Yealering was to be a bit of a rollercoaster event for Flat Out Off Road
Racing Team and the revamped Nissan “Pootrol”. With the 80 series
undertaking some modifications and dad working on the mines he would not
be racing but we were confident that Pootrol could come up with a good
result. In Production 4wd it would be a battle between myself, Matt
Hall’s 3.0L GQ and Tanya French debuting an 80 Series. After arriving on
Friday we set up camp and walked around camp catching up with people we
hadn’t seen since the last off road event last year.
On Saturday we took the car to scrutineering and had no issues. After
this we were to recon the track which is where the trouble would start.
Coming up to the end of a straight doing about 80km/h the bonnet opened,
scaring the living f@#k out of myself and Sarah. Obviously someone
didn’t shut the bonnet properly as neither mechanisms used to hold it in
place had failed. We slammed the bonnet and took off again finding that
the track would be a mix of awesome fun flat out sliding sections and
horrible tight twisty rutted rough sections. After getting back to the
pits we checked over the car and strapped the bonnet not wanting to take
any chances at actual race pace.
Prologue we went out pretty hard and set a solid time 2nd in
class behind Matt and ahead of Tanya. We checked the car again and
headed out for section 1. Looking after the car in the rough but still
extracting all the pace we could in the sections that weren’t rough we
set some good times and finished as we prologued, 2nd in
class. Late in the second lap we had another scary moment when a buggy
had stuffed up a corner did a u turn and be facing us as we came into
the corner, we waved them in front figuring there was no point in them
passing again and then dusting us out, but then after they didn’t move
we went ahead. They passed us coming into the last paddock and around
the tree they had a bad line and I pulled the Pootrol alongside but then
got dusted out big time and then got dusted once again as we rounded the
final corner, not very good for our lap time at all. A quick check over
the car revealed that we had a front wheel bearing issue and a right
rear tyre that had a leaking valve. We changed the rear tyre and checked
over the rest over the car. Then I found Brett Young and a few others
were around to give me a hand with the wheel bearing. I also checked the
front diff for oil as quite a lot had leaked but there was still enough
surprisingly.
Sunday morning came and we went for a few slow laps around the pits,
jacked the car up and checked the wheel bearings again. All good so we
headed out for the next section and we were running pretty well for the
first 20kms until we came out of a corner the car coughed and stalled.
After several attempts to get the car going again and a bit of work
under the bonnet to see what we could find we decided that whatever the
issue was we couldn’t fix it from where we were. Luckily we were only
about 200m from camp and so a marshal towed us back to the pits as we
were sitting on the outside of a corner and didn’t particularly want the
car flattened by a big buggy. Back in the pits we had several people pop
their heads in to give us a hand (even the paramedic, who actually told
us he was going to get into off road based on what he had seen). Massive
thanks to Dan Rogers who sorted the problem which was there was no power
to the points.
By this time everyone was back from the second section so we got seeded
into position, grabbed a quick bite to eat and then jumped in the car
ready to go. Within the first few km’s we passed a few cars that had
pulled up on the side of the road broken. We pushed on catching and
passing Brad Krepp and had a dream run setting some very fast lap times
as well. The only issue we had in the last section is my camelback fell
onto the floor and pretty much boiled the water so when I went to have a
drink I burnt my tongue, not fun at 130km/h!!! Late in the second lap we
found Matt pulled up with an alternator issue, which would mean Tanya’s
debut of the 80 series would be a very successful one.
Massive thanks to all that helped out with the car during the weekend
and in the lead up, the property owners, Nissan Car Club, Sarah (good
job as navi), all the marshals volunteers and other competitors. Special
thanks to our sponsors FJG Engineering, Raw 4x4, The 4WD Shop and Ian
Diffen Tyre Factory.
See you all at Hyden,
Jason Galea #766
