NDSCC Khanacross Hirstglen 7th Dec

[bmw02rally]

Good Luck to my son Ethan on his First ever event and first ever drive of my Escort on the 7th.

Baptism of fire for him to drive a GRP4 spec Escort with over 230bhp, with an LSD and Straight Cut box on dirt for a 15 year old!

This will be interesting....feel sorry for the dad in the passenger seat What am I thinking!

[stuart]

LUCKY BOY

I wish we could run event that late in the year without risk of starting a fire

[Cam]

Hope it's going alright Mark, and nobody's had a heart attack.

[bmw02rally]

What a weekend! Up at 5am on Saturday for my son's first event and the cars first real gravel event. We arrived at Hirstglen which is a fantastic private acreage venue about 30mins south of Gatton in Qld, for the Northern Districts Khanacross and Christmas party. It was a hot and dusty day but a great turn out of over 40 entries of which 13 were juniors. Ethan was very nervous obviously not wanting to look rubbish so I was trying to keep him calm whilst giving him confidence. He drove the recce to get a feel for the car and how slippery dirt is. His biggest concern was not stalling the car which is quite easy when first is a 2.39 ratio. My plan was to keep him very slow for the first few and then let him get a feel for the balance and power which he duly did. My wife was pretty nervous but I have never seen him smile over something so much as he did after each run. By the end he was getting quite fast and beat some of the adults including me when I kept hitting witches hats. The only accident on the day was my wife not putting the bonnet pins back in which meant a surprise for me halfway around! But at least I have ammo now everytime I want to fix something lol...I want to thank the guys at Northern Districts for a great day especially the Dillons and the Gaines family as well as Chris Wedding for the words of encouragement and Ed williams for helping ages ago with the top mounts. We got home about 7.30 and left everything on the trailer ready for the next days event at Tanah Kita nursery in Pimpama. This was a gravel event as well but road tyres only so I had to fit the only legal things I have which were 8inch wide semi slicks. Anyway I told Ethan to treat it as a complete new thing again and build speed slowly. People were chuckling as he needs three cushions to sit on to see over the wheel and reach the pedals but again he impressed me with his mature approach. Again all the people were really encouraging to the juniors and it was great to see them out there. Gold Coast Tweed club put the event on and hats off to Denis Baker, the Prestons and Mick Bruce for running the event and John Spencer and Clay for the crack and tips. The best part was taking the officials around after without the cones as we could really throw it around. I have shared a vid of Ethan from Sunday from facebook. Hope you can view it. P.S. sorry for having to listen to my voice!!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=578056205598314

[bmw02rally]

Here is my crap effort from the Sunday event.....I need more practice as I wasn't very good. No sound sorry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9SPy...ature=youtu.be

[Peter Knight]

Good job Mark and Ethan.
Good to see young people having a go.

[gen mk 1rs2000]

good to see the "team owner/ manager" has the seatbelts adjusted perfectly for his
future stint in the nav seat
move over old man , the next gen is comin thru to show you how its done !!

[maxrs]

Great to see. Well done lads.

[Terry_09]

Nice post!