Thread: WA NightOwl Gymkhana round 3

Well, it was quite a weekend of carnage - the course was deliberately made a _lot_ harder . I managed to get the Disco 3 into 3rd place in Class A without damage, which was quite an accomplishment! Belly in his dual-cab Landy won Class C - great effort to beat out the Jeeps, which were extremely well (and expensively!) set up.

Over 30 competitors (12 in Class A) and quite a few breakdowns ....

Cass Jones (2nd place in the 2006 Outback Challenge) in his Class D Nissan broke his control arms on the second special stage of the first day, on a rock now known as "Cass' Rock".

Dave Rollins in his Class D Landrover 90 broke/bent a tailshaft, did a CV and a diff.

Two of the Class A cars went home after the first day.

Several others bent panels/sills/roofs - two Patrols and a Prado in Class A, two Suzuki's in Class C that I know of.

Hundreds of recoveries off the rocks and up some of the steeper hill-climbs.

We managed to get through the whole weekend without needing recovery - I think we were the only class A car to do so that attempted all stages - but we lost out on points due to the fact that we had to 3-point turn to get around some of the tighter stages, which copped a reversing penalty (which I thought was a little unfair). And two stages were set up so that _only_ the Jeep Wrangler (that won class A) and the Suzuki (that came second) could squeeze through without touching or running over the bunting (also a penalty), which the rest of us in Class A weren't too happy about

Still, 3rd place gives us enough points to take out class A for the year, and taught us a lot about the car.

It's mechanically as tough as guts. Nothing bends, nothing underneath to get caught up on (there was a Disco S2 running behind us for a while and it was interesting to watch the lines he had to take to avoid getting caught up).

No electrical gremlins, despite two days of solid bashing over rocks and dunking in the dam.

The traction control works _too_ well (with the electronic diff option) - such that rumours are that the organisers will put us in class B (with the double diff-locked cars) if we enter again

The ground clearance is pretty good at emergency profile, but still not enough to compensate for the long wheelbase, to the point where we cannot really be competitive with the small cars. Unless you're comfortable skull-dragging the car over large boulders/hill summits

My home-made protection panels for the air compressor and under-sills worked fairly well. The one for the exhaust was worthless - got torn off on the first rock garden stage.

It was a great weekend overall - some photos are up at:

http://www.perth4x4.net/forum/showth...t=10205&page=4

and:


http://ImageEvent.com/evlhilux/gymkhana2006

although none are of my car, or any of the other class A cars for that matter. Seems the photographers concetrated on the class C and D entrants

Still contemplating entering next year, but it will depend on how the rules are changed, and how much time I get to upgrade a few items

Cheers,

Gordon

well done on getting 3rd, a good effort.
It does sound a bit unfair that the bunting was that close.
Maybe they will consider a re-think next year if you hasle them enough.
I suppose they had to give the wranglers a helping hand some where considering the amount of times they got stuck on stuff.

I saw you in action in round 2 but I couldn't make round 3.

I'm considering giving it a go next year too, if I can get some underbody protection sorted out, so I hope I'll to see you there.
Steve