After lots of banter and general good humour the competitors came and went, few issues arising at this stage of the day so we packed up and went on our merry way, it wasn't long before we received a phonecall from one of the event fixers telling us that one of the model A fords had broken down 20km back down the road with a failed waterpump, they had obviously wrong slotted at some point and as we were the last sweep crew we had to go back, we arrived at the stated destination (Shell petrol station) only to find the ford absent, a mistranslation between us and the fixers meant that when we arrived at the fuel station they were actually 60kms down non rally route as they were short cutting due to other issues, when we finally arrived at the correct fuel station on the wrong road they had managed to get the electric water pump fixed and had continued on towards the hotel, we carried on down the wrong route until we met rally route and with several phone calls realised all but one of the competitors were ahead of us with the one outstanding being tended to by Skippy so we carried on to the short but excellent plantation test where me met our illustrious leader PY still shaken by nearly being mowed down by 2 competitors who where showing off to the event photographer Gerard! Here they are with me trying to take photos of them from the car travelling at about 35mph.
This looks like we were stationary but I assure you we weren't!
The event photographer Gerard, great bloke!
Once this was done we started heading into the Highlands where we came across millions of greenhouses, I initially thought it was a drug growing region but it turned out to be strawberries!
And yes that's the beetle that appeared on my peking to Paris blog! We headed up to a famous tea growing shop and sampled honey lemon tea, we all agreed it tasted like lemsip with 35 sugars in it but did enjoy the green tea cheesecake, jungle Jim had green tea, not sure he liked it!
A final run to the copthorne hotel and into the underground car park where we where met with a barrage of poorly cars, I was involved in a Bentley 12 with a poorly gear change, once all the floors where removed and accessed the gearbox I found a selector bush was very worn, with Malaysia not having one of these bushes to hand i tinkered and adjusted and with the advice from a Welshman in Wales via telephone a happy solution was formed, a modified gear-lever sorted the problem with lots of cleaning and lubricating it was ready for the next day. Next onto an AC who's had ongoing issues with fuel and ignition problems so the coil has been moved, fuelling system modified he was also ready, Owen was very busy on a mk2 jaguar who's water pump had partially seized, that was temporarily repaired until a new one arrives in Penang in a few days! Other small issues of the day were starter motors failing and generally sick cars due to the heat.
The marshalling cafe
View from the tea shop
A petrol powered drill, I'm getting one of those!!
After a busy night it was finished off in the bar with a couple of beers and a quick snort of glenfiddich, yes a snort, Owen used both nostrils, even managed to persuade one of the docs to have a go!
Highlights of the day, eating the soul drying peanuts from a shell garage, having a magnum, yes a magnum ice cream from the shop (probably fake!) but the best was Owen falling asleep in the truck then after five minutes suddenly stuck his finger in my ear then grabbed my shoulder in a spider like fashion before being woken by is head smacking into the side window as I swerved virulently down the road!
Night night
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