Hyden Humps 766 Race Report
The 2009 Hyden Humps would mark one whole year of racing done and dusted
for the Pootrol and myself, with this event being my first race last
year. With several of the 4wd class regulars saving their cars for the
Gas Dash a field of 6 4wds, 3 Extreme and 3 Production would make the
trip to Hyden. With night racing back on the agenda I took every light I
could find lying around the shed and we hooked them up to the Pootrol.
The car was all fixed after the Mogumber tree incident, all be it a
little different looking and we headed up to Hyden to see what the
weekend had in store.
After passing through scrutineering we headed out for recon only to have
a few power steering issues from about 10km onwards. With new sections
of the track to try and learn before prologue and the night section
power steering problems were not welcome. The brains trust of Big Russ
and Dan Rogers came up with the idea of running engine oil in the power
steering as the pump was not working properly. This almost eliminated
the problem and was what we ran with for the rest of the weekend.
On prologue we ran a fairly conservative first half, just getting
confidence back and testing out the car after what happened at Mogumber.
About 3 quarters of the way around the track Matt in his production
class GQ passed us and from here on we got on with the job a bit more
and didn’t let him run away too far. This left us a little further down
in the start order for the night section then I had hoped, not really
the greatest thing to happen as from the moment the fastest 50% of the
field took off it was obvious dust would make it difficult racing at
night. Then we headed out with the second fastest 50% of the field and
set a pretty good pace, the extra lights this year were certainly
working in our favour as we caught and passed several cars. Our result
left us not too far behind Matt and 2nd in class.
The Sunday morning section we would start right up the order, further up
then I would have expected and would be trying our hardest to chase down
Matt. He got away from us and several of the faster cars who had issues
at night passed as, but overall a good clean run and the car was holding
together well.
After the morning section we still had another 5 laps to do and the
track was getting rougher as each lap went by. We had a small issue with
a rubber on the left front shock mount which I replaced in between
sections, only for the new rubber to disappear just before the tunnel on
the first lap of the final section. Once the rubber was gone we could
hear a banging noise from the shock on the mount and deciding that it
was better to be safe then sorry I stopped to have a look just to make
sure it wasn’t anything else. A few cars passed as I checked this, but
we got straight back out on track and passed some of them back and had a
pretty good run, including a little battle with Harleigh’s Performance
2wd who was having a few issues. After 5 laps we were relieved to have
made it to the finish, 2nd in class a good end to the season
and not much damage to the car. Now the Pootrol will be going into the
shed for some off season adjustments and maintenance and be back again
next year.
Thanks to FJG Engineering, Raw 4x4, Ian Diffen Tyres Joondalup, The 4wd
Shop, Mum and Dad and everyone who helped with the rebuild and also
Sarah for doing a good job as navi keeping me out of the trees. Also
thanks to WDR and all the officials and everyone who put on the event.
See you at the Dash (with cameras)
Jason Galea 766
