Original story
From Warwick’s reports
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Hi again,
For this year's Rally Nelson I was with David Bowie's crew.
I went down to Chch the previous Monday (21st), imposed on good friend Bob (again) - thanks Bob.
David collected me 9.30 on Friday 25th Aug. and drove us to Nelson where we stayed at Bridge Backpackers, after visiting the forest where our two stages were to be timed on Sat 26th. David collected our 'gear' - well not really, just the necessary documentation etc - that night. Fish and chips for dinner.
Out the gate time of 6.15 AM - yes 6.15 AM our stages being over an hour and a half away !!
Well organised ? Well we were once our timing gear was tracked down (almost) heading out to our stage with our 'Nelson based' crew David reverted to our old trialling mode - got lost and ended up perigrinating ( look that term up - an old trialling term). We had to be rescued and positioned !
But wait there's more - the crew snappily? set the beam up and then after ensuring the tablet was fully charged (but David did have his inverter anyway) - I found to my consternation that there was no radio dongle !!! Oh bugger.
A job for safety2 to deliver one !
Once installed we were all good to go.
We have, of course done all this a few times before - and Ben (our newbie) did cards and log - there old problem of car numbers, start orders and finish orders raised its ugly head. Well, it would have been nice if the start crew had written the start orders on more than 50% of the cards. David did the crisscross sheet equivalent and ended up 'tearing his hair out'.He also did 'road' taking cards from the competitors handing them into the Finish Control car and returning as necessary.
Meanwhile he had me 'doing a board' -I'm not sure how many finish teams still provide this service but David insisted !!!!
Another stage in the afternoon (without moving) the rallysafe tablet battery giving us some concern!! It did however last for the nominal field of 50 cars.
Once cleared by the sweeper we returned our gear (and crew) then headed back to Nelson - yeah right !
Once more David reverted to his trialling mode and would have got lost yet again if his GPS hadn't told him to 'perform a U turn when possible'.
We got back to Nelson, had thai takeaways for dinner and I for one collapsed into bed nice and early !!!!
Sunday morning we headed back to Chch, arriving mid afternoon!
David will collect collect me at 6.30 AM Wed morning for my return flight to Auck.
Our next event is Maramarua on 9th Sept another one day event one stage in the morning and another in the afternoon.