Upon arrival, Tony from 808 immediately got himself in the way of Damian's picture... nice one Tony!!
Afro and 808...
Angus was smiling and happy - Damian looked tired - seems his sinus problems from earlier in the week are still causing a bit of puffiness in the face... it's a good look though, and he can certainly carry it off!! ;-)
The cars hit the road to head to Gympie... Damian swung into the right hand lane to get a quick photo...
After fuelling up at the BP in Gympie (of course), the teams arrived at the scrutineering point.
Booger Mobile went up onto the hoist (after Damian politely waited for the new teams to have their turn, except for Team Ryan who he overlooked - sorry Andrew!!)
No problems at all with scrutineering - a completely clean sheet of paper!! Gordon pointed out a couple of minor (non-scrutineering) things that Damian made note of to look into either for this year or next year...
Purple People Eater (808) seem to have found themselves some nice new stickers for this year... good one!! Nicely lined up, too!!
After saying good-bye to the Bundaberg teams, it was time for driver briefing for the esCarpade Experience drive...
And out onto the road they went... Angus had his first taste of navigating, and after scratching his head at the tulips (little pictures showing what the intersection looks like at the instruction), he was all over it like a fat kid in custard!!
Woohoo!! Dirt!! Time to test out Booger Mobile's new LED lights... and they were spectacular!!
Following Shark Mobile 2 through the bush...
Past the Gympie Music Muster site at Amamoor, and past these rows of tents too (probably overflow from the muster site).
Then... tragedy befell Booger Mobile!! After descending into a floodway at around 30km/hr, there was almighty BANG!! Damian looked at Angus and said "That didn't sound good..." and heard a clankety clank clank noise...
Pulling over to inspect the damage, Damian found that the strut top mount had pulled the mounting bolt through the top of the strut tower... Didn't look good, and the esCarpade Experience came to an abrupt halt for Team Booger Mobile...
Damian called up Ben and Gordon, who attended and did a running repair (or more accurately, a "let's stop this from getting any worse") to the strut top mount. These particular mounts are a bit shorter than the original ones in Booger Mobile, and have been in since Monday (after Damian located an issue with the original top mounts). At the time he wondered if they would leave enough travel... wonder no longer - the answer is NO, THEY WILL TOP OUT!!
Damian and Angus headed back onto the bitumen very gently, then crawled slowly through Amamoor and into Kandanga... where they found Team Ryan with their bonnet up - just having a few tuning issues... Ben and Gordon were onto that (how did they get in front???), and there's no photo, so here's a pretty picture of the train bridge at Kandanga!!
Up Obi Obi Road to Mapleton... Heading up Obi Obi, Damian noticed a vehicle behind him, so he pulled over to let it pass, only to find it was his uncle who lives nearby... After stopping for a chit-chat, they decided to drop over to his house for a quick coffee, before heading up the hill to the lunch point at the Mapleton Pub.
At the pub - glorious day for it!!
The Qld Crew who made it through the esCarpade Experience (one way or another) and found their way to the Mapleton Pub!!
Damian posing with Booger Mobile... looking a bit dusty!!
After a very gentle, and ultimately uneventful trip home, Booger Mobile was safely back in Damian's shed... Angus decided to stay to check the damage...
Top mount off... Turns out the damage was pretty much cosmetic - the bolts hadn't actually done any tearing or cracking of metal etc, but simply bent the little slotted bit of metal just enough to pop out of place...
Angus used a bit of gentle persuasion to put the metal back into position!!
Damian suggested that rather than just putting the bolts back in, using washers to spread the pressure would be a good option!! Angus got in the spirit of things and photobombed this photo...
The top of the strut tower (with paint removed to check for cracks etc) - you can see the washers in place to spread the load!!
Repainted, and with the original strut top mount refitted...
Damian thought this photo (blowing dust out of Booger Mobile's K&N air filter element) would be far more impressive... but it wasn't.
So, the upshot of it all is this... The boys missed the fun part of the day due to the damage to Booger Mobile, HOWEVER, the damage turned out to be far, far less than was feared, and the fix far simpler than was dared to be hoped for!! This is partly due to good luck (that only one bolt pulled through in the initial instance), and partly due to good management (that Damian heard the noise and immediately stopped to investigate if there was an issue).
Of course, there is still the original issue to deal with - the other strut top mount is missing it's little saddle to hold the strut rubber in place, so Damian will have to go in search of a replacement for that, but all's well that ends well in terms of damage!! It could have been much worse - if all bolts had let go it would have caused damage to the bonnet!!
So Angus' first drive in Booger Mobile was an adventure, but he's very much looking forward to the Camp Quality esCarpade, which is now a mere SIX WEEKS AWAY!!
Stay tuned folks... there's plenty more to come in the near future!!
