Down, then up. 21 cars entered, including a wicked fast Quattro, many Open class Sooby, and my good pal John Lane's 500 hp Volvo. Day 1... after much, but not quite enough preparation, we head out for stage 1. Put on Hans, then helmet, then plug in intercom, and find I can't hear a thing through it, dead as a doornail. Who cares that it worked in service that morning, it don't work now. Can't trade helmets, so off we go with no comms. This worked OK till I missed a yelled instruction and we went wide then down an embankment and through an old fence and took both driverside tires off the bead. But we DIDN'T get stuck. I flatout refused to quit and kept my foot in it and we powered back on the stage and finished it. Slow going with 2 flats. We were 7th fastest on the stage but we had to quit, what with only having one spare and 45 miles to go to next service. Turns out this was jsut as well, cuz we lost the brakes on the way back to service...that woulda been very bad had it happened whilst rallying. So much for day 1. The Baldini brothers, my crew guys, and Matt, and John, around 8 guys total worked thier asses off putting the car back together and ready for day 2. Things went a little better here.
I found the car was happiest with a couple psi less air in the rears than in the front, this balanced it out and made it a joy to drive. We went out for stage 1 just kinda settling in and making sure we didn't go off, just sorta cruising, and come in to find ourselves 2nd overall , 2 sec behind Lane. Next stage we beat him by 13 sec, and this continued through the next few stages. We had a 12 sec lead at the halfway point. Car was behaving perfectly, I could hear my codriver, and we're doing very well. 10 sec lead going into the final stage, and on that one, we got a flat on the LR tire, dammit to hell. This was a repeated stage, and we were 3 seconds slower with the flat than we were compared to the first time through it. John, that hooligan, ended up with the overall win, 2 seconds ahead of us! Ah well, still first in Open for the day. The Baldinis are going to try to help organize my service area better, and Matt Manspeaker is seeing after my car. It's getting a Heltech E6K, and we're also gonna buy it some proper rally wheels so flats are less likely (it went flat cuz it debeaded). If I can keep the car on the road, we'll be gunning for the overall win next rally, and that's looking like a pretty valid threat, looking at the day 2 stage times, http://www.wildwestrally.org/results.html
In a 19 year old, cheap Mazda. Protege FTMFW!
I found the car was happiest with a couple psi less air in the rears than in the front, this balanced it out and made it a joy to drive. We went out for stage 1 just kinda settling in and making sure we didn't go off, just sorta cruising, and come in to find ourselves 2nd overall , 2 sec behind Lane. Next stage we beat him by 13 sec, and this continued through the next few stages. We had a 12 sec lead at the halfway point. Car was behaving perfectly, I could hear my codriver, and we're doing very well. 10 sec lead going into the final stage, and on that one, we got a flat on the LR tire, dammit to hell. This was a repeated stage, and we were 3 seconds slower with the flat than we were compared to the first time through it. John, that hooligan, ended up with the overall win, 2 seconds ahead of us! Ah well, still first in Open for the day. The Baldinis are going to try to help organize my service area better, and Matt Manspeaker is seeing after my car. It's getting a Heltech E6K, and we're also gonna buy it some proper rally wheels so flats are less likely (it went flat cuz it debeaded). If I can keep the car on the road, we'll be gunning for the overall win next rally, and that's looking like a pretty valid threat, looking at the day 2 stage times, http://www.wildwestrally.org/results.html
In a 19 year old, cheap Mazda. Protege FTMFW!
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