Friday, April 20, 2012

The Warrior goes down!

After battle after battle, fighting for anything down to 1100's of a second, taking records, wins, and showing the way, the warrior that has served us so well went down, and he's injured.

Cath and I were at the Huntley Hillclimb, both driving, enjoying ourselves, Cath had set a new record for females, which she previously held as the fastest female at this hillclimb, when, while standing around at the bottom of the hill after watching her start I hear the painful words "Catherine has gone into the tyre wall hard, spinning around in the air so high we could see the whole underside of the car".

I spun around and looked at the loud speaker as if it will give me more info, it doesnt, I approach the timing booth and ask for more info, when suddenly the loudspeaker crackles to life again with the words, "it was a hard hit, but wait, Catherine is now trying to restart that car!"  That's my girl.

Upon getting to the crash site and seeing the car, it really was a hard hit, and she landed about 8 - 10 metres up the road from where the car went into the tyre barrier.

And like a true warrior (ie: well built car), coming under attack it immediately cosseted her with all it's might, wrapping her in the fully welded in cage ready to take the hit for her, ready to be injured itself so the driver can walk away. It was a true warrior. When it was all over and it did its poirette in the air slamming back on the ground, it no doubt let out a painful sigh, and gave the signal the driver was all clear to exit itself from the smouldering wreck.



We've yet to examine what happened, but havent ruled our mechanical error, or driver error. But we'll get to that analysis later. Cath is fine, she was a bit concussed the next day and stayed home. She's now been fully accpeted as a racer and rally driver with her first 'biggee'. There are two types of racer and rallyers, those that have crashed hard and those that are about to.

A great car,  now sitting in the corner of the garage in simple respite, waiting for it's turn to be brought back to fighting fit. There are records to be had, fights to be won on the rally stages, and some asses to kick, and it's itching to get back out there and do all that, and it will. It will also be better, faster, fitter, meaner, cleaner, leaner and more focused than ever when he comes back into the fighting realm.






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