauge.

I spoke with Russell Stuckey this morning to point out the advertising he got from the rally video on day four and he has agreed to put the car on show in their front window in "as-is" condition, no promises but the car should be available for viewing over the next few weeks.  Drop in to Stuckey's in Sydney Road and inspect the car, I'll let the forum and Vic members know when it is available.  Of course Russell will want to sell you a new set of tyres, as they sponsor the club, consider them as your next tyre vendor.

On to the pictures...

The inside of the boot, you can't really tell just how thick the layer of dust is, about 5-10mm in places.

The centre console, the clean vent is because I was forever either directing the air away from me or towards me on the way home.

The drivers side of the interior

Stone chips on the new paint at the rear guards...

[Stuart Thomson]

The end of the exhaust

Engine bay

Front grille

Preparation for next year...

[Stuart Thomson]

Finally the bash plate, there's before and after.

Where did the large flat plate go?  Don't know, didn't hear it fall off, but somewhere between Windorah and Winton there a large piece of Aluminium checker plate.

Cheers
Stuart

P.S. On the way home I stopped off to see a friend who lives in Siding Springs, at the observatory.  For those of you who know my other passion, there's a shot of the Shitbox about to leave on the morning of Anzac Day with all the telescope domes in the background, this capped off a wonderful trip of 6529 km.

[Evan Bottcher]

My pet project the last couple of nights was to stitch together some of the video we took on the rally.  Here's a link, so you can watch it in large format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry96zCkbi_4

[Fast Eddie]

well done EB for the doco and well down to all the AROCA teams!

[aggie57]

My pet project the last couple of nights was to stitch together some of the video we took on the rally.  Here's a link, so you can watch it in large format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry96zCkbi_4

That link doesn't seem to want to work Stuart. But aren't you supposed to auction the car at the end??

[Sheldon McIntosh]

My pet project the last couple of nights was to stitch together some of the video we took on the rally.  Here's a link, so you can watch it in large format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry96zCkbi_4

That link doesn't seem to want to work Stuart. But aren't you supposed to auction the car at the end??

-The link works fine.
-Evan posted the link, not Stu.
-The cars get auctioned, but you have the option of buying it back beforehand.

[Evan Bottcher]

That link doesn't seem to want to work StuartEvan.

Are you in China behind the Great Firewall?  Or Germany (where apparently my illegal use of copyrighted music means the video gets blocked)?  What kind of error message did you get?  Did you have the computer turned on at the time?  Were you using the cup holder?

Link seems fine to me...

[Davidm1600]

Thanks guys for the sharing the road trip.  Amazing, and only goes to prove who needs a 4WD to cross this country when all you really need is an Alfa Shitbox.  Would love to do this trip sometime.  Well done on all succeeding in making the journey and raising funds for a worthy cause.

[Sheldon McIntosh]

Amazing, and only goes to prove who needs a 4WD to cross this country when all you really need is an Alfa Shitbox. 

True, but I'm not sure I'd contemplate the trip in an Alfa shitbox without the support of the rally; the support vehicles and trailers were never needed, obviously (which meant that we could drive the car like we stole it), but it's nice to know they're there.  It was also nice having Bruno and Giancarlo along.....

It's a very, very, very big country out there.  There were a couple of days of 400km driving where we saw one vehicle coming the other way the whole day.  If you broke down out there on your own you could be in big trouble.

[Stuart Thomson]

My pet project the last couple of nights was to stitch together some of the video we took on the rally.  Here's a link, so you can watch it in large format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry96zCkbi_4

That link doesn't seem to want to work Stuart. But aren't you supposed to auction the car at the end??

You are allowed to buy it back before auction at an agreed price, I paid $300 for mine, could have paid $10 at auction, but that's not helping the cause.

Happy with $300 for a pre-prepared SBR car, allows me $700 to spend on a kickarse sound system to drown out the exhaust noise...

Cheers
Stuart

[aggie57]

$300 for the car and the memories......😄

Not in China; In Singapore.

[Evan Bottcher]

Just watched the official videos again (http://vimeo.com/album/1920689) and my own video, and filled with emotions.  Couple of weeks later and I'm still recovering physically and mentally.  What a brilliant experience... never having been to the outback before, this was the greatest way to see it.  Can't wait to see it again.

I also noticed tonight - if you like the music on the official videos, you can listen to the whole playlist on soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/thinkloco/sets/2012-shitbox-rally-soundtrack

[redalfaracing]

My pet project the last couple of nights was to stitch together some of the video we took on the rally.  Here's a link, so you can watch it in large format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry96zCkbi_4

Great video Evan, Now you might understand why i rally Alfas. I know most of you guys reckon i'm crazy, But i reckon they are built for it. I maintain that i do less to my gtv6 to get it quick on gravel, than you do, to get them quick on bitumen.

[Sheldon McIntosh]

I've gotta say, I was amazed at how well the Alfetta handled the off-road. 

The edges of the rally tyres were pretty knackered, so we'd always have a bit of understeer when going quite quick into a corner, but there were a couple of ways to deal with that I found.  If we had room you could just keep the throttle on and it would eventually find some grip on the front end, and then it would ease into an easily controlled drift.  Otherwise you could come of the throttle a little bit and then ease it back on to tempt it into a nicely controlled drift.

It really was a very neutral handling car, and unfortunately not knowing the roads we couldn't push 100%, but we got close at times.  We knew we had pretty decent ground-clearance, and a good-quality bash plate and the rally tyres meant that we could still push it hard through bumps and holes and etc.

We could tell the shocks were getting pretty knackered, but with some decent ones the Alfetta would be an excellent, excellent car on the off-road stuff.

I'm on the lookout for another that I can turn into a rallycar.  It was that good, and I had so much fun on the gravel this year.  Gee it was good not having to go slow to account for Stu's shit Dolomite this year....