Off Road Racing

Treads · 21st September 2010, 11:59 AM

I thought I'd post some stuff about our upcoming attempt at Class honours in the Warialda 200 this coming weekend. It's the 20th anniversary of the race and should be a great event.

My mate Bevan (who is also a fellow Group Captain in the RFS) owns a 1988 Lada Niva that he built as a Class 7 4WD quite a few years ago.

Now to look at a Lada in original form, they are pretty uninspiring:

The car was converted to 2WD a few years, back so it could run in Class 5, and last year Bevan invited the rest of the Brigade to join him at the Warialda event, which started a new era for his team:

After the Day 1 short course heats we were running 1st in class, with the only problem being a bent panhard rod. We were doing so well, only to break a tie rod on the long course and retire on the second day. The Lada has been sitting forlornly on the trailer since

This year we've made a massive effort in readiness for Warialda! The Pit Crew is now made up totally of serving RFS members and the car has a new lease on life thanks to hundreds of hours of work (and LOTS of body filler

):

Painting began about two weeks ago:

Lots of electrical work was done last week to tidy up some issues and this weekend we did a few major mechanical and ancillary jobs to finish it off:

Last night we started applying sponsor decals and tonight we're working on some other minor stuff. First thing tomorrow it's getting the rest of the sponsorship stickers and going to one of the mechanical/electrical sponsors' place for a photo shoot

and so they can help us fix a little temp gauge/sender issue

More photos to come tomorrow....

Oh, and did I mention that yours truly will be navigating for most of this weekends' race

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 21st September 2010, 01:10 PM

Looks Great!

See you there!!!

Treads · 21st September 2010, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Looks Great!

See you there!!!

Excellent! I'm towing the car up with the Deefer, so you won't miss us!

I think we'll probably get there mid afternoon on Friday

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 21st September 2010, 02:09 PM

yep,, us too I hope!

pretty easy day saturday,,
infact both days are,, hmm, not long?

**numpty** · 21st September 2010, 03:08 PM

Nice work.

It would go even better with a Fiat Twin Cam,

which was a popular mod a number of years ago, as they are basically 60's/70's Fiat engineering.

Treads · 21st September 2010, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by numpty

Nice work.

It would go even better with a Fiat Twin Cam,

which was a popular mod a number of years ago, as they are basically 60's/70's Fiat engineering.

There has been some talk in the garage of doing something similar for next year

If we've got time we'll probably enter Dondingalong, Wittitrin & Warialda....

Treads · 23rd September 2010, 03:33 AM

New shocks are in, a couple of new tyres and some more decals. On Wednesday we took it to The Armidale School (one of our sponsors) for their Trades boys to have a look and a fiddle. TAS offers TVET options for students who wish to complete a trade instead of uni after they finish school.

The facilities are brilliant

The boys do a lot of fabrication, welding, small motors, etc and enjoyed the opportunity to get hands on with something different

We're developing a good relationship with the new centre with the view that any boy with an interest in motor sport can be involved with the team. The centre has also offered technical assistance to the team

A coup;e of small jobs needed doing while we were there, and so we utilised the skills of some of the students

While they were doing that we got busy applying more sponsor stickers and our car numbers

After a short test drive around the centre we then headed back to the main campus for a few more photos

Today shall be a day of rest for the team. Friday morning we get the decals applied for our last 3 sponsors and then head off to Warialda at about midday.

**Ace** · 23rd September 2010, 03:24 PM

looks good mate, TVET is a good thing, it appears some schools are set up better then others.

I started teaching Primary Industries, the ag version of TVET and I got no funding at all. In the end it died due to lack of financial support. I'd kill for a set up like that, looks the goods.

matt

**LandyAndy** · 24th September 2010, 08:02 PM

Nice work.
Make sure we get to see some pics of it dirty without too many battle scars.
GOODLUCK
Andrew

**Psimpson7** · 24th September 2010, 08:24 PM

Good luck guys. The Niva looks awesome!

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