Rally Imbil Training Day and Imbil S.F.

 

21st/22nd May 2005

 

Saturday

 

Arriving at Imbil showgrounds for a 10am start in some rally refresher training I prepared my own training (called sitting down as I will be a road block). We had Greg Bryant, Alex and two friends(Kathy's sister Cherie and her boyfriend Paul); Big John and Dave Martin; Dwayne, Auto John and Val; and myself. We all got together and went into Imbil S.F. to check out our stages. It was easy driving and we managed to find some muddy patches (much to my delight), Dave spotted some tracks that he wanted to check out on Sunday. After that we went back to the showgrounds to set up camp and then onto Barry and Barbara Pitt's to see their new property in Kandanga and have afternoon tea. They have a great place with fantastic views and Barry was nice enough to show us around while Barbara fixed arvo tea. We then headed back to camp for dinner and then off to bed.

 

 

Sunday

 

After quite a cold night of about 5 degrees we rose to a great day and had breakky and packed up ready for others to arrive for the days 4WDriving. Just before 9am Mal and his son Sean and new member Darren arrived and we headed off to Kandanga S.F. in the lead was Big John & Dave Martin in the Super Brumby, Auto John & Val in their well kitted Outback, Dwayne in his Brumby, Followed by Darren in his Brumby, Mal in the Forester and myself in my Forester as tail end Charlie. As usual Dave always likes to find the hardest track to climb. The first track was of course the hardest way up the mountain. It was a good climb for a while until Auto John unfortunately got hung up on a large pile of dirt and it took about an hour to snatch/winch him clear and back up the track. Surprisingly both the Foresters did it easy with me dropping my new Kuhmo A/T's down to 26 PSI.

 

After a bit more up and down stuff we stopped for lunch at the Kandanga Fire Tower #10; then down the easy track back to the showgrounds where we left Auto John & Val and Mal and we headed back into Imbil S.F. to find the tracks Dave spotted the day before. The first track had heaps of woe-boys and I got the Forester hung up on the sills on the top of one (after the Brumby's chewed the track up) but after a quick snatch from Dave; I was off again. On the last track for the day we went down a steep hill and after a chat to a guy on horseback ended up going back up again on a different track where Darren got the Brumby stuck right at the top. Another quick snatch from Dave and all was good again. I cruised it up and felt good about it after Dave said I did it very well, Dwayne cruised up as well but just came unstuck when the blinding sun (which stopped all of us from seeing the track) forced him to stop and move over a bit to finish the last section. We headed back down again and hit the highway for home after having a great weekend and especially no damage to any vehicle, just lots of good experience.

 

Thankyou to all who participated.

 

Bryan Johnston SC575