Tay Forest Challenge 2008

Well the Tay Forest Challenge. Been there done that. We got both cars through the event and I even drove there and drove back. David Alonzi who was to be my winchman had hurt his arm badly and so pulled out and so the week before I had to find a new winchman. Colin Rose also from SORC stepped up and agreed to be my team-mate. There were a few tense times in the campsite on Friday night as I arrived and was trying to make sure I didn't forget anything. I decided to switch from wire to rope at the last minute and Andy T from Ruftraks was more than happy to supply the 100ft of 11mm Plasma. Dave from Strathearn Engineering had seen me the night before when I went to pick up some spare parts and promised to lend me a set of 35in Simex Extreme Trekkers for the event. Only problem was, they were arriving on Friday. Alan then got them fitted to a set of rims and brought them up in the evening and we got them fitted. With these on it would give me a bit of extra ground clearance that I would need over the stumps.

Clean at the start control.

Fish and chips and a couple of beers to steady the nerves saw me ready for bed on Friday. We woke up early and with a bit of last minute faffing it was off to start control to get issued with a Marshal and drivers briefing. We got the number 13 stage to start on and off we went. We got stuck straight in with some heavy winching up a fire break and some careful driving. We missed the route a little and headed the wrong way. We found the punch location and change our course. Mike's winch managed to spit out a shaft and so we had to change the rear winch onto the front. Punch got it was time to get out the section. Bad news again. I manged to bend my front steering arm. We attached my rear winch onto it and winched it straight. Unfortunately this wasn't to last the rest of the section. We had to fix it again less than 50m from the stage exit.

In the middle of Stage 13

Colin showing off my morning's handy work. Yes that should be a straight bar.

We stopped for our compulsory lunch break before heading out to tackle stage 14. This looked fairly straight forward. Winch up a fire break over a few logs punch and back out the same way we came in. All was going well until we realised we were not going to make it time wise. We had to be back at control by 5pm or risk losing the point gained. We turned around and started to head out the stage.

On the way out of stage 14 I manged to smash my drivers window. oops. Careless on my part but you live and learn. So by the end of day one we had only managed one punch. But we were not the only ones. One of the tops teams were out. They had smashed a tree stump through one of the cars gearbox.

Sunday dawned and we were determined to do better. We were hearing stories of people working on their cars till all hours. We managed to get away fairly easily. A quick check over the night before and we seemed ready. This morning we were sent to section 8 first. A steep climb start followed by a rather scary looking drop off that would definitely require the rear winch. Lucky I got that fitted. We then had a tight tree section that I enjoyed. I felt I was driving it well and picking some good lines through the stumps. Less than 5m from the punch and my steering arm went again. I knew Alan from Strathearn had arrange another one to be brought up but we just had to find him. He was off watching at another stage. I walked out the section and got a marshal to give me a lift to find him. Got the Steering arm and got back to my stricken car in the forest. Colin had got the arm off and we refitted the new one. We were off again. We had to get out the same way as we came in so it was up the drop off this time.

The ledge drop off on Section 8. We had to go down this as well as up.

The final exit on Section 8.

We got lunch again, compulsory and headed for section 9. This was a great section. It was so good I was too busy to get someone to get some photos. The car was behaving itself we had some great bits of winching and driving to do and we finished on a high. We had one hour left before we had to be back at control. We had heard Section 10 was a long boggy one so we decided to give it a miss and head back. 3 punches over the weekend and we finished. I was happy with that. I even managed to drive home. Even though the steering wasn't all that great.

The results. We weren't last.

Thankyou to everyone who help me along the way in getting to and competing in this event. I will be back next year. Special name checks to Colin for stepping in at the last minute, Bob for all the work on the truck and help and advice. Strathearn Engineering for parts and help supplied. Especially with Jax who has put up with me.

Tay Forest Challenge Prep

After last week's SORC Challenge Event at Drumglog where the final placings put me 2nd overall. I knew I still had some work to do on the Truck for the Tay. So Yesterday I was back down at Bob's to get my rear winch fitted. (and some other bits.)

I had to get Bob to reweld my snorkel attachment on the cage as it kinda fell off in the trees last weekend.

The Winch is very solid, obviously, and is at the right height to still allow my waffle board to mount in the back.

I still want to get the winches wired up on the dash. I also need to wire in my Voltmeter to keep an eye on how much power I'm using. I need to put a switch on my fans as well so I can switch them off if I have to go into water.

The New Driver's bucket seat has been fitted but the passanger has to have its brackets made and finally fitted. First I have to sort out the rear winch isolator switch and add an Anderson Jack Lead for jump leads. The interior needs a bit of a tidy as well.

The Tay rules state that we have to wear helmets this year. So I ordered an OMP which also arrived this week. The USA branch of Alba Rallysport (my brother) sent me a new set of gloves as well. So I think we are on track to have everything ready.

SORC Drumglog Challenge

I was at the SORC Drumglog Challenge Event on Saturday 26th July. I had had an up and down week trying to get the fuel system running right as I had lost alot of power. With that hopefully fixed I headed down to the site on Friday night.
Saturday morning came and fed and coffeed a few last minute adjustments to the truck and I was ready.
There had been 22 punches (in the end we found out there were only 20) laid out across the site so we had been told. Clumped together in groups of about 4 or 5.

The Tay Forest Challenge is in 4 weeks time so I wanted to take it easy but I was definately going to try and get as many punches as I could. We set off well getting 3 punches quickly without getting the winch out.


We managed to lose a couple of waffle boards in the deep bogs over the day that we had to find and winch out.

Later on in the day we really enjoyed a few of the forest sections which may well be close to the Tay Forest Challenge. This punch was a good one. I teamed up with Mike over the day as we are competing together for the Tay. So we got a chance to work together.

Mike watching as I winch lower off the last punch of the day.

We had to winch off a bridge to get the attached punch card to the punch hanging from the bridge.

Dirty and wet at the end of the day. It was a great day and I hope SORC can run more of these over the year. I would love to get a small series of the events running over the year.

Scottish Hill Rally 2008

I was at the Perthshire Hill Rally this Friday and Saturday. I have marshalled before but this year I wanted more involvment. So I got the job as Management Car for Team Disaster Management. This is made up of Malc and Jim Miller. Malc competes in a 200 tdi 90 with a few tweeks. Jim has a 3.9 V8 rear engined Sug Bug.
My role was fairly simply be there at the end of every stage to ensure they have enough fuel or spare wheels to get to service. The Sug Bug is fairly thirsty so lots of fueling went on. Malc's Tdi was far more frugile.
Malc did have one issue at the end of SS10 having cracked the steering arm bracket and bend his chassis. Badger and Sandy their service crew managed to weld it together before The Legend SS11.
Well done to the whole Team, we got both cars home and Malc and his Co-Driver Adrian got 3rd in class.

Team Disaster Mamangement at the start of the weekend.

The 2 cars in park ferme before the start.

Jim was getting good at this. He managed to wreck 3 wheels over the 2 days. 1 might be repairable. Not this one though.

Service on day 2.

The Legend Stage. SS11

Jim and Scuba at the end of SS11 The Legend after 2 days racing. We had to change the front right wheel before he drove back to Perth. So I never got a picture of Malc at the end of the final stage.

John Cockburn the winner of the event giving it some on SS11

Biking Round Ski Areas.

I had some time off and took 2 days to ride past all the ski areas in Scotland. I didn't set out to do that it just happened. I left Perth and headed up to Aberfeldy to met Ali. We headedout toward Glencoe. Ali joined me for about an hour and then had to head back. I carried on and headed down towards Oban before heading up Glen Orchy.

Then it was up to Rannoch Moore and down into Glencoe. The picture above shows the new section of road by the meeting of the 3 waters. It was an awesome day and a great way to travel through Glenoce.
It was up to Fort William and past my second ski area for the day. Fort Bill was busy with the Mountain Bike world cup on at the weekend there were alot of people around.
From Fort Bill I headed to Spean Bridge and along the side of Loch Laggen where the photo above is taken.

It was time to start to look for somewhere to stay. The bottom of the River Pattack has a great wee spot. It is a Community Woodland Campsite that doesn't cost anything to stay at. The problem of course was the Midges.
In the morning it was up and off to escape the midges. I headed into Newtonmore and fueled up. Then it was up Cairngorm for breakfast. Above shot is taken on the road up to the mountain carpark.
From Cairngorm it was off to Nethy Bridge and then up the road towards The Lecht. A quick stop there and the off towards Braemar and finally passing Glenshee. Above is on the road from Braemar to Glenshee. It was an excellent 2 days and the bike performed really well. I passed it's 600 mile point at Glenshee and so it was in for it's first service the next day. Now the engine is run in I can now see what 7000rpm is all about......