Post
by brumbyrunner » Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:56 pm
The Finke Desert Race is all over for another year. If you were following the race on finkedesertrace.com.au you would know that we ran out of time on day one and didn't restart on day two.
What really happened was we had a good start out of Alice on day one and the car was going exceptionally well. We didn't see any traffic until we got near the first check point when I started to notice the rear shocks fading off and had to slow down and let a few cars past. After that there was a smooth high speed section so we punted along at about 185 and the shocks cooled down and started working again. The rear shocks went off again pretty well straight after the track got rough again so all I could do was back off and try to nurse it the last 100km into Finke. About 70km from Finke we snapped a rear trailing arm bolt and had to stop. The constant pounding was taking it's toll and the track was much rougher than last time. We managed to jam a screwdriver in the bush and race-taped it in and continued down to Finke. We got in 13 minutes after time and they seeded us for the start on day two but after discovering the right rear shock leaking oil everywhere we made the decision to pull out of the event. If we couldn't get to Finke in under 4 hours with good shocks for the first hour, we weren't going to get back with buggered shocks from the start.
The car still goes great and we drove back to Alice that night sitting on 100-130 but it just wouldn't have handled the track. So it's onto the next stage for the rear suspension which will include full trailing arms to replace the limited semi-trailing arm that is in there now and at least 12" of rear wheel travel.
The whole team including BYB-01, Subiewidow, LightningSilverRX and SWK off the board all worked tirelessly to get us racing and we were all very disappointed when we had to withdraw. I thought those $1750 shocks that were freshly overhauled with new seals, oil & gas might have lasted one race if I took it easy but obviously I was wrong. The new front struts and the rest of the car worked perfectly and I was very happy with the way it all came together.
I need to say a big thank-you to all our sponsors who have supported us and even though we didn't finish the event, the amount of public interest at scruitineering and prologue was insane. We gave away all the brochures and stuff that we had and still people wanted more. We'll be better equipped next year with stickers and t-shirts etc.
Settlement Creek Racing