Yealering 2011 Race Report

After many long months and hours in the shed, we finally had the chance to get the new Production 4wd Hilux out for its first race, round 1 of the WAORC, the Rod Hatter Memorial Yealering 300. A solid field of competitors, with a healthy 4wd contingent would be what we were up against. Whilst there were some noticeable absentees from our class, Matt Hall and Ted Schultz being two of them, it was still a strong field with Zeb Casey and Greg Pickersgill ready for a showdown as well as several new competitors.
After passing scrutineering quickly and painlessly we headed out for a reconnaissance of the track. The track was a good mix of tight twisty tree lined sections as well as flat out paddock runs, rough sections and flowing salt flat areas. Overall I thought it was a good track and a great track to test out the new car on. We would line up for prologue and keen for a good run to see where the car would fit in pace wise with the field, but unfortunately a driver error barely 1km in would see the hilux jump out of the ruts in some rough braking and collect a small tree stump. A short moment after coming to a complete stop on the stump I tried to slowly drive off the stump and continue on whilst fearing a flat tyre or a bent and broken front end, however luckily bent steering would be the worst of the damage. I pressed on for the rest of prologue, running at about 75% of full pace as we had not known the extent of the damage and the car certainly did not feel right.

Upon finishing prologue and returning to the pits, dad quickly sprung into action, straightening out the front end trying to get some sort of alignment back into it before Section 1. Times were released and we would be 3rd in class and would start section 1 directly behind Zeb and a few cars behind Greg. On the start line I was nervous as hell and very tense, the collision with the stump had shaken me a bit but I tried to calm down and get into a routine. Not far into the first section we came across Harleigh Uren’s car sidelined, however not long after this Sarah warned me that he was back on track and on a mission. One of the unique things about the Yealering track is that you can see your other competitors in numerous other spots along the track. As we began to close on Zeb and the Flynns Super 1650, Harleigh was now close enough that we let him past. With the heavy dust lingering in some sections, it was difficult to see and we watched as Harleigh in vein followed metres from the rear of the Flynns buggy trying to get past. After he moved on we closed in and sat behind the Flynns waiting for them to see how close we were and let us pass. After a tense few minutes getting frustrated as this whole time Zeb and Greg were getting away from us they let us pass and we set about chasing down Zeb as we entered the second 50km lap. After closing the gap to almost be close enough to try and pass we noticed that the fuel light was on. With 20km left of the lap this was a really bad sign, and so I began to short shift and backed off the pace to try and keep with Zeb as best we could without using up what fuel we had left. Upon crossing the finish line I felt a massive sigh of relief that we had made it, still had a straight car and hadn’t run out of fuel. As it turned out we basically ran down to the last litre of the tank, a very close call and for the next 2 sections we would definitely be starting with a full tank of fuel just to be on the safe side. I was extremely relieved knowing that we had taken time of Zeb; however we did not know where Greg or any of the other competitors in our class sat in the equation. As it turned out we had won the section, I was extremely happy, but now had a role reversal in pressure, as it’s a lot easier being the hunter than the hunted.

Over night once again dad got to work on the car, making sure it was ready to tackle day 2 and then we could relax and get good nights sleep ready for a big Sunday that lay ahead.
We set off for Section 2 with no plan other then to see how hard the new car could go; we would have no idea where any of the other competitors were in relation to our times as they were all behind us. As we chased down the 234 buggy of Rod Barton and tried to run away from Dirk and Danny and we were having a great time and I was really settling into the car and getting used to what it could do. As we finished the 2 laps, we would jump out of the car, leaving it in parc ferme until all the competitors had finished and as times trickled through it turns out that we had put more time between us and our competitors and moved into 6th outright. Once the car was released from parc ferme we would give it a check over again and I set off to get some more fuel into the car. Unfortunately I hadn’t banked on using as much fuel as we had. Luckily for me Jeremy Lia had some which I used to fill up the tank and then we had the car sorted for the final 2 laps of the 50km course.

Lining up for section 3 we would be the 6th car off the line, starting just behind the Bat of Brad Cooper. We were pushing hard in order to stay ahead of the buggies behind, but still remaining conservative in order to preserve the car to finish the event. As we continued on we passed Danny pulled over on the side of the road fixing a loose bonnet. We started to catch a slow moving Harleigh Uren with a failing diff and we were right in his dust trails at the worst possible point, a tight twisty treelined section with low visibility. Luckily Harleigh went bush to jump out the way and we continued on, now first tin top and running 4th on road. As the race wore on, a strange sound started coming from the car, which gradually got worse and worse. I diagnosed the noise as a hole in the exhaust or extractors. We continued on to finish the section, with a car that didn’t sound so good, but we managed to maintain our position and winning the section in class. When we crossed the finish line I was absolutely stoked, we had won all 3 sections for the weekend in class and steadily built up the pace to end up 4th outright, 1st in Production 4wd and first tin top.
I would like to thank the Nissan Car Club for running a great event, the property owners, volunteers, all the other competitors, Jeremy Lia for the fuel, Sarah Davies for a good job navigating and Mum and Dad for all their support and help with the car. Thanks also must go to our sponsors and supporters, FJG Engineering, Down South Motorsports, Jason Galea Multimedia, Monster Rides, Ian Diffen Tyre Factory Joondalup and 4130 Clothing.

We are now looking at a few upgrades to the car in order to squeeze some more pace out of the car for Hyden and will be trying to entice some new sponsors as we look into a change of plans in an attempt to put together a full AORC campaign for the rest of the season.
See you all at Hyden,
Jason Galea