Our first task of the day was to man the out control at the hotel, no sooner had we started processing everyone out the front door and on their way did the familiar face of the model A owner whom we had fixed his timing gear the previous night appeared looking panic stricken, his water pump had decided to fail overnight and needed help fixing so Owen carried on the marshal duties as I left to go to the basement to sort his car out, a relatively quick replacement was done and amidst gallons of coolant all over the floor he left and I returned to carry on the duties in the hotel lobby. Owen and I gathered all the relevant pieces up, said goodbye to the hotel staff, jumped in the truck and tore off towards the lunch halt where we would catch the rally up and resume normal sweep service, however, after about a hundred kms we arrived at a petrol station to see a slightly damaged volvo being half blocked in by a white van, we pulled in to see what was up and discovered that the van had fairly slowly run into the back of the competitor, the van driver was blaming the Irish pair but got a little bemused when we told him that it was his fault and he should pay for the slight scuff on the car, he thought that the competitors should pay him so a row was looming, we had noticed that there was a police presence half a km up the road so decided to bolt for it in the car and truck to them to avoid any further incident, the van then followed us and caught up just as we pulled up to the police, after only a very short time the police realised what had happened, let us go and set about tearing the van driver a new arsehole! Feeling very satisfied we carried on but, fifty kms later we came across the familiar model A at the side of the road, again having troubles, this time it was the camshaft gear all in bits, mostly in the sump, Kitch was already on the case and about to tow him the remaining few kms to the lunch halt where recovery would need to be arranged, Owen and I had arrived early enough at the halt to feed ourselves have some banter with the marshals there, Chris and George but when we were about to leave Skippy tripped and banged his head on the floor, he was clearly wobbly and the doctors were called, fortunately they were running the test just down the road and Owen and I shot off to run the test while they came back to deal with skipster, this gave us a great marshalling point as we were setting the competitors off on the closed road section uphill meandering through a jungle road. Once that was over it was the slow run to the island of Penang off the North west coast of Malaysia via a massive long bridge and I mean massive, looking forward to what I thought would be a beautiful and serene island turned out to be a massive disappointment, a bit grubby in my opinion but I think this is the place where mopeds go to die, millions upon millions of clapped out rubbish motorbikes, usually with the whole family on them, dad up front, two kids in the middle and mum (holding the shopping) making sure the kids were still present at the end of the journey, ironically it seems that only the dads wear the crash helmets!
After a brilliant series of hilly hairpins it was a drop down into Georgetown where our hotel loomed amongst the dilapidated old colonial mansions that lined the congested and smelly roads, the eastern and oriental hotel was a real treat, a beautiful hotel with great staff and an infinity pool that we will be utilising! We settled down ready for the next two nights as it was a rest day for the competitors, well those who hadn't had car problems anyway! A few minor issues to deal with with only a handful of cars we got washed and dressed and readied ourselves for a deserved night out. 
one of the competitors wanted to take us out and as he was part of the Malay royal family it was a difficult one to refuse so we didn't and duly followed him to Slippery Senoritas, a lively bar that just so happened to be hosting the semi finals of miss Malaysia! 
The things we have to do to keep the competitors happy is just amazing, Ed and I perused the entrants photos and names to decide who should get our vote, Ed went for a girl called Amanda and I voted for Lan Shy tting, it was great shouting 'SHY TING, SHY TING,' at the top of our voices, great times were had but the best laugh came when one of the contestants chicken fillet fell out of the side of her bikini top when she appeared on stage, when the tears dried up on our faces Owen and I decided to call it a night and returned to the hotel for a rest as we were going to be working hard the following day fixing the mass of broken cars on 'the day off'.
BUCKLEYS BOGUS FACT
Did you know that a particular coconut found in Venezuela from a crop in the nineties has the greatest nuclear fusion absorbing properties than any other natural or man made substance ever found or created anywhere!
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