Targa Tasmania 1998
The Brennan's First Traumatic Targa Tasmania 1998 Challenge
A day to day record of Julie's and my first attempt at an international classic car tarmac rally held over six days in Tasmania over a distance of 2200 km.
Preparation for Targa was an extreme challenge to say the least. This was due to a lack of funds until shortly before the event, so everything was left till the last minute. This is how it went:
I stopped work three weeks prior to Targa departure date, to work full time on the car, which was a freshly painted body shell just three weeks out from the event.
In fact the last four days I worked twenty four hours per day, non stop, 7 am to 7 am to 7 am to 7 am till 3 am on the fourth day. I think that works out at 87 hours, only stopping for 20 minutes three times a day for meals each day. I don't know what kept me going, but I never felt tired. My twin boys Garry and Peter, and daughter Julie, my navigator came down after work and worked well into morning giving me the moral support I needed. I think I must have been running on adrenalin, maybe excitement or anticipation, or probably, just plain stupid.
The car had been totally stripped externally and painted three weeks before the event, it had to be not only reassembled, but race and show prepped at the same time, particularly the engine bay, lots of chrome glitter and polish. Most of the engine preparation had been done in the months previously.
I wasn't able to get anyone to build a roll cage in the last couple of weeks, so decided to build it myself. I scurried off to CAMS to discuss the design, I was told it had to have diagonal brace, and I said it can't, because the seats protrude through the hoop. Then it must have diagonal brace down to the back floor, I didn't want that either, it looks ugly, and not symmetrical, with much back and forth we eventually agreed to disagree, and decided to come up with my own design that I was happy with and hoped they would be happy with too.
I ordered the tube I needed in advance, when I arrived at Dandenong to pick it up, I was told that the last of it had been sold, so much for ordering things. After many phone calls, all of which I didn't have the time for, suitable tube was found at Port Melbourne at Tubemakers, four times the price, although better quality material, and a mad dash on Friday arvo to pick it up, just made it by closing time.
I built the cage and sent it off for powder coating, same day service with lots of pleading and a slab. I finally got the last spacers machined I needed for my front disc conversion three days before departure , I built up the new front struts assemblies in advance for a quick change over at the last minute. I had previously ordered new springs from Sydney set down 25 mm. Well! I think they must have made them 25 mm high, my poor Z looked like a 4 wheel drive, ready to go bush bashing, they did settle down though, with a bit of work, just hope they don't continued to do so.
I rang Sydney, but couldn't get them to make a new set at such short notice, so I had to live with the height for Targa. Eventually (drama drama) got the car completed to a certain extent. I was beginning to think by this stage that I would never make it after all. Picked up the new u-beaut seats from SAAS, and wouldn't you know it, they didn't fit between the door and the tunnel. SAAS delivered their smallest rally seats to me that evening, but they didn't fit either. Back to square one, now where did I put those original seats, they were starting to look like pretty good rally seats at this stage, they have to be better than a couple of bean bags.
I stripped the covers off the as new seat backs, and cut two neat holes through the steel seat back, then took them down to our local upholsterer to reassemble, I fitted plastic inserts SAAS had given me for the harness, , threw over some cheap black seat covers and wacko, seats that didn't look half bad, not exactly the hold you in place rally seats I had in mind, but at this late stage I didn't have the luxury of being fussy! As you can imagine we needed to use elbows and legs to corner brace in every stage during the event, could hardly breathe with the excessive tightness of the full race harness to hold us in place, but it all worked.
Made a mad dash to Autosport, hired a Terratrip rally computer, wired in at 2.00 am, probe was pre-fitted to strut. The new engine started straight away much to my delight, and sounded pretty good, (no pistons or rods left out)! but running rich. I managed to borrow some other jets and was good enough to get it to the dyno. The engine was run-in from Hastings to Moorabbin, about forty K, Then straight onto the dyno, and up to 6500 rpm, Yuck, the poor thing. I just cringed waiting for it to go bang, its always sounds a lot worse standing beside the car listening, than inside driving at those revs, but it survived the strain thankfully.
My professionally build distributor was all out of wack and useless, after $200 (supposed) rebuild (wrong!). Found out it was only sand blasted, painted, and returned, not so much as a dismantle, it was one out of an old motor I had. Three hours later had the distributor on special delivery to a recommended specialist. Another $290, only just made it operational, they did the best they could with it, the car was "nearly ready" engine OK, brakes seem fine, so far, my close ratio gearbox was still noisy after dismantle and recheck, all systems almost go.
'Twas the eve before Targa and the s/s exhaust I had made was hitting on the diff after the dyno heat had reshaped it. In amongst all of this there were many other dramas of varying kinds, we had pre-Targa scrutineering as well, which surprisingly, didn't go too badly, they were even impressed with my roll cage! bonus, there was nothing major I had to contend with. Bye the way, CAMS told me I had to have an engineers report done on the roll cage because I had changed from the standard, which I had done, and it proved to be stronger than the CAMS approved design, so I was made a CAMS approved ROP constructor.
Last minute things like packing tools and loading spare parts into my work trailer, including stock std engine, s/h gearbox's, diff, std assembled struts, cross member, f&r wishbones, in fact every bit of running gear except the body shell, etc, I hope I would never need them. Put on car stickers etc., and there you go, all done by 3.00 am on the morning of departure. Who needs sleep anyway, by this stage I was almost starting to feel optimistic about making it.
Up at 6.00 am D-day, took the car to Westernport exhausts for refit exhaust at 7.00 am. As I drove onto the hoist the car stalled, backfired, rolled backwards, and set fire to the weber filter socks. The staff were quick and shot the extinguisher through the bonnet vents and put them out, "phew". Spare 300ZX rim arrive overnight, to Tucket's Tyrepower next door, new Falken spare tyre fitted, collected that at 8.00 am. Off to Bill Bennet at Pedder's Frankston by 8.30 am for full wheel alignment, the tall springs had stolen most of my good negative camber I had back and front, not to worry. New battery fitted at Frankston just in case, and off we go.
At last, off to the city, all ready to go - I think!, I hope!. Half way up the Frankston freeway the steering column went up in smoke. Now that was all I needed, my heart sunk, after what I had been through, I thought this was the end, quickly stopped switched everything off, car full of smoke, could hardly breathe, dismantled the column and found the plastic headlight switch had melted from overload.
I fitted Q4 lights about 2 years ago, and it picks today to fail, so into Robs Z Restorations and got a s/h switch, starting to think I am not meant to go to Targa this year, if anything else happens I'll scream, but then I thought, maybe its being a good car, its just trying to get every thing right before I go, Yes.
Needless to say I arrived just in time for the Targa cavalcade through the city. My wife Jan, and my 6 year old son Taylor towed the reinforcements trailer. So with nothing at all tested, exhausted, tired (that's not how you should be going to Targa) and on a wing and a prayer, we (I don't a believe it) made it to the Spirit of Tasmania on Friday the 24th April 1998 and loaded our precious cargo.
After a relatively pleasant and calm trip to Devonport and actually getting a bit of sleep, all the cars were off loaded to the official Welcome and Targa Tasmania launch.
Dare I say it but the Terratrip computer had not been tested, or anything else on the car for that matter, except the engine, until arrival at Devonport, We know why it's a called Terra, because it never ever did work. Several Targa competitors tried, but it just didn't want to participate, it just never did the same thing twice, so we were going to have to do the Targa by resetting the speedo trip metre to zero each Targa stage. This was going to be very difficult for me to do at race speeds, to put it mildly.
But we didn't need to worry too much, as the speedo cable broke on the 3rd stage of the first day, leaving us without any distance measuring device at all, which is a basic requirement, as the whole event is based on precise measured distances in the road books. But what is life without a challenge or two.
I have to say the most troublesome item in my years of motor racing has always been scrutineers, the Targa scrutineer was no exception, at the drivers and navigators briefing he was introduced to us by officials as the bastard, I think they have always held that title. My front spoiler didn't satisfy him as a Datsun item, although they were commonly fitted to showroom cars as you all know.
Well, I had to run in the modified class or remove both spoilers, all the discussions including the other Z owners with a similar problem joining in, failed to budge him. He didn't seem to care if we had carbon fibre F1 brakes all round, or 700 BHP, or rocket boosters even. He just decided that our 3" piece of plastic wasn't a Datsun fitment, so I had to run the fully modified class, and that was that, and just cope with the faster base times and competing against the latest works Porsche cup cars.
We planned on getting a good time in the prologue to see how we compared with other competitors in our class. Unfortunately for us, and several other competitors, they had resealed half the George Town street stage just prior to the event and the road was completely covered with loose blue metal stones. We consequently clipped the kerb exiting the last corner, pushing the rear suspension sideways, and putting the rear end out of alignment.
We were one of the lucky ones, the others were total wipe outs, I had taken spare uprights but had forgotten to pack the rear cross member.. We rang every wrecker in northern Tasmania while crabbing sideways back to Launceston, but to no avail. (poor mobile account) we rang Lindsay from Z spares in Melbourne to airfreight one but it wouldn't have arrived till morning, and that would be too late.
There was nothing for it, we would have to straighten the bent one. By 9.30 that night we had the car dismantled and considering our woes, when a spectator who just happened by, came over and said he had a 260Z at home, and if we pulled them off we could use his parts. It never ceases to amaze me the camaraderie of fellow Z owners and enthusiasts. Hooray, we live to see another day.
The chap drove me to his house where I duly pirated the poor man's rear suspension, we needed to get car 696 up and running again. By this time it was about 1.00 am. Not how I had envisaged doing Targa, through a mist of exhaustion. But I was there to compete, and that's what matters, adrenalin should keep us going, I don't know how my poor Julie copes, she is right in there in all the grease and dirt, and an excellent mechanic to boot, she can do almost anything, like father like daughter..
Day 1, Start of Targa and the noise coming from the diff was frightening, a grinding noise, sounded like a handful of blue metal had been thrown in the diff housing, the kind of noise that makes you wince and screw your face up. We didn't think we would make it through the first stage let alone lunch time. I assumed that maybe the drive shaft had been pushed into the diff and damaged the bearings or spider gears or the like. We decided there was nothing for it but to press on regardless, and if it lasted, I would never doubt the reliability of our Z again, or I would know my guardian angel hadn't missed the boat after all, so we went for broke, ( broke being the operative word,) there was nothing to loose, at least we would go down fighting.
So it went like this, First stage, our speedo broke, second stage my u-beaut brand new close ratio gearbox I had built at great expense, lost 2nd gear, and simply stopped driving, changed fine, but there was nothing there, it just freewheeled, it had been making a terrible noises since assembly, I had already dismantled it, checked everything and reassembled it again. I knew there was something wrong but I couldn't figure out what. As soon as 2nd gear broke the noise stopped.
Since dismantling it back at home, the 2nd gear on the main shaft which was heat shrunk on, then tig welded, well the weld had missed the joint seam, the gear had broken in two halves and fell into the bottom of the box, where it stayed all day!!! We continued that day without 2nd gear revving to 6500 - 7000 rpm in 1st then straight to 3rd at 3000 rpm and off cam, we still managed to clear all stage trophy times.
No rest for the wicked or so it seems, and that night saw us not as we would have liked having a nice meal , a drink, (non alcoholic of course) and then early to bed, but another night into the wee small hours removing the gearbox and fitting an old Z box given to me by a wrecker, with no synchro on 1st and 2nd, 3rd not really crash hot, but 4th and 5th, they worked fine. (Wacky-do). We also decided to take out the 4.111 diff due to the grinding noises coming from it, and replace it with the spare std 3.9 I had. Once more we were up and running again with maybe a slight stagger. All this at 63, was it worth it, yes of course it was, only quitters loose. Oh shit, I hope so!
Day 2, and we were up "Bright (more or less) and early" for an early start and Blast, Bother, Damn (I know I shouldn't swear) it wasn't the diff after all, but the r/h wheel bearings from the kerb impact making that dreadful rear end noise, after all that work. It didn't sound like it would last very long, I had this vision of chewed up balls and bits of metal that I wanted to keep working, so what's new we decided, so we went for broke, again! so all that was gained after two all night of work was one second gear, and still had all the crunching noises, we just hoped the wheel didn't decide to part company at high speed, up to 220 kph at times.
Down the East coast were some of the toughest stages, we cleared some, made trophy time easily on them all. Our placing was 126th on the first day , by the end of the second day we were placed 80th outright, and were about 2nd in our class too. The weather conditions were not good, it poured rain for several hours, through the mountain stages making them very wet and slippery. Fun, Fun, Fun. Although the Z handled the wet roads beautifully, it's the first time I have ever enjoyed driving in the rain at high speed, thanks to our Falken tires.
We nearly had an Oops though, as we slid pretty close to a jagged rock face on Grass Tree Hill where mud had washed across the road. This was the last Targa Stage for the day, the road was very slippery with water and oil, there were a quite a few accidents there, one bad one soon after us, with both competitors admitted to hospital. We arrived at Hobart safe and sound, phew!, which was slightly amazing as we had thrown away all our road book and paper work, Poof! and drove by the seat of our pants, and I just drove it flat-out as I found it.
Julie my daughter, first time navigator looked ahead to get a feel for the next corner, while I concentrated on the apexes, and my lines , the rock faces and cliff edges! I always knew my guardian angel was a petrol head, I think he was enjoying this too. We made a good team, Julie being able to read the corners almost as well as me, except she kept on saying, "Go Dad Go" but, hey! I was already on the limit, and that's how we did it each day.
Now, your thinking they have made it, and be able to have a night off, well no such bloody luck. The engine started missing, popping, and backfiring from about lunch time and it didn't want to rev over 4500 RPM, the more I tried, the more it missed, I thought it must be cross firing or the plugs breaking down under load, maybe the points closed up.
The wheel bearing lasted all day much to our amazement. We made lots of mobile phone calls during touring stages to find bearings and guess what, there were none to be had in Tasmania, ,joy oh joy.. Fortunately one of our sponsor Frankston Bearings were able to airfreight them to us overnight which meant we had to do Day 3 with shot bearings. We figured that if we talked kindly to our Z the next day and kept patting the dash-board and promising to make her like new at the end she might be kind to us for another day. and she didn't let us down.
We got the autolec to check out our whole ignition system at one am, but it proved to be fine, which meant it had to be carburation but I had no idea what, triple webers don't usually go out of wack to that extent. We checked out all the usual things, seemed OK, ran fine on the floor of the Expo so thought it may have come good by itself.
Day 3, A really bad day, with the engine still missing and popping all day, all was going well till we missed the turn onto Gardeners Bay Rd, as we were depending on following other competitors to know where we were going, not having any distance measuring device, and there hadn't been any, so missed the Woodbridge and Oyster Cove Targa Stages. As we arrived at the Cygnet stage, the officials told us we had missed two stages, we were about to go back the few kilometres and wouldn't have lost any time as we were ahead of time, but were told we were not allowed to go back once into control.
When we realised we had just blown our Targa Trophy we just sat there numb and shattered. After reading the rule book that night we found out that you are allowed to go back providing you haven't officially clocked into the control, which we hadn't. What can you do, we weren't sure of the rules, nor were the volunteer control officials, there for us to know, (them's the breaks), thats motor sport, although mind you, I wasn't so philosophical at the time, oh well, Shit happens Julie!
We were totally devastated, and thoroughly depressed, we had been going so well and getting to the pointy end of the field against all odds. We had lost all our enthusiasm and felt like packing up and going home, but pressed on and took things a bit more easily to preserve our Z car. But it takes a lot to keep a good Targa team down, and it wasn't long before that old competitive spirit reared its ugly head and we were off and racing again, so to speak. We still had that Brennan tenacity of a weed to succeed.
Except for the lost stages, we were still easily making trophy times, just by driving like there's no tomorrow, its probably an ego thing, but you have to show these younger blokes that "old" doesn't mean "aged" and decrepit, and that a Datsun can still pass a Masserati or a 911 Porsche which we did, maybe its all that Frank Gardner driver training, maybe I suffer from the dreaded need for speed disease, who knows!!.
Back to Hobart and a bag of bearings were handed to us on arrival. Well no trophy but a bag of bearings has got to be worth something! We had called in on the local Hobart Nissan dealer service department on the way, who kindly handed over an impact wrench etc to do the job.. Turned out the Service Manager was building up a Z car at home for competition and even had a spare set of wheel bearings at home! damn. He came down later to the Expo at the Wharf and helped us work on the car, nice guy. The engine popped and banged all day and generally ran lousy and sounded awful, had to be carburation somehow, but I couldn't work out what.
Day 4, While preparing to leave Hobart for Burnie up on the north west coast a spectator said "Is that metal thing supposed to be sticking out of your carbie?" I got down on my hands and knees, not to the spectator, but to have a look and found the choke tube had come loose in the venturi of No 1 cylinder and was sitting in the trumpet at 90 deg to the flow, almost blocking it off.
Maybe I should have got down on my hands and knees to the guy, because this was the cause of all the misfiring. But with only 5 minutes to departure and already in the queue of cars, we frantically needed to find someone with a Webber locking bolt, with one minute to go all we could get was a tube of Araldite, quickly smeared it over, pushed it back in ,started it up and drove away, with no more problems for the rest of the event, my guardian angel was looking after us.
All went well until Ross street stage where the Elfin sports car had its spectacular rollover, in the exact same spot we blew a 2 inch long under dash heater hose over my left foot, near boiling water on my clutch foot didn't go down very well at all but what really got to me was the steam pouring into the car was totally blocking all our vision in the middle of the stage. It was a little bit scary there for a while Julie frantically rubbing the windscreen down and me yelping with pain and keeping on going, it was the only hose I hadn't replaced on the whole car, drat!
At the end of the stage we went straight into the nearest service station and bought a Commodore heater hose (blasphemy) the only 19 mm one they had, and we bypassed the heater, and froze for the rest of the event. You have to be a contortionist, a three-year-old, or a Japanese midget to replace these under the dash.
Julie will kill me for this, but I have to tell you about her toiletry exploits, poor Julie just had to go, not a tree or bush in site, just open pasture, I said there are no cars coming Jul's , go here, no sooner squatted beside the car and along came four other competitors all tooting, poor Julie, she said next year I want a bloody four door car. Especially with a racing suit on. One off, all off. This happened to her a few times, men are so well designed aren't they, as Neil Bates proved at a control stop.
Her next effort was at a service station, she rushed into the toilet undressing as she went, didn't even look, turned around, was about to sit, door open, and there in front of her, the male crews at the urinal, now really wetting themselves, (as well as Jul's), and laughing, next thing, in rushes three other guys to tell her, "hey, you can't come in here lady, you have to use the one with the skirt on the door,( bloody perverts ), lots of laughing, poor Julie, a bit red, just laughed, sorry guys, gathered up the clothes and rushed next door, you will be pleased to know she made it.
She has a great sense of humour though, and takes it all in her stride. I don't think Targa would be the same without her. Most competitors that met her said she has been a breath of fresh air at Targa 98, and that I have to bring her back next year, she has got more front than Myers though. She had poor Glen Ridge posing with her for photo sessions, and any body else that was remotely familiar, she generally had a ball.
Meanwhile back at the rock face, half way through the Gunns Plains stage we developed a very severe vibration, I had noticed it earlier but now it was getting worse by the second, It got so bad that I had to restrict our speed to 100 kph for fear of something disintegrating.
At the end of the stage I found a deep table drain and straddled the car over it. Found a diff to tailshaft flange bolt missing, and the other three very lose, obviously not fully tightened from the diff change, I managed to borrow a 12 mm spanner off a by-stander and retightened the other three. I wasn't too hopeful of us making it through the next and last remaining stage for the day which was over 30 km and a very demanding stage for driver ,navigator and car.
When we arrived to start the stage we were told it had been down graded due to a bad accident involving a Porsche. We were relieved not only because of the Tailshaft but by now the sun was such that it rested on the bonnet as you came over crests and you could not see a damn thing, even at slow speed.
We got new bolts at Burnie and waited our turn on the hoist. Did a general check of everything underneath, all seems well. Its a wonder though as the stages are becoming more and more demanding and longer, and harder, I wondered how the firm Z suspension holds together over Tasmania's rough roads, there not too bad at normal speed, but at high speeds, you are all four off the ground and flying, or bottoming out all the suspension at times, and everything that goes up must come down, and hard..
Day 5, Last day and still going strong, we were exhausted physically and mentally. My angel has been watching over us well though, There is a warning that black ice is covering some stages, water on the road , some roads half dry and half wet, and pea soup fog on others, what else could one want for an interesting days Targa. Still we had loads of faith in our old girl. she was performing beautifully now, but the thousands of double clutching changes up and down were getting to me a bit by now.
At the second stage the fog warning proved to be an understatement. The fog was so thick you couldn't see the corners till we were confronted by a rock face or drop off. With the road wet it was very scary and heart stopping at speed to say the least. I was very jumpy between the brake and accelerator not knowing which way we had to turn, or which side of the road I should be on. This is the sort of thing that separates the men from the boys, I guess.. I remember at the end, Julie reached over and patting me on the leg, saying, well done Dad, It was kinda nice and heart warming.
Adding to this was not having a heater to defrost the screen, having to sometimes drive with the windows down and rubbing franticly in about five degree temperature, we resorted to a Targa jackets over our legs. Our day went well though, still able to clear all our Trophy times in spite of everything that had gone wrong.
The 50 k stages during the day were pretty full on, over the limit at high speed over unfamiliar twisting rough roads is very hard on the nerves, there is no room for error, its either a cliff, a rock face, or thick bush and trees. I was a lather of sweat from concentration by the end of these, a great challenge though. I think everybody with a bit of courage that likes a challenge should do it.
Half way through the Ellendale stage, the second last stage of the event, the brakes started making horrible grinding noises. We had run out of brake pads on the front discs, which Race Brakes Australia assured me would get me through at least two and probably three Targa events, as others do, so do I have news for them!.
They told me on my return to Melbourne that to wear the pads that fast (Fitted at the start of the Prologue less than 2,000 km ago) they would have had to consistently exceeded 650 deg C, we had set fire to the callipers at some stage, burning all the rubbers off. That's scary, that's bright red, the whole engine, and engine bay was black with brake dust as was both sides of the car from end to end.
Between the second last and last stage as the adrenalin was wearing off, I found it impossible to stay awake, I had to put Julie at the wheel, driving with only gears and hand brake, I think she did a good job, she must have, we made it to New Norfolk!. I managed to grab a few minutes sleep, that was enough to charge my batteries to get me through the last stage, and the fifty kilometres to the finish, I guess I was coming down, the adrenalin was starting to wear off.
New Norfolk was a short town stage. I found the steel to cast iron brakes works quite well really, it doesn't sound real good though. The harmonic balancer fell apart during this final stage also, and the pieces started rattling, but she, and we, hung in there till the end, finally through the last stage all complete and unscathed. Yah-hoo, Halleluiah. Our faithful old girl did us well, kept us safe and performed above and beyond the call of duty, we are so proud of her, she deserves a big hug.
I have since found that the car is still crabbing about two inches sideways, I can't understand how it handled so well, maybe because it's a Z. perhaps it doesn't make any difference when you are travelling sideways most of the time anyway. We drove the last 43 km on the hand brake, back to Hobart and the finish line.
We didn't want to bring our great little Z car home to the finish line unnoticed, so we stopped at a store and bought one big red carrot, found a long stick on the side of the road, and hung the carrot on a piece of string a metre out in front of the car. Well, it brought the house down when we arrived at the finish line with every one cheering and clapping at our carrot to entice our horses, albeit mechanical ones home.
It was a great and extremely challenging event . Very hard on cars, body, and soul. It was sad to see all the beautiful cars that fell by the wayside along the way, especially those going for their gold and platinum trophies, we know only to well how they felt. But for the grace of God, go I. I don't think I could have chosen a better tool for the job, just a bit more preparation time needed, that's all!
Apart from the above hassles, everything else worked perfectly, my own brake conversion which was untested at the start was an awesome success, for a drum brake rear end it took an awful punishing and we never lost brakes once, despite the smell. I remember an E type Jaguar which we caught up to at one control, when it stopped it had four columns of smoke wafting from under the four guards, not a good look, we ask the officials if ours were too, but they said no, great!
We now know how we finished up, 102nd outright against 250, 7th in our class, and 16th in our category, but actually got up to 14th outright at one time during the event. The only time we lost throughout the whole event were the two stages we missed, doesn't that make you bloody mad.
But I guess we didn't do too bad for a bloody old bugger, and a never say die daughter, she was brilliant, and the first time for any sort of motor sport competition, but not a stranger to adventure, having been parachuting, and commercial diving with me. (Her favourite quote to me), "If I your not living on the edge Dad, your taking up to much space". I believe it's a good philosophy to live by.
Being a separated mum at home with three littlies again will be a tad boring after the last fortnight.
I am about to enter for next year, I don't know how I will afford it, it will probably take me till next year to recover from Targa 98, I am determined to get that bloody flash dogs dish Trophy.
I would like to thank all our sponsors who made it possible for us to get there, and the support of my wife, Jan, and Julie, Pippin, and Taylor, without which I would have finished up in a padded cell.
Best Regards
Len and Julie Brennan.
And family.
A day to day record of Julie's and my first attempt at an international classic car tarmac rally held over six days in Tasmania over a distance of 2200 km.
Preparation for Targa was an extreme challenge to say the least. This was due to a lack of funds until shortly before the event, so everything was left till the last minute. This is how it went:
I stopped work three weeks prior to Targa departure date, to work full time on the car, which was a freshly painted body shell just three weeks out from the event.
In fact the last four days I worked twenty four hours per day, non stop, 7 am to 7 am to 7 am to 7 am till 3 am on the fourth day. I think that works out at 87 hours, only stopping for 20 minutes three times a day for meals each day. I don't know what kept me going, but I never felt tired. My twin boys Garry and Peter, and daughter Julie, my navigator came down after work and worked well into morning giving me the moral support I needed. I think I must have been running on adrenalin, maybe excitement or anticipation, or probably, just plain stupid.
The car had been totally stripped externally and painted three weeks before the event, it had to be not only reassembled, but race and show prepped at the same time, particularly the engine bay, lots of chrome glitter and polish. Most of the engine preparation had been done in the months previously.
I wasn't able to get anyone to build a roll cage in the last couple of weeks, so decided to build it myself. I scurried off to CAMS to discuss the design, I was told it had to have diagonal brace, and I said it can't, because the seats protrude through the hoop. Then it must have diagonal brace down to the back floor, I didn't want that either, it looks ugly, and not symmetrical, with much back and forth we eventually agreed to disagree, and decided to come up with my own design that I was happy with and hoped they would be happy with too.
I ordered the tube I needed in advance, when I arrived at Dandenong to pick it up, I was told that the last of it had been sold, so much for ordering things. After many phone calls, all of which I didn't have the time for, suitable tube was found at Port Melbourne at Tubemakers, four times the price, although better quality material, and a mad dash on Friday arvo to pick it up, just made it by closing time.
I built the cage and sent it off for powder coating, same day service with lots of pleading and a slab. I finally got the last spacers machined I needed for my front disc conversion three days before departure , I built up the new front struts assemblies in advance for a quick change over at the last minute. I had previously ordered new springs from Sydney set down 25 mm. Well! I think they must have made them 25 mm high, my poor Z looked like a 4 wheel drive, ready to go bush bashing, they did settle down though, with a bit of work, just hope they don't continued to do so.
I rang Sydney, but couldn't get them to make a new set at such short notice, so I had to live with the height for Targa. Eventually (drama drama) got the car completed to a certain extent. I was beginning to think by this stage that I would never make it after all. Picked up the new u-beaut seats from SAAS, and wouldn't you know it, they didn't fit between the door and the tunnel. SAAS delivered their smallest rally seats to me that evening, but they didn't fit either. Back to square one, now where did I put those original seats, they were starting to look like pretty good rally seats at this stage, they have to be better than a couple of bean bags.
I stripped the covers off the as new seat backs, and cut two neat holes through the steel seat back, then took them down to our local upholsterer to reassemble, I fitted plastic inserts SAAS had given me for the harness, , threw over some cheap black seat covers and wacko, seats that didn't look half bad, not exactly the hold you in place rally seats I had in mind, but at this late stage I didn't have the luxury of being fussy! As you can imagine we needed to use elbows and legs to corner brace in every stage during the event, could hardly breathe with the excessive tightness of the full race harness to hold us in place, but it all worked.
Made a mad dash to Autosport, hired a Terratrip rally computer, wired in at 2.00 am, probe was pre-fitted to strut. The new engine started straight away much to my delight, and sounded pretty good, (no pistons or rods left out)! but running rich. I managed to borrow some other jets and was good enough to get it to the dyno. The engine was run-in from Hastings to Moorabbin, about forty K, Then straight onto the dyno, and up to 6500 rpm, Yuck, the poor thing. I just cringed waiting for it to go bang, its always sounds a lot worse standing beside the car listening, than inside driving at those revs, but it survived the strain thankfully.
My professionally build distributor was all out of wack and useless, after $200 (supposed) rebuild (wrong!). Found out it was only sand blasted, painted, and returned, not so much as a dismantle, it was one out of an old motor I had. Three hours later had the distributor on special delivery to a recommended specialist. Another $290, only just made it operational, they did the best they could with it, the car was "nearly ready" engine OK, brakes seem fine, so far, my close ratio gearbox was still noisy after dismantle and recheck, all systems almost go.
'Twas the eve before Targa and the s/s exhaust I had made was hitting on the diff after the dyno heat had reshaped it. In amongst all of this there were many other dramas of varying kinds, we had pre-Targa scrutineering as well, which surprisingly, didn't go too badly, they were even impressed with my roll cage! bonus, there was nothing major I had to contend with. Bye the way, CAMS told me I had to have an engineers report done on the roll cage because I had changed from the standard, which I had done, and it proved to be stronger than the CAMS approved design, so I was made a CAMS approved ROP constructor.
Last minute things like packing tools and loading spare parts into my work trailer, including stock std engine, s/h gearbox's, diff, std assembled struts, cross member, f&r wishbones, in fact every bit of running gear except the body shell, etc, I hope I would never need them. Put on car stickers etc., and there you go, all done by 3.00 am on the morning of departure. Who needs sleep anyway, by this stage I was almost starting to feel optimistic about making it.
Up at 6.00 am D-day, took the car to Westernport exhausts for refit exhaust at 7.00 am. As I drove onto the hoist the car stalled, backfired, rolled backwards, and set fire to the weber filter socks. The staff were quick and shot the extinguisher through the bonnet vents and put them out, "phew". Spare 300ZX rim arrive overnight, to Tucket's Tyrepower next door, new Falken spare tyre fitted, collected that at 8.00 am. Off to Bill Bennet at Pedder's Frankston by 8.30 am for full wheel alignment, the tall springs had stolen most of my good negative camber I had back and front, not to worry. New battery fitted at Frankston just in case, and off we go.
At last, off to the city, all ready to go - I think!, I hope!. Half way up the Frankston freeway the steering column went up in smoke. Now that was all I needed, my heart sunk, after what I had been through, I thought this was the end, quickly stopped switched everything off, car full of smoke, could hardly breathe, dismantled the column and found the plastic headlight switch had melted from overload.
I fitted Q4 lights about 2 years ago, and it picks today to fail, so into Robs Z Restorations and got a s/h switch, starting to think I am not meant to go to Targa this year, if anything else happens I'll scream, but then I thought, maybe its being a good car, its just trying to get every thing right before I go, Yes.
Needless to say I arrived just in time for the Targa cavalcade through the city. My wife Jan, and my 6 year old son Taylor towed the reinforcements trailer. So with nothing at all tested, exhausted, tired (that's not how you should be going to Targa) and on a wing and a prayer, we (I don't a believe it) made it to the Spirit of Tasmania on Friday the 24th April 1998 and loaded our precious cargo.
After a relatively pleasant and calm trip to Devonport and actually getting a bit of sleep, all the cars were off loaded to the official Welcome and Targa Tasmania launch.
Dare I say it but the Terratrip computer had not been tested, or anything else on the car for that matter, except the engine, until arrival at Devonport, We know why it's a called Terra, because it never ever did work. Several Targa competitors tried, but it just didn't want to participate, it just never did the same thing twice, so we were going to have to do the Targa by resetting the speedo trip metre to zero each Targa stage. This was going to be very difficult for me to do at race speeds, to put it mildly.
But we didn't need to worry too much, as the speedo cable broke on the 3rd stage of the first day, leaving us without any distance measuring device at all, which is a basic requirement, as the whole event is based on precise measured distances in the road books. But what is life without a challenge or two.
I have to say the most troublesome item in my years of motor racing has always been scrutineers, the Targa scrutineer was no exception, at the drivers and navigators briefing he was introduced to us by officials as the bastard, I think they have always held that title. My front spoiler didn't satisfy him as a Datsun item, although they were commonly fitted to showroom cars as you all know.
Well, I had to run in the modified class or remove both spoilers, all the discussions including the other Z owners with a similar problem joining in, failed to budge him. He didn't seem to care if we had carbon fibre F1 brakes all round, or 700 BHP, or rocket boosters even. He just decided that our 3" piece of plastic wasn't a Datsun fitment, so I had to run the fully modified class, and that was that, and just cope with the faster base times and competing against the latest works Porsche cup cars.
We planned on getting a good time in the prologue to see how we compared with other competitors in our class. Unfortunately for us, and several other competitors, they had resealed half the George Town street stage just prior to the event and the road was completely covered with loose blue metal stones. We consequently clipped the kerb exiting the last corner, pushing the rear suspension sideways, and putting the rear end out of alignment.
We were one of the lucky ones, the others were total wipe outs, I had taken spare uprights but had forgotten to pack the rear cross member.. We rang every wrecker in northern Tasmania while crabbing sideways back to Launceston, but to no avail. (poor mobile account) we rang Lindsay from Z spares in Melbourne to airfreight one but it wouldn't have arrived till morning, and that would be too late.
There was nothing for it, we would have to straighten the bent one. By 9.30 that night we had the car dismantled and considering our woes, when a spectator who just happened by, came over and said he had a 260Z at home, and if we pulled them off we could use his parts. It never ceases to amaze me the camaraderie of fellow Z owners and enthusiasts. Hooray, we live to see another day.
The chap drove me to his house where I duly pirated the poor man's rear suspension, we needed to get car 696 up and running again. By this time it was about 1.00 am. Not how I had envisaged doing Targa, through a mist of exhaustion. But I was there to compete, and that's what matters, adrenalin should keep us going, I don't know how my poor Julie copes, she is right in there in all the grease and dirt, and an excellent mechanic to boot, she can do almost anything, like father like daughter..
Day 1, Start of Targa and the noise coming from the diff was frightening, a grinding noise, sounded like a handful of blue metal had been thrown in the diff housing, the kind of noise that makes you wince and screw your face up. We didn't think we would make it through the first stage let alone lunch time. I assumed that maybe the drive shaft had been pushed into the diff and damaged the bearings or spider gears or the like. We decided there was nothing for it but to press on regardless, and if it lasted, I would never doubt the reliability of our Z again, or I would know my guardian angel hadn't missed the boat after all, so we went for broke, ( broke being the operative word,) there was nothing to loose, at least we would go down fighting.
So it went like this, First stage, our speedo broke, second stage my u-beaut brand new close ratio gearbox I had built at great expense, lost 2nd gear, and simply stopped driving, changed fine, but there was nothing there, it just freewheeled, it had been making a terrible noises since assembly, I had already dismantled it, checked everything and reassembled it again. I knew there was something wrong but I couldn't figure out what. As soon as 2nd gear broke the noise stopped.
Since dismantling it back at home, the 2nd gear on the main shaft which was heat shrunk on, then tig welded, well the weld had missed the joint seam, the gear had broken in two halves and fell into the bottom of the box, where it stayed all day!!! We continued that day without 2nd gear revving to 6500 - 7000 rpm in 1st then straight to 3rd at 3000 rpm and off cam, we still managed to clear all stage trophy times.
No rest for the wicked or so it seems, and that night saw us not as we would have liked having a nice meal , a drink, (non alcoholic of course) and then early to bed, but another night into the wee small hours removing the gearbox and fitting an old Z box given to me by a wrecker, with no synchro on 1st and 2nd, 3rd not really crash hot, but 4th and 5th, they worked fine. (Wacky-do). We also decided to take out the 4.111 diff due to the grinding noises coming from it, and replace it with the spare std 3.9 I had. Once more we were up and running again with maybe a slight stagger. All this at 63, was it worth it, yes of course it was, only quitters loose. Oh shit, I hope so!
Day 2, and we were up "Bright (more or less) and early" for an early start and Blast, Bother, Damn (I know I shouldn't swear) it wasn't the diff after all, but the r/h wheel bearings from the kerb impact making that dreadful rear end noise, after all that work. It didn't sound like it would last very long, I had this vision of chewed up balls and bits of metal that I wanted to keep working, so what's new we decided, so we went for broke, again! so all that was gained after two all night of work was one second gear, and still had all the crunching noises, we just hoped the wheel didn't decide to part company at high speed, up to 220 kph at times.
Down the East coast were some of the toughest stages, we cleared some, made trophy time easily on them all. Our placing was 126th on the first day , by the end of the second day we were placed 80th outright, and were about 2nd in our class too. The weather conditions were not good, it poured rain for several hours, through the mountain stages making them very wet and slippery. Fun, Fun, Fun. Although the Z handled the wet roads beautifully, it's the first time I have ever enjoyed driving in the rain at high speed, thanks to our Falken tires.
We nearly had an Oops though, as we slid pretty close to a jagged rock face on Grass Tree Hill where mud had washed across the road. This was the last Targa Stage for the day, the road was very slippery with water and oil, there were a quite a few accidents there, one bad one soon after us, with both competitors admitted to hospital. We arrived at Hobart safe and sound, phew!, which was slightly amazing as we had thrown away all our road book and paper work, Poof! and drove by the seat of our pants, and I just drove it flat-out as I found it.
Julie my daughter, first time navigator looked ahead to get a feel for the next corner, while I concentrated on the apexes, and my lines , the rock faces and cliff edges! I always knew my guardian angel was a petrol head, I think he was enjoying this too. We made a good team, Julie being able to read the corners almost as well as me, except she kept on saying, "Go Dad Go" but, hey! I was already on the limit, and that's how we did it each day.
Now, your thinking they have made it, and be able to have a night off, well no such bloody luck. The engine started missing, popping, and backfiring from about lunch time and it didn't want to rev over 4500 RPM, the more I tried, the more it missed, I thought it must be cross firing or the plugs breaking down under load, maybe the points closed up.
The wheel bearing lasted all day much to our amazement. We made lots of mobile phone calls during touring stages to find bearings and guess what, there were none to be had in Tasmania, ,joy oh joy.. Fortunately one of our sponsor Frankston Bearings were able to airfreight them to us overnight which meant we had to do Day 3 with shot bearings. We figured that if we talked kindly to our Z the next day and kept patting the dash-board and promising to make her like new at the end she might be kind to us for another day. and she didn't let us down.
We got the autolec to check out our whole ignition system at one am, but it proved to be fine, which meant it had to be carburation but I had no idea what, triple webers don't usually go out of wack to that extent. We checked out all the usual things, seemed OK, ran fine on the floor of the Expo so thought it may have come good by itself.
Day 3, A really bad day, with the engine still missing and popping all day, all was going well till we missed the turn onto Gardeners Bay Rd, as we were depending on following other competitors to know where we were going, not having any distance measuring device, and there hadn't been any, so missed the Woodbridge and Oyster Cove Targa Stages. As we arrived at the Cygnet stage, the officials told us we had missed two stages, we were about to go back the few kilometres and wouldn't have lost any time as we were ahead of time, but were told we were not allowed to go back once into control.
When we realised we had just blown our Targa Trophy we just sat there numb and shattered. After reading the rule book that night we found out that you are allowed to go back providing you haven't officially clocked into the control, which we hadn't. What can you do, we weren't sure of the rules, nor were the volunteer control officials, there for us to know, (them's the breaks), thats motor sport, although mind you, I wasn't so philosophical at the time, oh well, Shit happens Julie!
We were totally devastated, and thoroughly depressed, we had been going so well and getting to the pointy end of the field against all odds. We had lost all our enthusiasm and felt like packing up and going home, but pressed on and took things a bit more easily to preserve our Z car. But it takes a lot to keep a good Targa team down, and it wasn't long before that old competitive spirit reared its ugly head and we were off and racing again, so to speak. We still had that Brennan tenacity of a weed to succeed.
Except for the lost stages, we were still easily making trophy times, just by driving like there's no tomorrow, its probably an ego thing, but you have to show these younger blokes that "old" doesn't mean "aged" and decrepit, and that a Datsun can still pass a Masserati or a 911 Porsche which we did, maybe its all that Frank Gardner driver training, maybe I suffer from the dreaded need for speed disease, who knows!!.
Back to Hobart and a bag of bearings were handed to us on arrival. Well no trophy but a bag of bearings has got to be worth something! We had called in on the local Hobart Nissan dealer service department on the way, who kindly handed over an impact wrench etc to do the job.. Turned out the Service Manager was building up a Z car at home for competition and even had a spare set of wheel bearings at home! damn. He came down later to the Expo at the Wharf and helped us work on the car, nice guy. The engine popped and banged all day and generally ran lousy and sounded awful, had to be carburation somehow, but I couldn't work out what.
Day 4, While preparing to leave Hobart for Burnie up on the north west coast a spectator said "Is that metal thing supposed to be sticking out of your carbie?" I got down on my hands and knees, not to the spectator, but to have a look and found the choke tube had come loose in the venturi of No 1 cylinder and was sitting in the trumpet at 90 deg to the flow, almost blocking it off.
Maybe I should have got down on my hands and knees to the guy, because this was the cause of all the misfiring. But with only 5 minutes to departure and already in the queue of cars, we frantically needed to find someone with a Webber locking bolt, with one minute to go all we could get was a tube of Araldite, quickly smeared it over, pushed it back in ,started it up and drove away, with no more problems for the rest of the event, my guardian angel was looking after us.
All went well until Ross street stage where the Elfin sports car had its spectacular rollover, in the exact same spot we blew a 2 inch long under dash heater hose over my left foot, near boiling water on my clutch foot didn't go down very well at all but what really got to me was the steam pouring into the car was totally blocking all our vision in the middle of the stage. It was a little bit scary there for a while Julie frantically rubbing the windscreen down and me yelping with pain and keeping on going, it was the only hose I hadn't replaced on the whole car, drat!
At the end of the stage we went straight into the nearest service station and bought a Commodore heater hose (blasphemy) the only 19 mm one they had, and we bypassed the heater, and froze for the rest of the event. You have to be a contortionist, a three-year-old, or a Japanese midget to replace these under the dash.
Julie will kill me for this, but I have to tell you about her toiletry exploits, poor Julie just had to go, not a tree or bush in site, just open pasture, I said there are no cars coming Jul's , go here, no sooner squatted beside the car and along came four other competitors all tooting, poor Julie, she said next year I want a bloody four door car. Especially with a racing suit on. One off, all off. This happened to her a few times, men are so well designed aren't they, as Neil Bates proved at a control stop.
Her next effort was at a service station, she rushed into the toilet undressing as she went, didn't even look, turned around, was about to sit, door open, and there in front of her, the male crews at the urinal, now really wetting themselves, (as well as Jul's), and laughing, next thing, in rushes three other guys to tell her, "hey, you can't come in here lady, you have to use the one with the skirt on the door,( bloody perverts ), lots of laughing, poor Julie, a bit red, just laughed, sorry guys, gathered up the clothes and rushed next door, you will be pleased to know she made it.
She has a great sense of humour though, and takes it all in her stride. I don't think Targa would be the same without her. Most competitors that met her said she has been a breath of fresh air at Targa 98, and that I have to bring her back next year, she has got more front than Myers though. She had poor Glen Ridge posing with her for photo sessions, and any body else that was remotely familiar, she generally had a ball.
Meanwhile back at the rock face, half way through the Gunns Plains stage we developed a very severe vibration, I had noticed it earlier but now it was getting worse by the second, It got so bad that I had to restrict our speed to 100 kph for fear of something disintegrating.
At the end of the stage I found a deep table drain and straddled the car over it. Found a diff to tailshaft flange bolt missing, and the other three very lose, obviously not fully tightened from the diff change, I managed to borrow a 12 mm spanner off a by-stander and retightened the other three. I wasn't too hopeful of us making it through the next and last remaining stage for the day which was over 30 km and a very demanding stage for driver ,navigator and car.
When we arrived to start the stage we were told it had been down graded due to a bad accident involving a Porsche. We were relieved not only because of the Tailshaft but by now the sun was such that it rested on the bonnet as you came over crests and you could not see a damn thing, even at slow speed.
We got new bolts at Burnie and waited our turn on the hoist. Did a general check of everything underneath, all seems well. Its a wonder though as the stages are becoming more and more demanding and longer, and harder, I wondered how the firm Z suspension holds together over Tasmania's rough roads, there not too bad at normal speed, but at high speeds, you are all four off the ground and flying, or bottoming out all the suspension at times, and everything that goes up must come down, and hard..
Day 5, Last day and still going strong, we were exhausted physically and mentally. My angel has been watching over us well though, There is a warning that black ice is covering some stages, water on the road , some roads half dry and half wet, and pea soup fog on others, what else could one want for an interesting days Targa. Still we had loads of faith in our old girl. she was performing beautifully now, but the thousands of double clutching changes up and down were getting to me a bit by now.
At the second stage the fog warning proved to be an understatement. The fog was so thick you couldn't see the corners till we were confronted by a rock face or drop off. With the road wet it was very scary and heart stopping at speed to say the least. I was very jumpy between the brake and accelerator not knowing which way we had to turn, or which side of the road I should be on. This is the sort of thing that separates the men from the boys, I guess.. I remember at the end, Julie reached over and patting me on the leg, saying, well done Dad, It was kinda nice and heart warming.
Adding to this was not having a heater to defrost the screen, having to sometimes drive with the windows down and rubbing franticly in about five degree temperature, we resorted to a Targa jackets over our legs. Our day went well though, still able to clear all our Trophy times in spite of everything that had gone wrong.
The 50 k stages during the day were pretty full on, over the limit at high speed over unfamiliar twisting rough roads is very hard on the nerves, there is no room for error, its either a cliff, a rock face, or thick bush and trees. I was a lather of sweat from concentration by the end of these, a great challenge though. I think everybody with a bit of courage that likes a challenge should do it.
Half way through the Ellendale stage, the second last stage of the event, the brakes started making horrible grinding noises. We had run out of brake pads on the front discs, which Race Brakes Australia assured me would get me through at least two and probably three Targa events, as others do, so do I have news for them!.
They told me on my return to Melbourne that to wear the pads that fast (Fitted at the start of the Prologue less than 2,000 km ago) they would have had to consistently exceeded 650 deg C, we had set fire to the callipers at some stage, burning all the rubbers off. That's scary, that's bright red, the whole engine, and engine bay was black with brake dust as was both sides of the car from end to end.
Between the second last and last stage as the adrenalin was wearing off, I found it impossible to stay awake, I had to put Julie at the wheel, driving with only gears and hand brake, I think she did a good job, she must have, we made it to New Norfolk!. I managed to grab a few minutes sleep, that was enough to charge my batteries to get me through the last stage, and the fifty kilometres to the finish, I guess I was coming down, the adrenalin was starting to wear off.
New Norfolk was a short town stage. I found the steel to cast iron brakes works quite well really, it doesn't sound real good though. The harmonic balancer fell apart during this final stage also, and the pieces started rattling, but she, and we, hung in there till the end, finally through the last stage all complete and unscathed. Yah-hoo, Halleluiah. Our faithful old girl did us well, kept us safe and performed above and beyond the call of duty, we are so proud of her, she deserves a big hug.
I have since found that the car is still crabbing about two inches sideways, I can't understand how it handled so well, maybe because it's a Z. perhaps it doesn't make any difference when you are travelling sideways most of the time anyway. We drove the last 43 km on the hand brake, back to Hobart and the finish line.
We didn't want to bring our great little Z car home to the finish line unnoticed, so we stopped at a store and bought one big red carrot, found a long stick on the side of the road, and hung the carrot on a piece of string a metre out in front of the car. Well, it brought the house down when we arrived at the finish line with every one cheering and clapping at our carrot to entice our horses, albeit mechanical ones home.
It was a great and extremely challenging event . Very hard on cars, body, and soul. It was sad to see all the beautiful cars that fell by the wayside along the way, especially those going for their gold and platinum trophies, we know only to well how they felt. But for the grace of God, go I. I don't think I could have chosen a better tool for the job, just a bit more preparation time needed, that's all!
Apart from the above hassles, everything else worked perfectly, my own brake conversion which was untested at the start was an awesome success, for a drum brake rear end it took an awful punishing and we never lost brakes once, despite the smell. I remember an E type Jaguar which we caught up to at one control, when it stopped it had four columns of smoke wafting from under the four guards, not a good look, we ask the officials if ours were too, but they said no, great!
We now know how we finished up, 102nd outright against 250, 7th in our class, and 16th in our category, but actually got up to 14th outright at one time during the event. The only time we lost throughout the whole event were the two stages we missed, doesn't that make you bloody mad.
But I guess we didn't do too bad for a bloody old bugger, and a never say die daughter, she was brilliant, and the first time for any sort of motor sport competition, but not a stranger to adventure, having been parachuting, and commercial diving with me. (Her favourite quote to me), "If I your not living on the edge Dad, your taking up to much space". I believe it's a good philosophy to live by.
Being a separated mum at home with three littlies again will be a tad boring after the last fortnight.
I am about to enter for next year, I don't know how I will afford it, it will probably take me till next year to recover from Targa 98, I am determined to get that bloody flash dogs dish Trophy.
I would like to thank all our sponsors who made it possible for us to get there, and the support of my wife, Jan, and Julie, Pippin, and Taylor, without which I would have finished up in a padded cell.
- NIPPON DENSO SPARK PLUGS.
- ACL ENGINE COMPONENTS.
- DISC BRAKES AUSTRALIA.
- WALKER S/S MUFFLERS.
- FRANKSTON BEARINGS.
- ROCOL LUBRICANTS.
- STRATHFIELD RADIO.
- AUTO-PRO PARTS.
- LOGISTIC SIGNS.
Best Regards
Len and Julie Brennan.
And family.
Last modified:
12 August 2009
12 August 2009