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 Day 10

Kalgoorlie to York

I’m typing in the car again. It’s a 572km transport from this morning’s stage near Kalgoorlie to York.

We are still holding down 2nd place.

This morning was supposed to be 150km transport then a 105km horror stage! It was shortened to just 58km by cutting out the first part of the stage.  Sadly we had already fuelled the car for the longer distance so carried a small weight penalty.  We also let Geoff Olholm and Ondrej Cofal go in front of us as it seemed likely they would catch us on a 105km stage.

The stage was very sandy and windy through scrub land. A lot of hard work for Mark.  I thought it was a good stage but I’m not sure Mark did. Ondrej Cofal was off in the stage with a wheel sitting beside the car.  The Callinans were also off.  Not sure what their issue was. Could have been a flat or could have been beached on the sand bank at the edge of the road.  Neither car came in while we were at the service area at the end.

There was a competitor briefing last night where we were told that cars must be at a Perth airport at 3:30pm tomorrow or they won't be on the flight to Turkey.  To help with this, the organisers are dropping the last two stages for tomorrow and competitors can then take their cars straight to the airport.  This is a problem for us, as we wanted time for the service crew to change the suspension for the European tarmac sections and to fit tarmac tyres.

What we are contemplating is to change to tarmac setup tonight and to run the two gravel stages tomorrow with the tarmac springs and wheel alignment.  Hopefully this won't cost us too much time.
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Stop press!!!: News on arriving at York.  The organisers now plan to start an hour earlier and run all four stages tomorrow.  There will be even less time to get to the airport.  We are now faced with making arrangements to get the tarmac tyres sent somewhere we can get them.  We'll see what happens!

York has really turned out for the rally.  Hundreds of people, main street closed for rally cars and service crews.

                                                                                                                                                                  Next: onto Perth
 













































































































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