I've been to a few of these now, and they're always good fun!
It's great to get so close to the action without having to pay
In fact this time the organizers even arranged for someone to come round at morning tea time, hunting the marshals down, to hand over home made cakes!
This was followed by burger and chips for lunch on Saturday and a massive spud for lunch on Sunday.
All good
There were 8 courses setup throughout the forest.
The few of us from the WPC together a few other folks were split into two or three man teams to marshal these 8 tracks... and you kinda stayed on your course for the day.
So, the only downside to all of this, was that you didn't get to see all the tracks.. just the one you were marshaling.. and maybe bits of the one next door.
Those drivers try so hard, I sometimes felt guilty penalizing them.
Oh OK.. I lie.. There was no guilt.. it was fun!
And, from what I heard, Knoxy was a real "bunting gestapo".. no eyes "turned the other way" if your paintwork touched the bunting!
Talking of "eyes turned the other way".. I'm not sure where Knoxy was looking when he incurred some damage from contact with a tree.
He'll surely be the bearer of nice souvenir scar for him to remember the weekend by.
And then.. talking of paintwork.. some has definitely been left in the forest.
I'll leave the relevant witnesses to document their own stories.
I know that Mike can recount the story of a pink vehicle that just didn't want to stay on it's wheels, no matter how many times he was righted..
And then there's the infamous green Patrol that went ar**e over ear to land up on it's side.. complete with small fire in the cab.
And the white Patrol that pushed it's centre of gravity till it gave up and landed on it's side...
And the blue buggy / rock crawler that decided more right pedal would alleviate the need for winching.. only to find the resultant momentum carried the nose up and over the roof.. bringing said blue buggy to rest on it's head...
And then there was the buggy / rock crawler that lost it's left front wheel only a matter of 2 or 3 meters from the end of the track.
So many lovely memories..
So many interesting recoveries going on all over the show!
Snatch blocks.. chains.. winches.. all the toys were out..
And those were only the ones I saw on or about tracks 6, 7 and 8...
And then there were the countless stories of trees being disdainfully mowed over in the interest of vehicular progress.
And then there was the odd tree that refused to give in (at least initially), retaliating with it's own offering of panel damage...
Oh yes.. many were the utterances by a marshal along the lines of "I'm glad that wasn't my truck!".
Did I say it's always fun being at these comps?
The fact that this comp was held in a forest was good in that it was very, very scenic..
And bad 'cos it was friggin' cold at night and first thing in the mornings.
A little rain on Friday night and during the day on Saturday kept those with campers and gazebos wondering whether they'd be packing up wet canvas when they left for home.
But fortunately Sunday was dry.. as was Sunday night.
But, from what I gather, there would have been some wet canvas (purely from the cold) to contend with on Monday morning for those that stayed overnight on Sunday.
As highlighted by dear Col above, I cannot comment personally about Sunday night or Monday morning.. I was gone soon after close of business on Sunday..!
But I know Tracey put up a facebook post with a pic of the campsite on Monday morning.. well the bit that wasn't cloaked in mist anyway..
But I digress..
Back to the point.. the comp...
Ahh.. I've covered that already..
Did I say it was fun?
It always makes me proud to be part of the WPC when a few of us rock up together and make ourselves helpful at events like this!
