Official S2000 Polo Pics and Information

[gtimk5]

Can anyone give us some results please? I saw Simon Evans big prang on the TV on sunday night. Very scary...
No action pics?????

[FL00DY]

Can anyone give us some results please? I saw Simon Evans big prang on the TV on sunday night. Very scary...
No action pics?????

http://www.rally.com.au/events/qld2008/results/

[gtimk5]

Thanks for the link Floody.

[DaveMack]

So 11th overall ... that's pretty good. Congrats, guys. Shane ... did you get any action shots of Marius in the Pog?

Dave

[OZ2000]

Rally Q

Hi Guy's,

It was great to see some of you at the Rally! We had a real mixed weekend, stressed out to the max before we started by everything involved in just getting the car to the start line, and listening to every noise coming from the new gearbox always thinking the worst. But it got better and we had a ball!

We kicked off the weekend with a short media stage where we had the chance to give the car its first shake down! Unfortunately on the tight left hander from gravel to bitumen we slid a little wide and JUST nudged the outside armco railing giving the front guards a few "Character Lines". The reason why I say unfortunately is because it was right in front of three TV Cameras from 10, 9 and 7. Marius was interviewed afterwards and got away with blaming a local kangaroo for our misshap! (The funny part of that is that when Simon Evans almost destroyed the Corolla in Canberra on the first stage after hitting a steel post, that incident was reported as an encounter with a Kangaroo. When Marius came up with our little biff being the result of a roo, the Toyota mechanics we were talking to at the time were P!ss!ng themselves laughing!)

Friday night was the Showground shootout at Nambour. A speedway style sprint for two laps around the oval with a couple of small jumps thrown in. The car sounded so sweet with the exhaust bouncing of all the buildings, and the crowd loved it. Our quickest time was 43 sec which wasn't too bad.

Saturday dawned a little foggy, but generally clear and bright. The rain that deluged Nambour didn't make it to Imbil, so we had good roads awaiting us. Our first stage was a 14km wakener. Marius got stuck in fairly well, and drove the car hard, but our time was matching Molly Taylors in the Cyborg. We should have caned her, so I decided it was time to stir Marius up a bit and told him she beat us by a minute. Gotta say that the Transport stage to next bit of forest was a Quiet and brooding time. Once we kicked off into the next stage, the animal had been unleashed and Marius ripped it up! This stage was to be used twice, but with two different start points, creating a long and a short version of the same stage. I set up our notes to cater for this, but this led to a Pace Note call fractionally late spearing us off in a minor overshoot. (Chalk one stuff up to me!) Marius returned the favour a bit later in the stage by not hearing the call into a hairpin, and again we blasted past the corner in another overshoot and more lost time. Not happy, we ended the stage approx 1 minute behind where we should have been, but determined to get our act together from there.

For the rest of the day things went pretty well. The Pace notes that we had written were done in a very different style to what we used in Canberra, and they were fantastic, but MY GOD I was busy. At one point my mouth was so dry from calling notes that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth causing me to stumble on the next note. The roads are incredible around Imbil. It was such a mix of insanely tight and twisty "technical" roads that suddenly change to massively high speed sections blasting up and down the hill sides and then returning to ridiculously tight stuff again. It was Great!!!!!

Unfortunately our times didn't show as well as we would have expected. Marius was drivingthe wheels off it, and the notes were generally working really well, but our times were only average. Just after that was when Simon and Sue Evans totalled the Corolla, so two other stages were cancelled. We were hoping to use those stages to find a rhythm and determine why our times weren't as sharp as we expected. We compounded this problem with a destroyed front left tyre on Kanganga Short late on Sat Afternoon. We crashed through a rough dip, and a rock hit so hard that it compressed the tyre enough to punch a hole in the band of eth rim about 2cm x 4cm, leading to a deflating and then shredded tyre. We lost about 10 minutes changing that in stage. The last 35km stage was great fun though! It is an intensely busy stage, and you really knew you had done a marathon stage when you were finished.

Overnight service found no problems with the car and we restarted on Sunday a bit confused about what we had to do to get back on the pace. Again, Marius drove well, absolutely nailing the spectator points each time past, in a display that really got the crowd hooting! I had another issue with the notes in the second stage of the day, completely falling off the notes for about 3km to the end, costing us another 15 sec or so! Absolutely furious with myself, I let fly at the end of the stage with a tirade of invectives about myself, that Marius had the pleasure of hearing amplified to 196 decibel through our intercom! (Whoops)

At the next service we found a small amount of movement in one of the Lower control arm rose joints, a result of the puncture on Saturday. The crew was absolutely brilliant replacing the Arm and doing a normal service in just a bit over ten minutes, with no time penalty's.

We continued through the rally, generally having a ball, but dissappointed and confused at the times we were posting. The last stage of the day was again the 35km stage run in reverse, and that was insane! What a great stage, and a superb drive from Marius, with the notes perfect .

Later as we were talking with other crews and spectators who saw the car in action, we were surprised to hear that Bates and Evans' cars were geared to a max speed of 172km, whereas we saw 194km on the big straights. That's where the penny dropped for us. The new gearbox provided from South Africa appears to have a substantially different set of Ratios to the one we used in Canberra. We are getting the data sent to us this week to confirm, but we are pretty confident our slower stage times have come about as a result of having the wrong gear ratios for such a tight and technical rally. Our acceleration out of corners has been reduced marginally, and when combined over the length a twisty stage it has added up to slower times than we expected. Given the way that Marius drove with such confidence and aggression, our times should have been much better. A reall bummer to be honest, 'cause it took the fun out of what should have been an absolute hoot. But that, as they say, is Rally!

Cheers


Gerard

[gtimk5]

Fantastic write up Gerard. Sounds like you had fun. Its hard to gel as a team with the notes eh? At least the fast bits during stages give your voice a rest.
I feel for the co,drivers in the tight stuff. Mine couldnt read the notes quick enough in parts of "Hellyer Gorge" stages in Rally Tas.
Also having to feel what the car is doing as to when to call the notes.
Roll on the next event! All the best of luck to you. Wish it was Tasmania!!!!
Andrew

[WEDEL.1]

Next one is SA. I don't live far from where the event will take place. I will definately be going out for a look.

Maris

[gtimk5]

Hey guys, its sad to see the rally of Melbourne cancelled this year due to financial difficulties.
However its to Tassies gain with us getting the round instead and also its the first all tarmac event in the ARC ever! October the 4-5th and all up in the NW. Covering a lot of the Rally Tasmania course including Hellyer Gorge and Savage River stages.
A definate must see!!!
Andrew

[phaeton]

To Marius or Gerard,

Is the team in SA yet ? where/when can we met you on site ? (Angaston)

I'll be going Friday night and Saturday or Sunday

Good Luck with Rally SA
Ben

[phaeton]

Are you guys competing in the SA round ?

http://www.rallysa.com.au/competitors/documents/2008SAPRoSAEntryList.pdf

[gtimk5]

Whats happened to this team? Havent heard from them for ages and we have the Tas round coming up on the first weekend of october.
Another first is it will be the first ever all tarmac round of the ARC.
The Polo would sound awesome through Hellyer Gorge amd I would make the journey up there to see it.
Andrew

[OZ2000]

Sorry that we have been off the radar for a while.

A careful analysis of our Rally Q results revealed that the gear ratios in the replacement gearbox received from VW South Africa 3 days before the event are just way too long for our conditions. We reached a top speed of 194kph as opposed to 172 at Canberra. We also hit the limiter in 6th only 3-4 times for a very short distance during the whole event which just proves that we are carrying weight which we don't use.

In rallying it is all about acceleration and getting out of corners as quickly as possible.

I made a decision to sort these issues out before entering another rally.

I have been in touch with Sadev in France and the gearbox is on it's way there to fit the upgraded rear casing(so that we won't have the same problem as in Canberra) and at the same time they will also fit the correct gear ratios for me.

Obviously this takes a big chunk out of the budget, but doing an event with the Polo as it is now, is like playing pokies - great fun but you achieve absolutely nothing.

We had the Polo officially on display for a week though at a big corporate event in QLD that VWA staged to showcase their whole model range - so maybe a bit of hope there still!

Will keep you posted.
Marius

[gtimk5]

Good to hear from you Marius, sorry to hear of more problems with ratios ect.
It can get very expensive and when you dont have a 7 figure budget like Toyota it mustnt be much fun at the moment mate.
So is there any chance of coming down to Tas for the tarmac event?
I realise that the Polo has been built for gravel events and to redo the setup for tarmac could be a big job. (and expensive!)
Cheers, and good luck.
Andrew

[phaeton]

Sorry to here Marius it explains why you didn't go to SA.

Please tell us when your competing again, I may fly to an event

[OZ2000]

Unfortunately we won't make it to Tassie and maybe not even to Coff's which is the last ARC event this year but will definitely do some rallies for testing before next year when we plan a full onslaught on the ARC and even to fly the VW flag on the Australian WRC.

So for Gerard and myself a full programme to chase some sponsorship which will enable us to put a decent effort together. So if you know of anybody out there.....

Marius
Team OZ2000 Rallyesport.