Macca

Great picture! Good mix of machinery and colour. Well done Walter, the yellow car definitely is a PAG place holder in the line up of other German metal (ill count the Gallado as German/Italian)!

Macca

Heres a short video taken from the 993.

We had tech difficulties on "Day 0" with the GoPro hook up on the rear half cage (now since sorted out) so reverted to sticking the Sony on the window with the suction cup. Unfortunately we did not pick up the driver shifting and steering and we got an annoying buzz from the mount and likely some from buffeting as occasionally had to drip the windows to keep the window-screen from misting up!

Its not a particularly fast or windy stage but should give some new entrants (perhaps RSG) with older NA cars a feel for the event and the interaction between navigator and driver. With the Z221 fitted and a little more confidence/experience its probably possible to pedal a little 280 bhp 964 or 993 into the head of the field (in the first 5-6 cars). Your lines and shift points will be far more critical than the other cars around you (some of the bigger metal takes some careless lines we noted - the benefit of massive power+torque and 4WD chassis) and you will be working very hard, you will be as quick in the corners but coming out of the corners onto the straights is where you will loose time until the geo net speed limit is hit when things will even back out again on the longer straights. This is what we found anyhow. Regardless its all at the mercy of the led car as you will see in this video - its essentially what causes all cars to eventually bunch up....

The only way we could get this far up the field was by blatantly pushing in :-)

O2GO

Nice commentary Macca.

Last year I ended I the top 6 or so for the same tour. This time I has halfway down the field, I a faster car. So either I was driving more conservatively (without Paul's "go go go Dougie, go" in my ear) or the rest of the field picked up the pace. Last year we didn't have 991 GT3s and I ended up placed behind the Orange Lambo. I think my off last August at HD certainly had me wanting to cut the risk factor down.

This year I don't think I picked up a single stone chip. So that "cost" can be managed by keeping a decent gap behind the car in front.

996tnz

Great vid Macca. The narrower camera angle, with that bit of 'Blair Witch' help from the shaky suction cup really capture the speed and drama of the stages much better than my 170 degree wide angle. You did well to almost hold onto the C63 and we noticed its weird lines too. I said to Paul at one point that it'd likely be off in the scenery if not for its Nitto track tyres.

Up until the 9:00 or so mark you were losing about 0.5 to 1s a minute, which - as you point out - would probably just be the difference in acceleration out of the corners as they get to 160 quicker. Take away that speed restriction and you'd fall back a lot quicker of course.

I reckon you made the right choice in bringing the 993. Can't imagine it was as involving for those in the 991 GT3s. Would've been great to have one leading the stages though!

Your vid reinforces my point that sections of stages were great but that the lead car would button right off and kill the flow at times. After about the 9:00 mark it just became a fast cruise really.

Were we immediately behind you on this one? After being punished for 'speeding' - with that fine and having to run behind the mid-field official's car for two stages - it took us a few to regain our position.

Looking at your vid makes me wish I'd got my narrower view 3D camera out for a stage or two.

Do you have that last Paradise Springs one on camera? Should look good barreling through the trees.

996tnz

Yes, Paul's go-go-gos are worthy of a smartphone app for when he can't be there in person. Can't remember too many of them after Day 1, but I suspect that fine just fired me up to give it death already anyway, at least to that damn 160.

Macca

Just for those un acquainted the klaxon sound in the background is the geo nett alert at 155km signalling a 160 approach (due to iPhone poor GPS resolution we were often 163-170kmph by the time the thing sounded!!

Doug we rode mid group mid their for most of the 2012 5 day targa but did move into the mid of the front group as Jo became more comfortable with the speed. I'd have to say our best drives were in the mid group. I think this year sitting with the 981S driven by Barry & John as well as the Cayman R & your RS60 was the nicest group. As you can see from my video and as Walter rightly points out by half way through it's no faster than one of our Sunday drives!!

Walt. I was all well set up for this targa with GoPro mounts and hardware only to have the power socket in the Gopro depart from the circuit board en route to Stage 1!! Luckily I had Sony as last resort - I didn't want it in my way on that tiny 993 window screen so it's mounted to the side 120 degrees FOV stability mode with the GPS on. It's not a great set up I'm afraid. Wasn't hard wired and would you believe that Paradise Road last stage which was one of our fastest and most exciting of the tour we had a friggen flat battery!!! At that point I was wanting the Gt3 simply for the camera gear I have hard installed into that care it's 100% reliability!!! This was the stage the M3 caged race car went off the bank two cars in front of us!!! On that stage I think the mid front cars were as quick as the lead. The little Focus ST up front was running quickly and we had good flow for most of that until we caught the White lambo etc

O2GO

Several of us have talked about an iridium phone in the past and the idea is warming to me... Esp as we're starting to plan some pretty remote road trips.

I googled them and found heaps of info about the phones themselves but no hint of prices. A prepaid one would be ideal and just leave it in the car and chuck it on a charger monthly.

Does anyone have an idea of cost of a basic (cheapish) phone plus pre-pay costs, plus where you'd get one from?

Thought I'd ask here before contacting some suppliers.

996tnz

Chief Doug speak great wisdom:

O2GO

And I was trying to hang on your coat tails for that run. It was a superb one to finish the tour on.

I used the "limit" function in the 987/997 in-car computer to sound a chime at 155 and it was clear to hear and worked well being coupled to the speedo. Our iPhone GPS version was too slow too so we abandoned it.

O2GO

Bugger :-(. That's not good. You should have seen Richard's after the South Island Tour. He sits right on the **** of the car in front and the fallout was awful. Not just to windscreen but also front panels and radiators peppered.

Much worse following a car with soft track focused rubber.

John McM

I'm no real help there Doug. I remember it being easy to access phones from Australia when we had the Coup in Fiji, but that was 8 years ago so times will have changed. Pre paid is definitely the way to go for occasional use. The phones were reducing in size then compared to the bricks. I'm happy to share in the purchase cost. Btw if it needs to come from Aus, I'm in Perth for a couple of weeks and can bring one in GST free. I figure they will be common in that area with the mining industry.

One rider to Satellite phones is that they can be temperamental, which is frustrating when you need them most. Ideally the phone would have text capability. For that reason I still see merit in having an emergency beacon as well. If we use either it will because we have a critical situation. Frig the cost at that point.

John McM

Walter, while I'm away, get your panel beating skills ready (just in case you haven't seen the RSG site). I don't think this will pass 2k cup rules as is.

996tnz

Toyed with buying a second hand one that came up on TradeMe a year or two ago as a backup to VHF/Mobile for my kayak fishing but the plan costs scuppered it at that time. Could see the Iridium being good for the bigger organised tours but the issue in between is the logistics of getting it from one to another.

Apart from the East Cape, where Vodafone has some coverage and Telecom pretty much doesn't, Telecom phones have reasonable back country coverage though a few kms of travel to a ridge may sometimes be needed. I'm sure there'd be a few other places where that might become 10 or 20 kms such as the back country roads in the Marlborough hills for instance. And even there, the deep valleys mean the satellites are only visible in something like ten minutes on, ten minutes off windows (we had staff working there so I checked into the details) so Satellite phones are better but not perfect.

So a shared Iridium is extra insurance but I may also look at permanently carrying a mobile booster with a mag antenna in my car just for random emergencies.

996tnz

Now there's a point. I already have an PLB (personal EPIRB) so will chuck it in my glovebox already. When registering it I told them it was used for sea kayaking and international travel but I'm sure they'd work it out.

John, on the Grinch front I'll have a play with my heat gun, soft hammer, drill and some paint. Is she still at Steve's?

Macca

Doug. I did some work on this already. Ill see if I can dig up my notes....