**Warning** Its been a long time since Ive rambled about an event on here, so Im making up for it with this post.... Im sure the other guys can add to this.I thought Id start the thread so that Mikey and Ben *hint* *hint* can post their pics later. Yep there was mud.... oh and did I mention rain? x( Rocked up Friday afternoon to be greeted with some Bathurst rain while pitching our tents. What was all that fuss about a drought?? High recommendation for the Bar n' grill in town for a feed. Great food, and damn good looking staff, well at least I thought so. (I should have asked our waiter if he wanted a coffee with me some time....)We had Mike (RedZedMikey), Jack (zxtt-1), Ben (Blipman), Pat (ltd) and myself rock up on Friday with Alex and Gail (oztraveller) turn up on saturday morning to be greeted with our mudsite... I mean, campsite. By this stage we all had webbed feet, foot rot and wet clothes. The race was great, although you kinda had a strong feeling about an hour into the race that the monaros were going to nail it. Especially since they'd already lapped the other cars. Wasnt too much of a bogan element this year, in fact I only ever saw two police officers for the whole event - not bad considering the amount of police they would have had at the Bathurst 1000. Although I did get a "Those tits are fake..." call from a lovely guy stumbling past me at one stage. Good thing I have a sense of humour... Got accosted by a couple of Kiwis when Ben & Jack left me at one stage. They started talking about the Mclaren racing teams (since I was wearing a Mclaren jacket - thank you Wayne it was very warm!! :YD). I had to stop them and explain that I didn't have the foggiest idea what a Mclaren was, but managed to redeem myself when we talked nissans. Mike later pointed out what a Mclaren looked like in the model car shop later in the day. Learn something new every day....Chris, we would have come and said hello, but you called at a time where Mike, Jack and I were sinking in the mud at our campsite while rather unsuccessfully trying to keep what little shelter we had in one piece while the wind came through. Plus it sounded like you were rather comfortable in your rain proofed and temperature controlled environment of the car...and as Ben said, if you were to leave the environment of the car, it would have only been downhill. The race was fun and I dont think many of us got much sleep - too much car racing to watch. We all headed up to the top of the mountain after tea on saturday to watch the race and Pat, Ben and I set up the chairs, beers and spirits while the rest of the crew wondered off. ...and then it bucketed down with rain. I was pissed that my beer got diluted. So once the safety car came out because of the torrential rain, we headed back down to the pits to have a chuckle at the pit crew sleeping on tyres or wrapped in bubble wrap (as one guy was) - it made us feel better about going back to our own wet tents. Of course when we left the campsite on the monday we had to take the scenic route around the track. Mike, I had to put my car back into second gear going up mt panorama with all the camping gear in the boot just to keep up to the speed limit behind you guys. Not quite the same as the zed last year, but I did enjoy having all that boot space this year. :YD Anyway, enough rambling - especially since I can't provide pictures! Thanks guys for some awesome company at a great event! Same time next year? :YDLou.
Alright Lou, subtle hint taken... The weather made it hard to have a good time, but I think we managed. It was periods of INTENSE rain, followed by bright sunshine a few hours later and tantalizing possibilities for the optimistic, only to have all hope demolished a few hours later again as the rain comes back. It was pretty much that for 3 days. I got totally soaked, and sunburnt. Go figure.Pics:The crew was: - Lou... "What's a McLaren?" - Pat... "I'll have the wanker beer, thanks" - Jack... "Sure sis, I'll have the commodore back before 5 on Monday..... sucker" - Alex... "I know what I'm doing!"... tent almost falls over as he refuses to take our advice - Mikey.... comments too gross to mention, to the point where I dared him to say the same thing to Lou, which he promptly did. Classy. - Me.... "It's not creepy if I put my arm there is it?".... Lou screams. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst01.jpg[/image] Company was the highlight, as always. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst02.jpg[/image][image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst03.jpg[/image]The 350Z sadly didn't last long this year.... only 6 hours or so. Blown head gasket and they couldn't afford to bring a spare engine. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst04.jpg[/image]Someone about to get their ass handed to them up Mountain Straight. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst05.jpg[/image][image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst06.jpg[/image]Photo taken in same spot as above, 15 minutes later. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst07.jpg[/image]The Morgan Aero. Funny looking thing, unanimously voted as the crappiest sounding car there. Not sure what happenned to it, it retired yet I saw it drive into the secondary pits under its own power. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst08.jpg[/image]After about a half an hour this is the best shot I got of the Fluff 200SX spitting flame It did it every time at the same spot on change.... not to be pointing fingers, but aren't cams and overlap supposed to be standard in their class? [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst09.jpg[/image]The definition of guts.... doing 280kph in a 400kW Lamborghini Diablo down Conrod Straigh at 3 in the morning with only a dirty pair of Z headlights to guide you. They had a sealed off pit area or I would have mentioned the Raybrig globe group buy. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst10.jpg[/image]Digging trenches around tents.... never a good sign. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst11.jpg[/image][image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst12.jpg[/image]The 360 GTR, which didn't make it. There was a 360 Challenge as well, which was a lot slower. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst13.jpg[/image]These guys must have thought they were being paid by the hour.... took them about 20 minutes to change a front spoiler! [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst14.jpg[/image]The Fluff 200SX.... poor thing. From what I hear it went through 3 engines, and even then towards the end it would do a lap, spend 20 minutes in the pits, do a lap, then repeat. Judging by the blue smoke from the exhaust, on the last few laps it looked like it had blown a turbo seal and they just managed to limp it to finish. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst15.jpg[/image]Glowing disks... [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst16.jpg[/image]The Mosler taking a short cut... [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst17.jpg[/image]... resulting in a healthy coverage of race tape and mud. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst18.jpg[/image][image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst19.jpg[/image]The Kawasaki 911.... the sound of this thing compression braking through Skyline was insane.... a real highlight. If you're at the 24 hour I strongly recommend taking a bus atnight to the top of the mountain and sit at Skyline just where the downhill starts. The sound of the more highly strung Porches blowing your eardrums out, the Diablo spitting flames and the Mosler crackling down the gears is just trancendental. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst20.jpg[/image]Note the bashed up body work around the rear wheel.... they had several (like half a dozen!) blow outs over the 24 hours. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but from what I could see the Lambo has it's radiators in that spot. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst21.jpg[/image][image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst22.jpg[/image]Bathurst museum. [image]http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~blipman/trash/bathurst23.jpg[/image]C'mon Mikey, develop those photos and impress us!Ben
With all that mud.... all you needed was a bikini and some extra girls, and it would have been female wrestle fest 2003!! ok, I'll shut up now.CheersJEDI-77
Just missed... The photos you took above Hell Corner just before the rain... I guess from the bridge, we must've nearly bumped on the stairs, We left that spot went to the Pathy and drove up the mountain, only to come straight back down due to extra charge! Then rain started!
Wheel Police Commisioner Blipman >>> has given me about 25 tickets so far. At least the standard Z wheels are on the right side. Project for next year, get 1 repaired matching set fitted out of the sets of 16's and 1 set of 18's I have.
