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Ben Grabham coming in on the rear rim
Dave
Then I hot-footed it to Mount Magnet and got set up for a service. Big one tonight with air filter, oil + filter change.
Ok, Day 3 was Mount Magnet to Leonora, and worked out at over 700km of riding for the competitors! Talk about a biggest day, try backing up for one of these after two days of riding beforehand and then having another 4 to go after that!
Rod Faggoter was out early in the first stage. He got back in the race but was out of the running for a place. Seemed like a nice bloke too.
The stages on Day 3 were fast, open and pretty much classic Safari riding. The stages were all long, often with sizeable transport sections between. This was the first of the dirt roads for service crews, and it was a pretty poor one to start on. Service crews had about 520km to drive for the day. It was a fairly huge day in all!
The start of a long day
Mt Magnet pub
My view for the morning. Gotta love 50 vehicles all travelling on the one dirt road. The dust was horrendous!
At the first refuel point
Dunno who these blokes are…
Annie Seel – look at her height in relation to the bike!
Dave waiting at the time control
The after the trouble-free refuel the riders headed off and service crews headed through a place called Sandstone to a mine near Leinster for the service. This took a couple of hours and by the time Dave arrived they were about to close the final stage for the day. They told him as he went in to the service that he was one of the last bikes and that they would close the stage after he and a few others went through. This is Dave at the service at about 4 in the afternoon, still 170km to go to get to Leonora!
Dave and a couple of others were the last on the stage. Fortunately they shortened the stage but Dave and Darren ended up riding in the dark and got to Leonora at 7pm after 12 hours in the saddle and only 28 minutes of rest in the entire day! I was getting quite worried when Dave was so late back and was damn relieved to see him! It turned out that Darren had to share Dave’s headlight as his had failed. Not such a problem except that Dave’s headlight is about 2 candlepower!
Thank goodness the Husky is a low maintenance bike. I changed the air filter and gave it a quick once-over before we hit the swags.
I am breaking up my old posts so that they display properly. Its the same info as before but I have just added page breaks. Hopefuly it will display better now!
Day 4 dawned and we were headed to Laverton. The two towns are about 160km apart by direct road, but the course went well north and then looped back to Laverton. We were off to a great start when the directions to the first refuel were wrong, as were the GPS coordinates! We tracked it down and I was chuffed to be there early enough to see the first riders come in and take off for the next selective.
Morning at Leonora
At the first refuel point
Ben coming in
The hustle and bustle of the refuel
Ben takes off
Jake’s turn
AJ
The rest – Paul Isaacs(?)
Meanwhile, the rest of the riders started to come in and refuel – Darren and Johnny G
Dave
Dave had a navigation lapse in this stage and lost a heap of time. He followed someone – who turned out to be lost themselves!
A random photo…
Dave’s starting sequence at the next selective
Then it was off to the second refuel point (no service today). Man, what a disaster! I had three maps, two GPS’s and written directions, none of which matched the roads out there! I drove around in bloody circles, got stressed out of my brain, thought I had it but found I was still lost and eventually stopped for directions at a farm house. Even that was painful, as the lovely old lady giving directions had a story for every landmark! Great, but I NEED TO GO! I was positive I would miss Dave at the refuel and barrelled down these crappy twin trails with sandy creek crossings, I ended up in 4WD because it was much easier.
Anyway, what was supposed to take less than 2 hours took me nearly 3. Thankfully they were holding riders at the end of the stage until their crews arrived – even better, I still arrived 5 minutes before Dave! What a shocker!!
This was my view:
And here’s Dave coming to the refuel
The dust was crap – again. The back of the ute was chockers with bloody sand – filthy stuff! I kept the tonneau rolled forward after that.
Fifi Box (I mean really, who lets themselves be called FIFI??? What were you thinking girl???) had a spill off a minibike and ended up breaking her wrist – right in front of our ute! To be fair, we did all cheer her! How silly!
This was our camp at Leonora
And a few snaps to give an idea of how packed in we were – 500+ people take a lot of room!
Big service tonight, air filter, oil + filter, new rear tyre and general run-over. We also sorted out the spare wheels to be ready to go – expecting the worst!
Day 5 was a return loop to Laverton. If you didn’t know any better you might just assume that it would be a bit of a rest after the previous few days… yeah right!
The first section of transports and selectives to the refuel was over 300km. There was a splash and dash refuel in there if you needed it – which a lot of folks seemed to! A few blokes ran out of fuel and Bike 82 suffered Ben Grabham’s fate – cooked rear tyre and that was it for the stage.
Dave made it to the refuel no problems and as usual it was a trouble free change of maps and some more bike-juice then he headed off.
A wounded trailer (check the back wheel)
The countryside near the first refuel
Ben at the refuel
Rusty Bysouth, a gentleman and top bloke! Part of the service crew for Dean Belton, bike 23
I saw a lot of this…
Jake at refuel
Rod Faggoter had a rear tyre problem, so bad that the tyre had split and as soon as a tube went in it was pinched. His day was over, but, again, he rejoined the race later on. It was interesting to watch him rying to fix the tyre, with the GHR boys looking on, and Geoff Smith giving friendly advice. Rod just played along with it, great sport. I didn’t get a chance to meet him, but I was impressed. I’d like to shake his hand.
The PWR boys were out in the next stage
Dave and I at the refuel, pics taken by a mate (thanks Jim!)
Dave always wanted to hear the gossip as he pulled in! Half the time we knew nothing but he always asked!
Me in action
Dave
Me
Dave headed off and we went to the second refuel point. I was travelling with Mark McConnell’s crew because we were comfortable apart in the rankings so that Mark could come in and be serviced then Dave could come in without any interference.
Annie Seel was telling the Husaberg crew how she had almost had a head-on with a spectator car in this stage, after making a navigation error. Scary!
The refuel setup
Johnny G
Dave
And that was about it for the day. The last selective was apparently a repeat of the final selective from the day before, but Dave was wary in case there were any changes.
At the service that night we found a problem with the exhaust on the bike. A heat shield had broken off and punched a hole about the size of a 10-cent piece in the exhaust pipe. I went on the scrounge and thanks to a couple of other teams got a tube of maniseal exhaust gasket goo, some heat resistent tape and an empty drink can. We had an exhaust clamp, so I applied generous amounts of maniseal then wrapped the drink can around, more maniseal, heat resistant tape, more maniseal and finally the exhaust clamp! Job done!
I was super impressed at the level of cooperation from the other teams, and cannot thank them enough! Top work fellas!
Day 6 started off nicely, with Richard coming around and telling us in as many words that the service crew notes were crap! He went ahead on the route and placed marker arrows for us which was great. It turned out the directions were not really that bad, but I think it was a great move regardless. The first selective was about 80km but the second was nearly 250km! At the first refuel I got a few piccies:
Ivan
David Schwarz
There were a heap of dead camels on the first stage, the results of a cull (Murder!? Depends if you are a radical clueless hippy I guess!) This one ended up as a trophy!
Rod Faggoter
Johnny G still on the go
Dog racing
Dave at the refuel
We had a 21km trek to the next refuel point, while the competitors had 250km of tight, sandy overgrown tracks to contend with. We had plenty of time so we stopped at some scenery that we saw.
Refuel 2 was pretty tight, and we had to park off the road about 3 cars deep
Its a bush
Annie Seel got staked by a stick in her right leg through the boot. The pain must have been incredible but she kept riding – fast!
Because time was tight we were given a special dispensation to help the rider with their maps on the bike as well as refuelling and feeding them. Didn’t change things for me much, since there was only one of me, but for larger teams it meant more time could be taken looking after the rider. I shoved as much sport drink down Dave’s neck as I could, and forced him to eat some food while I was fuelling the bike and changing the map.
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