Thread: NZ NSRA Nationals.

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Sunday 23rd October.

Surfaced around 6:30, breakfast at 7:00, when everyone was assembled we headed off on another mystery trip around the Waikato backroads. Unfortunately the instructions seemed to have been translated literally from Chinese; and as a result there were cars going in all sorts of different directions…but we all eventually made it to the event venue, so that was all good.
The motoring event involved drag racing on soft peat soil covered in long grass, if a foot was planted too hard you spun, so 200 yards took a fairly long time to cover, and rooster tails of dirt were the norm. There was dirt everywhere…all good fun.
Coxy now has his gasser built to where it’s mobile; so used this event to give it a damned good thrashing to work out what’s wrong with it/going to break.
His only malfunction was the parking brake was ratchetting itself on; a minor matter.
Elmo managed to boil his F1, so parked it up and took his wife’s car out to keep on playing.
There was toss the piston for the blokes, and toss the tyre for the ladies, with a sack race for the kids.
Crikey but I haven’t laughed so much since Ma jammed her tits in the mangle…a laugh a minute.

Then we headed for the lunch venue, but the instructions were still Chinese translations…more cars going in all directions.
We started near the tail end and finished up coming in among the first third.
One fella came up to me later and said “I got tucked in behind you on the last stage and thought: ‘Bugger! I’m stuck behind the bus; this is going to be slow,’ and then suddenly realised you were pulling away from me! Crikey that thing can move!”
Yep. She may be old; but she’s not slow!
All good for a giggle.

After lunch we headed back for camp; only for me to notice straightaway that there’s something wrong here…I’d lost power steering and brake boost; so had very little in the way of braking on a three ton vehicle.
A quick check under the front confirmed my suspicions; we’d burst a hose on the power steering pump, which also provides our brake boost. Can’t do much here on the side of the road; so I limped back to camp, where I had no shortage of good keen switched-on men. RJ lives just around the corner, so he grabbed the fitting and took it back to his place to cut the swaged fitting off and supply a couple of hose clips, Kevin Smith came to light with 4 litres of ATF, and within twenty minutes we had it all back together again.
Because the hose was not reinforced we’d assumed that it was the unpressurised return line…so had thought that hose clips would hold.
They didn’t.
It burst off again.
Okay…nothing to do but ring for a hose doctor…0800 4 Enzed for NZ wide cover.
He had to come from Hamilton, so there’s mileage to pay, it’s a call-out, so that’s another charge, and it’s a Sunday, so there’s even more to pay.
But Monday is Labour Day, everyone’s closed, so we’d need a motel Monday night, (we’d both be in urgent need of a shower by then,) find a courier Tuesday, get it back (most probably) Wednesday, (another night in a motel,) find oil and spanners and refit/refill it, most probably heading for home Wednesday arvo.
Nup. Call the man out now and get it done to.
An hour or so later we had a reinforced hose with swaged fittings all done and dusted.

Quick wash, tea, and prize-giving.
The recipients (as usual,) were all well deserving, and it was good to see Karen Reiri get the Dolly Award, but then they brought out the bloody band again!
So once again we spent the evening sitting outside with the smokers talking.
But that was all good too; we got to meet and talk with some of the new young members from Auckland, nice people.