Well what an event!!!

Had the phone call on Friday from Andrew saying that the car was broken, so after work headed over to Carco to help Andrew with the repairs. We both were novices at working on an MX-5, certainly learnt a lot and swore a bit at the Japanese designers a few times.

We called it quits at about 10.30pm on Friday, realising that it would be easier to finish things after a bit of sleep. Finished getting the car together Sat morning by 9.30, headed home for a quick shower then into Civic for the start. There were some ominous clouds on the way into Civic, but to be expected being Natcap.

Out into the stages, 1st stage East West, really getting used to the car and the slippy sections, not a bad time so quite happy. Then into Tidbinbilla, had a spin at the RGR into Long Gully, forgot that Andrew had never been through this bit of Tidbinbilla. Saw Darren and Tom off the road at the RGR uphill, they were beached. Got through the stage, feet were on fire literally, the centre tunnel was so hot the soles of my boots were melting.

Into service, all good then into stage 3, plenty of cars off near the end, we had a reasonable run through the stage. Back to service then into stages 4 and 5, had a god run through them, a couple of slight off's with a bit of slippy stuff causing a few issues, rectified though on the 2nd run through them.

Stage 6 had no issues until we had torrential rain with a bout 6km to go, basically just after the speccy point at the service park, was very hard to see. But we got through and it washed a bit of mud off.

Stage 7 we hit a roo near the end of River Rd, damage to front right guard and that's about all. Rear of car was a bit wobbly with the Right Rear being in self steer mode(found out this morning that the lower control arm was broken). Stage 8 Andrew drove to finish, was good to finish in daylight as we had no spots fitted.

Ended up 1st NSW 2wd, 1st ACT Sliver Cup, Clubman and Novice. Shows that you need to register if you want to win anything.

Great job by Andrew to get the car to the finish, also for getting the car fixed. Big thanks to Dave at Carco for all his help and letting us use his workshop to get the car fixed, he even popped in on Saturday morning to make sure that everything was ok.

Also thanks to our crew for the event, Steve Nightingale, Adam and Nicola. We did actually give them some things to do at service.

Great thanks to Adrian, Julie, Ted and team for putting on a fantastic event. Also to the guys at Trussme for supporting the event.

As Andrew said, get out there and register for series and have a run. We scrimp and save to run events, cut out things so we can get to events. Small sacrifices can mean you can make it to an event. I just wish I had registered for NSW Clubman this year as we would have scored some of Richard Opie's money. Big thanks to Richard as well for putting up the sponsorship this year for the Realistic Car Rentals NSW Clubman Series.

On another note, have to say it's taken me 10 years to finally win Novice after my first year with Sam Austin a long time ago in a Galaxy far far away!

Ray