Forssman Motorsport ARB Tyrepower Griffith The Gap 440 2023

“ ARB Tyrepower Griffith The Gap 440 “ recap, enjoy.
Not sure where to start, but let’s just say it was a tough event!
Tough in so many ways on both the humans involved, and the vehicles. 64 entries greeted the green light with only 20 of those entries completing all 5 laps, so that gives you an idea of how tough the event was.
The event was scheduled to start on Friday with a midday full track reconnaissance but due to the road to the track being impassable Friday was rescheduled to just scrutineering at the race course. This was followed by the show and shine.
Now let’s just say the show and shine was a highlight for us and from the reaction we got, a lot of others as well…
Saturday was to kick off with prologue reconnaissance and the prologue. It was an eventful morning with Thomas and Brendan both getting bogged just getting into the track! But again, the officials and volunteers quickly had everything sorted out.
Unfortunately, due to the weather the decision was made to save the track and give it a few extra hours to dry out before the event proper started after lunch with the first of the 5 x 80k laps.
With no prologue the event organisers has to go to a seeded start order, not the easiest job to do but all in all I think they got it spot on.
Due to us not doing well last year we were all seeded towards the end of the start line, the Protruck was the first of the Forssman Motorsport entries to see the start line with Jason at the wheel and Del in the Nav seat. They were followed up by the class 2 buggy driven by Brendan and our super fill in Nav Leigh. Rounding out the team for the weekend was the 701 Patrol driven by Thomas and sitting beside him for the event was Joel.
To say it was a wet and muddy track is an understatement and the Protruck learnt the hard way getting bogged for over 20 minutes early on. The buggy faired better for the first half of the lap but was again stopped with engine issues around the 65k mark and the Patrol had some clutch issues that halted their day also.
After being recovered, the Protruck managed to finish lap one and was in pretty good shape considering the conditions.
Now roll onto Sunday morning and a limited water supply and cleaning options in town meant most vehicles arrived Sunday morning as they had left Saturday, covered in mud and a couple of hundred kg’s heavier!!
Brendan and Leigh made the decision not to start Sunday due to their engine issues. The boys in the Patrol were set for the day after receiving a clutch slave cylinder courtesy of Repco in Griffith, and a starter motor from Heath Weedon. The Protruck was as ready as it was going to be.
Sundays racing would be split into 2 sections.
2 laps of the track followed by a 45 minute service break, and then the final 2 laps to finish the day and the event.
The Patrol had some ongoing issues early on lap 1 and sadly failed to continue so this again left the Protruck to fly the flag. The first lap was going well but with the engine temperature climbing they were forced to stop and see if there was anything wrong that could be fixed. With the bonnet off they could see one of the thermostat fans wasn’t working and with a closer inspection the bottom of the fan shroud was full of mud.
With some time lost and staying away from the hot engine the boys were able to get it cleaned out and spinning again. Back into the lap and back on track lap 1 was done. Lap 2 went pretty well with no real issues and they received the finish flag for the first section.
Now this is where it works as a team, everyone pitches in. Cleaning and scraping the mud from wherever using whatever you can, cleaning helmets, refuelling and giving the Protruck a check over to make sure nothings out of place or needs fixing.
45 minutes later that feels like 10 minutes, Jason and Del are back in the wet seats for what will hopefully be another 2.5 hours of racing.
Once again the 3rd lap goes smoothly and luckily lap 4 for the day is the same and they greet the flag in 3rd place in class and 17th outright.
This was short lived, as there was another class 4 still on track behind them but it had around 20 minutes up their sleeve from Saturday.
Great for them, and sadly for us they finished around 10min after so the Protruck was bumped back to 4th in class 4 and 18th outright.
As we said it was a tough event but well worth the effort and even though we only had 1 of the 3 finish we had an absolute ball both on and off the track.
Special mention as always to Polly Mac and Rick Makeham for their imagery and footage of the team over the weekend.
Thanks to our family’s, crew and helpers both at the event and at home that are always supporting us, and thanks to our sponsors who continue to trust us with their brands and their products.
Next up for us is Rainbow Rises 240, the Melbourne 4x4 Show, Moyston, and then onto Millicent in late September.
We can’t wait!
The clip is 11 odd minutes long but I think well worth the time👍👍