Day 21 London Cape Town: Throttles on MAX (Copy)
Today is the final day of the 2012 London to Cape Town World Cup Rally. It’s a bit of a nail biter finish. Yesterday afternoon, the P2 Subaru overtook the leading HiLux and enters the last day just three seconds ahead! We wish our boxer-engined brothers well in securing the victory.
That said, I also own a Toyota, so perhaps I should be rooting for them. Plus I own a Porsche so I am right with those guys also! If I ever need proof that rallying is my thing, I guess I just need to look at the leader list on this event and then open my garage doors.
Anyway, some good fun and games on the event while I have been off the radar shooting classic Porsche features. Francis Tuthill has blown up his HiLux’s turbocharger (now fixed), Hayden and Alastair have strapped a bucket to the back of the 912 and the 911 has held onto a solid third position. Here’s Hayden’s text at the end of the recent 1000-kilometre stage.
In Windhoek now, knocked over the 1040km yesterday, no problems, the 600+ today no problems either. The world cup sections today topped 2000m elevation, with 35C ambient, so some hills were as low as second gear.
The Kenyan tires proved to offer pretty miserable grip on the Namibian gravel, resulting a fairly large time drop for the 912, but I doubt it provides much of a gain – if any for the P2 Volvo in class C. Long day tomorrow with a similar format.
Less than 2000km to Capetown now, so arrival seem much more real. The motor is taking a bottle a day of Wynn’s “Re-Charger” in an effort to offset the spoonfuls of sand consumed by the motor on the Marsabit road. So far so good: the magic additive makes a noticeable difference.
Next text was from Alastair at the end of the following day, who told me of their latest mod to cope with ambient temps as high as 40 degrees Celsius:
Another busy day many k tests and car problems: all overcome with good humour and fortitude. Lost front ride height again but it has been found. Lost the brakes, but a quick search and a new pipe got them back. The rack got bent again by a bit of unobserved Namibia, but some formula type lock-to-lock activity on the straights soon wore that in.
The REAL triumph of the day was the cure to the overheating which was done in 15 mins: a quick bucket purchase in the local store, chopped in half and zip-tied to the engine cover. Hey presto: cool oil and happiness! H is doing is extensive homework for tomorrow: more later.
So at the end of Day 28, the boys had slipped to 7th spot, behind the Landcruiser. Hayden said:
Into Clanwilliam, all good. It was another great day of rallying. We took a conservative, but competitive approach. We have had a nice couple of days chasing Matt and Owen (MG ZR), likewise them protecting against us getting any nearer. Some fantastic world cup sections in the last 2 days, made more complicated by the hot weather.
Probably 40C today, but our new AC/WEVO Namibia, half bucket air scoop on the decklid has allowed us to run middle of the gauge all day, with only a modest creep on some long climbs. Motor is happier (although no quieter) now we are back under 500m, feels peppy enough but like the whole car, it’s certainly not fresh any more.
We still have world cup sections – 3 more on the final day, plus some tight timing that means things could change between Clanwilliam and Capetown. I think we lost 2 or 3 to the MG today, but good fun on some seriously wicked roads.
Driving 8/10ths on roads with 200-metre drops and barely a single track width is quite exhilarating. Speeds up to 155km/hr on the fast Namibian gravel, that’s all she had at the altitude and in the heat. I am sure the 911 could have run 200 km/h if they needed to. One section today was set at 130km/hr + average: sweet!
The rally is due to finish any time now. Keep up with all the rally news on the Ferdinand Porsche Magazine & Daily News Blog.
