MRT resident Chris Milne is taking 2 weeks from his and the MRT calendar this year to participate in the Red Centre to Gold Cost Rally in September. As a regular supporter of classic historic and cross country rallying Chris has offered up his time alongside regular co driver Troy Bennett to drive as sweep car for the event starting in The Northern Territory’s Alice Springs on September 8th and continuing for 12 days over 7000 km’s ending in Brisbane’s Gold coast. The event is open to classic and a historic rally car as well as recreational 4WD’s all produced prior to 1985. Previous winners of the even include the likes of Peter Brock, Ed Ordynski, Harry Firth and Bruce Garland and while the events are becoming harder to run because of support, insurance and logistics, this event is looking good to re create the adventure, camaraderie and competition of its historic Redex Trial roots dating back to 1953.

Red Centre to Gold Coast Rally Map

Artwork courtesy of  http://www.redcentretogoldcoasttrial.com.au/rctgct/

July 2008 – Nothing goes to plan!

Flying down to Melbourne Chris decided to bring the Holden Frontera that he and Try would be piloting through the trial back to Sydney where he could waive his and the MRT wand over prior to the event… Unfortunately as we all know, no good plan ever goes untarnished and after a relaxing 9 hour drive up the Hume back to Sydney Chris got involved in a car accident that found the Frontera requiring repairs to the entire passenger side of the vehicle! With what was a relatively cosy two and a bit month plan to get everything ready the car now needed 2-3 weeks of repairs at a panel beater and was subject to the sometimes timely process of an insurance company and assessor.

With our friends at Shannons on the case, Chris took the car to see Ajays Smash Repairs round the corner from MRT – who have looked after many MRT clients cars including the MRT STI and Honda Rally cars! The process was started and with special thanks to Ben and Anna at Ajays Smash the process has been a quick and painless one even included throwing some extra funds at the car to get a complete respray!

August 2008 – Time to get it together

With the Frontera looking better than new it was time to attack the list of jobs that needed to be done in order to prepare the car for 7000KM’s of outback racing! Back at MRT all driveline fluids were changed for Mobil Synthetics including engine oil, gearbox, transfer case and the front and rear diffs. Being a vehicle that does a a few Motorsport orientated events a year, normal service schedules aren’t generally adhered to – Instead all filters are clearly marked with a date at the time of fitment so ongoing assessment can be made. Keeping in mind this car is 10 years old and on its second engine it was a little embarrassing to find the car had never had the driveline oils changed and as such a littler gremlin that had surfaced where the shifter would pull itself of low range under load in recent events was quickly overcome by changing to fresh synthetic oil

With 5 weeks to go, the list of repairs and modifications to get this car ready for an outback trial event is only growing – But it’ll get there… These include:

• Fitment of some more supportive seats
• Replacement of the tyres
• Replacement of more consumables; including coolant, clutch and brake fluids, brake rotors and pads…
• Fitting of some nurf (Strong Side steps) bars to protect the newly painted sills
• Fitment of some HID lights to make sure they know where they’re going
• Checking the engine and tune to ensure reliability on relatively poor quality fuel available in the outback
• Fitting of a harness bar and harnesses to keep the guys safe during the event
• And fabrication or a storage system in the cargo area for the tools needed, 2nd spare tyre, swags, fridge and emergency equipment that will need to be taken along!

More to come, as it always is with racing, planning makes it easier – But if it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done!