Hayden Paddon writes......
Hi,
We have made it to the end of a very difficult day â one full of drama, as we only completed one of today's eight stages without a problem.
Our morning got off to a heart stopping start, when only 2km into the first stage after rounding a flat 140kmph blind corner, we found a slow moving FIV (safety vehicle) vehicle travelling the same direction as us in the middle of the road. We had never been told of anything in the stage, or of any accidents, so it was a complete surprise. We were never going to stop in time, so veered up the bank on the right, only to find as we veered up the bank so did the FIV. How we ever missed him and did not claim a tree on the side of the road is beyond me! We carried on, though a little rattled!
The next stage we continued to struggle with set-up issues on the car. It was unlike any car I have driven and I could not make it do anything that I wanted it to. On this stage one of our main rivals, Toshi Arai, had crashed, so we moved up to second in PWRC behind Patrick Flodin.
At service we made numerous changes to the car, including springs, chassis adjustments and diff maps. It transformed the car into a one that was to my liking and I was at last able to build up some confidence. However, the repeated afternoon stages were so rough and unlike anything I have seen so far in my rallying. The surface is very soft and sandy, and the wheel ruts were deeper than the side sills of the car. We spent a lot of time bottoming out, with the front of the car scooping dirt and dust into the cockpit via the roof vent.
The rough conditions broke our front suspension on the second stage of the group, so we decided to nurse the car through the final stages to service, without inflicting further damage. We have lost a lot of time today, but still sit in 2nd place in PWRC, so the target tomorrow is to build on our speed and to hold onto 2nd.
All in all it has been a tough day at the office, but we are in a good position. Hopefully tomorrow goes a little better, but we will have to target the first pass of the stages, while they are smoother, as the rough repeated runs are somewhere you don't want to be chasing time. Until tomorrow;
Hayden
