Flat Out Off Road
Racing Team ventured to the Hyden 450 at Smithy’s Place on the back of
strong results at the recent round 1 of the WAORC. The teams LS2 V8
powered 80 Series Extreme 4WD and the Production 4WD Nissan Pootrol were
set to face the start line on Saturday morning with extremely
competitive fields. In Extreme 4WD there was a strong Eastern States
contingent coming up against some of the fastest 4WD’s in WA. This was
to be my first run in a national event and the biggest field of
Production 4WD’s I’ve competed in. It was great to have Queenslanders
Clayton and Adam make the trip over for the first AORC round in the red
Triton. Bling Racing were back again with their short wheelbase Patrol
and joining the battle were the boys from Carnarvon with the CJ7. With
such a strong field assembled its no wonder that Schultzy, 2008 state
champion, was no where to be found!
After Recon on
Friday everyone was expecting it to be a dusty, tough event and as the
weekend wore on this turned out to be the case. After a strong prologue
run including some big jumps over Christies Hill, we had the #766 Patrol
sitting in 3rd place in class and we were confident that we
could push and try to move up as the race wore on. After watching the
high flying buggies hit it out in the top ten shootout and hearing Rusty
Bell pumping up the crowd the scene was set for the run into town. We
had a good run with a few hairy moments whilst crossing the road and at
the chicane on the flat out bitumen stretch, but made it into town with
the car still in one piece and in still in 3rd place in
class. It was now time to regroup and have a bite to eat and get ready
for the blast back to Smithy’s place and another white knuckle run down
the bitumen stretch. Unfortunately an incident cut short the section and
we were escorted back to the track thanks to the quick on their feet
actions of the WDR organisers. At this stage Flat Out Off Road Racing
Team were holding down 3rd in Production 4wd with the Patrol
and the 80 Series completing the run into town and running off the end
of the Speedo on the bitumen stretch.
On Sunday morning
it was decided to not start the 80 series due to body mount damage and
more importantly a frustrating high speed stability issue on the rough
stuff - we shouldn’t have touched the rear suspension set up from the
last race! We arrived at the drivers brief to find that due to the
conditions the event had been rearranged and we would participate in
another 2 laps of the 48km track to complete the WAORC part of the
event. We completed the first lap in good time and continued to hold
down 3rd place but soon after starting the 2nd lap
we shredded a tire after hitting a rock coming out of the maze. We drove
carefully through the tunnel and pulled up just after exiting the
tunnel. After watching the Carnarvon boys in the Jeep fly by as we
changed the tire, we set out to pull back as much time as possible.
After chasing hard for most of the lap we came upon the Jeep stopped
just short of the Yeehah jump, a shame after the effort the guys put in
to get down here and have a run. We finished the lap and recorded a good
result of 2nd in the WAORC section of the event and ending
the event in 46th outright.
Big thanks must go
to my parents, Frank and Justine Galea for all the help and getting me
to the track, Raw 4x4 for the Nitromax shocks which worked awesome in
the rough conditions, FJG Engineering, the car held in for another 2nd
place, which is now 3 in a row, but hopefully we can change that at
Bencubbin in a few weeks time. Also thanks to Sarah Davies for jumping
in and navigating for me and finally Western Desert Racers and all those
who helped put on the event.
See you in
Bencubbin WAORC Round 3
Cheers, Jason
Galea #766
