High speed straights, twisty tight sections, narrow roads, wide tracks, hard surfaces, loose gravel, wet and dry: Rally Australia had everything. My car took a lot of punishment this weekend. It started with me taking Tim Horan, one of Australia's greatest rugby union players, for a drive during the shakedown. I am not a huge rugby fan, I like engines, but taking Tim for a spin was special.
It was great to have him in the passenger seat and to personally give him a completely different sporting experience. I was telling him to look for fast sections, jumps, hairpins and everything else. People tend to react one of two ways on their first time in the co-driver seat: ladies mostly scream and guys keep quiet. Tim stuck to the pattern - he hardly said a word. I was feeling really comfortable on the first morning.
Despite it being a new rally, I was not worried and never felt under pressure. I just thought to myself "try to drive sensibly, like you did in Finland". I soon found that finding the feeling was more important than going flat-out. That said, I was not happy with my first-day pace. I decided to lift it in the afternoon and my times were very close to the top drivers. I was fighting well but then came my accident. I sliced through a bush at the edge of the road - it wasn't on my pace notes - and smashed into a concealed tree stump.
The steering arm, driveshaft, front cross-member, the suspension, everything was bent - I had to retire for the day After I had assessed the damage, I went back and tied a red ribbon around the bush to signal it to other drivers. As I was walking back to my car, Han - the Chinese P-WRC driver - smacked into the same stump. His impact was huge. He bent the roll-cage and everything - trust me, that is not easy to do. The mechanics put my car back together brilliantly and it was down to them that I could restart on Saturday.
Competitively though, the rally was over after the incident. It was a strange incident, I have to put it down to bad luck. Munchi's Fererico Villagra said that he hit the same stump too and nothing happened to his car, which is a Ford the same as mine. Like I said, bad luck. It happens in rally and there is nothing you can do. It is the nature of driving all around the world and facing different challenges.
Every surface reads differently. Mud, rock, sand, bitumen, everything requires a different styles and set-ups - it is tough and hard, but it is part of rallying. Something not usually part of rallying were this weekend's protesters. They were not professional, they were hippies. Ultimately, we were not driving through residential areas or houses. It was rural forest areas. I would understand it if there were schools, or lots of children - even if we were driving through areas where animals usually cross the roads - but there was nothing.
If you are driving on an undefined track, which is rarely driven - maybe once or twice a year - then obviously wildlife will populate the area, I understand that. But the routes we drove were roads. Country tracks but roads. Lorries go up them every day. OK, we were going at higher speeds but we are professional drivers doing our jobs. Overall, with the ups and downs, I enjoyed Rally Australia - especially the last two days.
It was a triumphant return to Australia for the WRC calendar and, hopefully, we will be back in 2011. Sheikh Khalid drives for Ford in the World Rally Championship @Email:sports@thenational.ae