Targa Bambina

Bambina 2020 - Prologue Day 1 - Saturday 7th March 2020 Day 2 - Sunday 8th March 2020 Bambina 2020 - Epilogue Bambina 2020 - Prologue

Later today (Fri 6 March), we head away on our first Rally of a very busy year. A little 2 day event (with quite a small field), Hamilton to Hamilton.

Last Tues I collected the gear from Targa and also David and Pieter who had flown up from Christchurch - I also collected the Gear for Dale's start team.

Kevin collected the gear for Dale's team from us on Wed and we prepared Chalkie for its 25th rally.

Our plans at the moment are to proceed quietly to Hamilton this morning for final documentation, Rallsafe pickup etc, then once Josh arrives after he has finished work we go to our accommodation at Waitomo to be close to our1st stage of the event SS2 at Piopio where we have to be on site at 7.20 tomorrow morning. Looks like an out the gate time of 6.45 or so.

Our afternoon stage SS6 is at Benneydale after which we head for Opal Hot Springs at Matamata to be close to our 1st stage Sunday SS10.about the same time. The afternoon stage is at Waipapa (where I used to work) on the Waikato River. Once cleared we can return Josh to Hamilton to collect his car then head home tired but happy once more!

Day 1

Good evening all

Here we are at Opal Hot Springs in Matamata ready for our 'out the gate time' of 7.30 a.m. tomorrow.

We stayed at Kiwipaka in Waitomo last night just on half an hour away from our 1st staga SS2 finish.

For this we had Josh at Flying Finish, David on Cards, Pieter doing logs and I did Road, Board and Post Chief's duties.

David and Pieter jelled really well, and so did Josh (on the surface). But for quite understandable reasons he packed up early without being cleared. Yes we know a real NO NO. He also manged to leave one of the signs behind (shades of someone else I could mention!!)

The afternoon went much better- after all we had all been a bit rusty to start with but had got better as the day went on. A few comments from our 19 year old having to put up with all us 'more mature' gentlemen. I forgot just how off putting teenagers can be.

Anyway - SS10 tomorrow morning, SS14 tomorrow afternoon, then home again 'tired but happy.

Day 2

Hi again,

Bambina is now over - yep we are back home Tired but happy.

Last night we stayed at Opal Springs in Matamata.

The oldest and youngest had to share the double bed, there were as can be imagined lots of ribald comments probably the cleanest being 'but my sleeping bag only comes up to my nipples'! No further comments are necessary.

We readily made our out the gate time this morning and were on site at SS10 in plenty of time. David manned the flying finish on his own with the other three of us at Finish control. On some other occasions I have complained about the cold but this trip it was just the opposite! Boy it has been hot!!!

After being cleared we headed to our second stage of the day SS14 over Arapuni Dam, having to drive the stage meant that we were just a tad late. Although competitors were doing the stage in about 9 or 10 mins it took me well over 20!!!!!

Like the 2nd stage yesterday there was absolutely nowhere we could put a vehicle at our flying finish spot. Yesterday Josh actually had to climb a tree to get out of the way, today we had both David and Trainee Pieter somewhere hiding well behind the fenceline. But with no shelter and only a miniscule umbrella for shade unpleasant would only just start to describe it.

However, once at our position it immediately became clear that this was the very spot we had had 2 rogue cars on a previous occasion and had been able to use the CCTV to locate the offenders.No such problems this time I am happy to say !!

Handed our Rallysafe gear (which worked perfectly) in to the sweeper car, the rest of the gear back to Targa on Wednesday.

David and Pieter made their way back to Duck Creek, I took Josh back to Hamilton to collect his car then headed home myself.

I repeat - home 'safe and sound' tired but happy.

Epilogue

Yes indeed another successful event. Home tired but happy on the Sunday night.

Timeline:

Tues 3rd March 2020 Collected the majority of gear from Targa Base, including that for Dale. Then collected Pieter and David from the Airport that night - returned to Duck Creek

Wed 4th March Fitted 25w Fleetlink Radio, had aerial problems - it worked fine with the aerial supplied for Dale's set but not ours - susequently got a replacement aerial. Kevin then collected Dale's gear and took it to back to Tirau.

Fri 6th March Headed for final documentation at Hamilton, regrouped with Dale, Pieter and David headed off to our accomodation at Waitomo, Dale and I waited for the Rallysafe gear to become available, then I waited for Josh to drive down from Auckland when he finished work. We all stayed at Kiwipaka in Waitomo that night.

Sat 7th March Timed SS2 at Piopio (we shall overlook for now the stuffup - even though understandable in the circumstances) with Josh on FF and Pieter, David and me at FC. We proceeded to SS6 at Benneydale where we kept the same personnel allocation. But here we had absolutely nowhere we could put a vehicle at FF so after setting up the beam etc, Josh had to babysit it from up a tree! A fairly long drive once cleared to that nights accommodation at Opal Springs holiday park - chinese for tea, and I managed about an hour in the hot pools.

Sun 8th March Out the gate in plenty of time for SS10 at Matamata.We had decided to realloctae staff today so David was at FF and the rest of us at FC. We also had to reallocte some block marshals to protect us from rogue vehicles (sorry boys), then back over Arapuni dam to our final stage of the even SS14. One I well remember because of the various rogiue vehicles we had the last time we used it as a stsge. BUT here again there was absolutely NOWHERE we could put a vehicle at FF (I can't remember what we did last time) so again after setting up David and Pieter manned the position from well behind the fenceline and really cooked in the sunshine. No obliging tree this time and the flies were not only enormous but were there in numbers. This stage we had a group of cyclists within the stage during road closure, and more worrying the 10 or so Porsche cars who wanted to make use of the 'closed road; for their own purposes. We gave them the message!! Head home afterwards should have taken us through another stage so we decided that discretion really was the better part of valour and ignored our Navman to get to Hamilton (for Josh) then headed back to Duck Creek.

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