Break Down Story Number 5.

The Lost Wheel.

August 2003, after years off the road the Dolly was at last a registered car again. The Dolly had been ready for rego for a long time but the thought of having to deal with the RTA kept making me put it of. It was sort of forced on me as my other car (TR7) had died with terminal engine problems and as this was going to take some time to fix I thought it would be simpler to rego the Dolly. I talked to a few other rally car owners who told me what I would need, all the usual things plus an engineer’s certificate, and a weigh bridge certificate. The engineer’s certificate was a bit of a joke, all he was worried about was silly things, like the back seat, it had to be removed, and the sun visors, they had to be refitted. Much to my total surprise the RTA thing went of without any problems. I found out about a year later why it all went so easily, I was thinking about entering an AMSAG rally (they run rallies outside CAMS) and was reading their regulations and one of the things they required was an engineer’s certificate. I thought that’s alright, I have one of those, but I then read further and the certificate number must be printed on the rego papers, so I checked the Dolly’s rego papers and no certificate number. The rotten RTA had just registered the Dolly on normal rego. Every time I go near the RTA I end up in trouble.

I decided to enter the Shannon’s Super Sprint at Eastern Creek as the first event for the Dolly and me in a long time. Even though the Dolly’s engine was about 5 years old (since it was rebuilt) it had only covered about 1500 km so I was only going to take it easy. Got though scrutineering but with the usual new rules I new nothing about. The day went well as did the Dolly, no over heating, no problems at all and the Dolly handled so much better with wider wheels and tyres.

We travelled back down the next day for the Shannon’s Display Day, me in the Dolly and the Old Man in one of his MK I’s. As I drove around the roundabout just outside Easter Creek the back of the car seemed to drop, at first I thought I had a flat tyre, that was before I saw the wheel rolling down the road, the wrong side of the road. As I got out of the Dolly I was thinking the worst, damage to the rear guard and underneath, gut no, nothing only a small black mark on the guard.

Talk about being lucky, if the wheel had come of while competing in the Super Sprint, well I hate to think about what might have been, and there was no on coming traffic for the wayward wheel to hit. I should have bought a lottery ticket. The wheel studs had not come undone or broken, the large nut on the end of the axel had come undone. Much to my total amassment we managed to find the nut, washer and keyway on the road and with not much trouble put it back together. We made for an interesting site as all the entrants in the Shannon’s day were arriving. We ended up being about 45 minutes late getting into Eastern Creek. So ended another Dolly Break Down Adventure.

Jim Pope