Our first ever event was the Cerberus Introductory Trial at Won Wron in East Gippsland 26/7/97. It was an experience for both myself (driver) and my co-driver Colin. Unfortunately part way into the third stage we had an engine fire with caused damage to the carbies. Our first event and our first DNF, what a disappointment. But we still had a great time.

The second event was the Datsauto Nissan Nightmoves at Woodside again in Gippsland on 16/8/97. This time we finished the event coming 34th out right from a 62 car field. This was after losing 20 minutes as a result of an 'off'. We were also running second in our grade until the off, we started gaining time once we got going again. We placed 16th in our class (Class C) and 6th in our grade (novice). We were certainly mush happier with this result.

The next event was held on 11/10/97, it was the Spring 200 at Marysville. Again the third stage hoo doo stepped in. This time I clipped a bank with the rear which spun the front around, then front first into the same bank. This caused the car to flip onto it's roof causing a fair bit of damage to the front. (not much fun)

The event was the Bog-a-Duck Trial held on 28th February 98 at Thornton near lake Eildon in Victoria. The conditions were very dry and very dusty.

There was a lot of concern that the event would not go on due to a very high fire risk. There were 64 cars in the field. We were originally due to start at 10.16 p.m. but due the dust the start intervals were increased from two to three minutes. This made our start time now 11.09 p.m.

The motor had just been rebuilt for the season. (I mean just) We started well with the car running strongly, then the gremlins crept in causing the motor to die. This happened another five times until we could locate the fault, it proved to be a faulty electric fuel pump. We fixed the problem at service but we were already well down in time so decided rather than break anything that we would take it a bit easy and finish the event. This proved to be a good strategy as we passed many other competitors along the way that had off's or breakdowns. Out of the 64 car field 12 DNF'd and one withdrew due to the late finish time. We finished second last in 47th o/r, 9th in our grade.

That was the last VCRS we have done, we just got sick of starting at 10 o'clock at night and finishing at 5 o'clock in the morning. So with the help of our very good sponsors, in particular Bayside Mitsubishi we decided to enter the VRC which are mainly daylight events.