Trip Report

The Night Nav was another huge event for the club with almost 2/3rds of the members there either competing or running the event.
The layout was similar to any other navigational event with grid references to plot, special stages and individual events to complete, as well as some novelty events to keep everyone amused.
The course hadn’t been driven before the event and it wasn’t long before there were already errors with the first plot sending you the wrong way, but with some good radio comms the problem was resolved and everyone was on the right track before anyone got lost.
Teams were sent off at 10 minute intervals and it wasn’t long before they were doing there first individual event; Removing and re-fitting a wheel from the car. This was done really well by some with Phil and Alan blitzing and really bad by others with Dazza and Hazza earning a DNF while Rooster and Jen having just changed a flat 5 minutes before coming mid way.
While the teams were driving the course they had to keep an eye out to locate the numbers that had been placed by us as the lead car all over the place.
Some of these must have been harder to find as not many found them all but some found too many and ended up loosing points. Letters were randomly placed also which spelt a word and bonus points were awarded for the correct word which 3 teams managed to solve.
The half way mark was a short stop to hand in section 1 notes and get the notes for section 2 which saw teams face B1, B2 and SK’s Special Stage that had teams criss-cross a rather steep, rutted track that turned out to be a challenge that was encounted by all without any dramas.
Times varied from under 2 minutes for Simon and Shane to well over 30 minutes to Trevor and Sean due to some sheer pin hiccups with the PTO winch. Finlay and co. were the next stop where teams were asked to eat a dry weet-bix and answer 10 club related questions. Both of these missions were handled very well by all with Bill blitzing with the Weet-Bix, eating it in 59 seconds and most of the questions posed no problems for those of us that read the newsletter.
The event ended where it started and by 3:00am most of us were back at camp enjoying a few beers and some hot food thanks to Steve and Gillian, before most went to bed to catch some shut-eye. Breakfast was eggs and bacon cooked once again by Steve and by about 9:00am we were on our way to do some more driving in preparation for the Simex Pursuit.
I hope that everyone had as much fun as I did and I would like to thank all that helped; Steve & Gillian at the start, mid-way, finish and kitchen, Finlay & Kids for their effort running the weet-bix novelty, Anthony, Claire & Jack and Geoff Mooney & Chris Hummer for running the tyre change exercises and Brad (B1), Scott (B2) & SK for running the Special Stage.
Lastly thanks to all the competitors that made it all happen and I hope to run another later in the year. We’ll see??
Jason Jones