Stage 11, while still being on Saturday is actually the official start of day 2, so here we go again!

We took up most of our service time in Nannup, so while being on time, when we get to Barnard Park all the officials are stressing and yelling at us because ‘we are going out any second!’

About 30mins later we are still still here in line, fully suited up, hemets on etc.

Finally they release us from the Oval to go around to the start, I’m ready to go!  At this point we stop in the line of 15 other cars, and wait here for another 20mins.

Finally its our time to start.  I have Mr Flood behind me – its game on Floody!

Surprisingly, having the right rear shock only 1/2 working actually made the car turn in better on the tarmac – didn’t understeer anywhere near as bad as it was the night before.

Got three nice laps in, 3 nice handbrake turns at the hairpin for the spectators.

Cross the finish line on lap 3, Red flag – Ohh no, don’t tell me something has happened to Floody!

I ask the official what’s happened – he says ‘you’ve done 4 laps’.  I say, ahhh no, that was only 3. That look of confusion, and then guilt crosses his face and I realise that he has mis-counted and has pulled us in early.  Arrggggggggggggghhhhhhhh!

We trundle around back to the Park Ferme area where we get questioned by the puzzled officials as to why we pulled in.  ‘The guy had the red flag out’ I say, ‘so we stopped’.  ‘Ohh, sorry about that’ they say. ‘ Turn around and you can have another run.’

I’m not too keen on that idea, this stage is one that you can gain one second, or loose the whole rally.  I ask what my other options are, to which the reply is a derived time based on my stage times during the day.

I take the derived time option.  A bit of a woossy move, but the risk of another run vs the reward is just not worth it with a busted shock.

One a few minutes later, a WRX, on a re-run crashed backwards into the concrete, completely pancaking the back of the car.  Somewhat justifying in my own mind that I made the right choice.

The car goes into Park Ferme (where you can’t work on it) and will stay there for the night.

Once we get back to our room, a look at the results gives us a surprise.  Although I’ve been talking about where we are sitting in the results in these blog posts, during the day we had not been looking.

To our surprise we have won 2WD for the day!  Bring on tomorrow then…