Moyston:- talk about a Nemisis

Where do you get it?

Ararat in Victoria is close to the Grampians and nestled in the foothills of the much touted tourist destination is a small and humble place called Moyston. A beautiful setting and worth a check out if you are down that way.

Here is the venue of a short course race track. Simple and fun to drive but killer on Components. If you could draw a parallel with Glen Seton and Bathurst this would be our challenge. Karen (the navigator) said this is like finding nemo-sys. Nice play on words for a navvy : I think you get the picture of what is about to happen….so here goes the story.

The Track,

The Moyston track is about 5kms long s, the set up is that we run 7 laps in 3 heats. The person who completes the distance in the shortest time gets to take home the sheep station. Or was that a plastic trophy….

In terms of surface there is a mix of hard clay, loamy top soil, gravel and your std run of the mill top soil dirt. An interesting mix indeed in particular when you get 28 podium focussed drivers digging trenches as they go. The track winds itself between trees that in some cases are 7 foot apart. Top speed is about 130kmh. Suffice to say no margin for error.

This year the track was dry in most part with patches of sludgy mud to make things a bit more interesting.

Race one worked well for us, we kept things together and moved forward. We struggled with the suspension again. When we hit holes the Patrol took off on two wheels. Try doing that at 100KMH between gum trees on a slippery surface heading into a 90 degree left hand corner.

We held station and searched to find our rhythm. All was good to this point.

Race two we started next to a V8 buggy and were beaten off the start we followed for the best part of the lap putting pressure on the buggy guys. Smoke was pouring out of the exhaust and we felt that it was not a case of if but when their engine would give up. Smoke billowed out of the engine and we thought the old "time to go now" was cast against his engine and the pistons were voted out, much to the disgust of the engine block. We found out later it was the power steering spewed oil in the headers.

In his time of need we pushed past and started to work forward. I felt that we had a really good rhythm and were pressing on.

Then it happened, the old Moyston Hoodoo. The back wheels walked sideways in a rut opposite to the front ones. Next thing we were sideways in a ditch.

In two years we have failed to finish. Last year we spat off a set of belts and cooked the engine. This year the belts stayed on but we found a ditch the size of the bonnet and parked ourselves heavily. This bent a drag link and as a result the wheels had your standard factory setting of 40 degrees of toe out.

In the process the brake line was squashed and hence was severed.

We limped back to the pits to see if we could get going again.

Human Nature

We were calling for trailers and trucks etc to tow the Patrol home with, when a young local guy walked up and asked if we needed a drag link. He had one at home, I was amazed I also said we need a brake line do you have one of them as well?

He said yeah I work at Repco I'll go and get you one. Nathan returned 30 mins later with the said parts and the crew and I started work. We were set and ready for the drive home. This is one of the things I really love about off road racing, real people that dig in and help each other, a local guy that trusted us to borrow a part and return it. That is a true indication of character. There was a cost….he needed a con rod for his project motor. So we sent him one up with the draglink. Thanks to Nathan we were able to get home. WELL DONE MATE!!!!

The Patrol is in for a re wire and have a new Link ECU fitted, then to the Dyno and Cass Jones the suspension guru is coming over from WA to set us up. I will let you know how we go.

I trust you are enjoying sharing our journey and would like to thank Yokohama for their support. They have a great product and awesome technical support. The pics were supplied by Dust Storm magazine; you can check them out at http://exclm.com.au/