Last week we ran a piece on David Holder (Dave Holder: ‘You’ve got to be over there (Europe)’) and where he is heading. Last weekend he competed with co-driver Jason Farmer in the International Rally of Whagarei finishing third overall and second in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship category (behind Hayden Paddon). following is Dave’s blog about the two day rally and some of the ups and downs they encountered on the way to the podium…….
Hi Guys
Well the dust has settled on Rally Whangarei, and it couldn’t be a more contrasting event to Rally Otago a couple of weeks ago. That’s not to say it wasn’t a very busy and tough lead up, with a lot of preparation done on the car to sort the few issues we had at Otago. Pleased to say though the team did an incredible job, even sacrificing their Easter break with family to help me prepare it.
It was a very stressful lead up to the Rally from a financial point of view, but we are really grateful to the individuals and businesses made it all possible. For us the clear goal for the weekend was to measure ourselves against Hayden (hoping to stay within 1 sec/km) and consolidate a second over all finish.
We started the event well with a steady run through the super special stage on Friday night, opting for a no risk approach. For us the rally begins on SS3 on Saturday morning, which we comfortably finished in P2 behind Hayden. From there it was clear that tyre management would be a key part of the Saturday stages. This proved to be challenging in more than one way, after breaking the in-car jack in half, we were forced to drive carefully on the remaining three morning stages as we were unable to rotate tyres, fortunately not losing too much time. Following a midday service, we repeated the same four stages, but this time tyre management would be even more crucial, with the road sweeping done the tyres would be working harder than ever. Again, we did a steady job throughout the afternoon, and despite having to do a quick engine drive belt change in 4 minutes (on the roadside) prior to the final stage, we finished the day in P2 behind Hayden (both APRC and overall).
Come Sunday morning we started on the road behind Hayden, and immediately continued where we left off on Saturday, finishing P2 on the opening stage. We made a few small set up changes to the car throughout the morning loop, and we were really starting to feel comfortable behind the wheel.
With only the afternoon left to complete there would be a few more challenges to face…. on touring out to the stages the dash warning lights suddenly illuminated, to let me know we had no oil pressure. Naturally we pulled over very quickly to try and find the issue. We were able to quickly diagnose the issue as a simple oil pressure sensor failure and unplug the sensor before continuing.
However after starting the first afternoon stage, we soon realized the car ECU didn’t like this, and went into limp mode at the very first corner. Fortunately there was a reset button on the steering wheel which would cancel the fault and allow the car to run as per normal….. the only problem being I had to hold the button down constantly (with my left hand), meaning I couldn’t change gears. So I quickly let Jase know he would need to do the gear changing (as if he didn’t already have enough to do). To make it even more challenging for Jase, he was reading 2 corners ahead, so would often pull the gear for where he was in the notes i.e. shifting up when I was preferring to go down haha. See a snapshot of our stage in the video below:
The following stage we managed to stall twice on the start line, as we were careful not to use launch control as per normal, thinking this could potentially upset things further. The final two stages however went without any real problems, and we remained in P2 for APRC, but unfortunately dropped too much time and finished P3 overall with the next closet competitor over two and half minutes behind us.
Although we didn’t quite tick all the boxes we wanted, I still think it was a very positive event given the lack seat time and testing in the car itself.
I have to say a very big thank you to Greg Murphy for not only trusting us to use his car, but also for his encouragement along the way! It’s clear the car is fast, and I think it has plenty of potential for more speed yet. I’m also confident that we got to the bottom of the previous reliability issues. With the car being for sale, I hope we show cased it well for the future owner.
Obviously with our two APRC Pacific Cup qualifying rounds done, it’s time to think about the final in China (October) and start firming up plans around this. For now though the focus shifts to bringing plans together for another stint competing overseas.
Till next time
Dave, Adina & Jacob
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