Walters Arena, AWDC 40th Anniversary
For the 3rd round we returned to Walters Arena in South Wales. A 7 mile course had been laid out using fast tracks and newly created access roads, this was a fantastic course that had everything from fast Cat 1 graded tracks used by the WRC cars, trees, water even some off road bits!
Run 1 saw us off the line first, no-one wanted to go out! There was only 1 big moment, I mean BIG moment! A 5th gear slide into a ditch towards the tree line on the drivers side!
Fortunately the car hit the ditch sideways, I nailed the throttle & we got away with it, but only just!
Our run time was 3rd fastest, loosing out to the big Chevy engined cars of Steve Hiatt & Mark Hones by 10 seconds.
Run 2….. We completed the whole lap in 4th gear. The gearbox jammed in 4th and wouldn’t down shift.
This was end of meeting! The shift mechanism has had a problem with an alignment roller wearing out, so Elite manufactured a hardened steel version as a bodge. This split into 3 with 1/3rd of the bits resting in the shift mechanism stopping the box down shifting.
The gearbox has been removed again and returned to Elite who have to sort it out otherwise I will insert the gearbox in someones behind!
Ironically I was given a hand in trying to remove the broken bit by Paul Vidgen who just happens to be the Drenth Gearbox agent in the UK…… enough said!
I await the box’s return now for the next meeting at Driffield
Filed under: UK Race Updates on May 31st, 2008
