Craig Stevens Waitomo report

Hi All,

Well after a pretty trying start to our 2008 rally season we are happy to finally be able to report some success from the recent Waitomo Rally. On Friday the 27th of June myself Craig Stevens (driver) Chris Alexander (co-driver) along with our Service Crew Brian Stevens and Warren Hull headed south to TeKuiti for the Waitomo Rally which was round 2 of Rally Xtreme for the North Island Cars and round 4 of the North Island Rally Series and being run as a Gravel Rally for 2008. The Weather was occasional showers on the Friday night which was good as putting stickers ect on in the pouring rain can be a bit of a mission. Saturday 28th (rally day) was an early start in very wet and blustery conditions, ss1 was an awsome stage, reasonably tight and twisty with lots of Camber on the roads which ment you could still carry alot of speed and we really enjoyed flicking the car from corner to corner. The Road surface really held up well and offered quite good grip despite the standing water and we posted 2nd fastest time for 2wd overall and fastest in our class. ss2 was another awsome stage and another good time, we were fastest 2wd overall and took the overall lead for 2wd in the Rally. ss3 at 22.6km started out well for us untill we devaloped a brake problem again with the rear brakes and had to tour through the last 8km of the stage with no brakes at all and only posted 4th fastest 2wd time overall and dropping back to hold only a 4 second lead over the hard charging Justin Glavish. ss4 was a pretty conservitive stage by us not 100% trusting our brakes still setting 2nd fastest 2wd time but loosing the lead to Justin Glavish by just 2 seconds. ss5 saw us back on the pace in the heavy rain, thunder storms and hail stones to come out of the stage back in the lead of 2wd by 22 seconds and once again totally happy with the way the car was working. ss6 was originally going to be 43km long but had to be shortened down to 22km due to flooding at the start of the stage, one part of the touring stage on the way to the new start was completely under water!! Unfortunatly we were never informed where in the notes the stage started so ended up driving the stage blind which was extremely hard work trying to guess what was coming up next through the heavy rain, good fun all the same and we set 2nd fastest 2wd time this time being beaten by Tony McConachy in the Hyabusa powered starlet but our lead in 2wd had extended to 31 seconds and things were looking good. ss7 was quite a fast stage and was great to really open it up, one straight was 1.2 km long and we had the escort over 200kph! it was a real buzz to be doing that speed on the gravel in a thunder storm. we were again beaten by Tony McConachy by 1 second but again extended our lead in 2wd to 1minute. On the way to ss8 (the final stage of the rally) a very bad electrical smell filled the car and forced us to stop and investigate, understandably there was a sense of urgancy to find the problem and it was looking pretty grim but just when all seemed lost the problem was found to be the main output wire from the alternator had broken off and shorted out frying the alternator. we quickly tied the wire away from anything and just made it to start ss8 on time. We just cruised through the last stage trying not to use our wipers or demister fan unless we really had to. we were still second fastest 2wd through the stage and had finished all the competitive distance still leading 2wd overall so it was an anxious drive back into TeKuiti to confirm that we had won 2wd overall for the day by 1min and 2 seconds from Justin Glavish, won our Class and finished 19th outright. This result now leaves us in 1st equal in the Rally Xtreme 2wd series and leading our class in the North Island Rally Series. We have to thank all our Sponsors: Suspension Tech ltd, Innovate Auto Tech, Attract Signs, HMI Hydraulics, Zoom Slide Productions, Best Automotive Clinic and our hard working service crew both on events and in the workshop repairing and devaloping the car. We now look foward to the Hawkes Bay Rally in late july and be sure to check out our video's on www.youtube.com/craig0041

Till next time, Keep it sideways!!

Craig Stevens and Team.