Although I don't drive a mazda anymore, and have no plans for it for a while, i'd still like to share my runnings with ya'll if you'll accept.
We had our first Rallycross of the year for Oregon Rally Group Sunday. With intense rains all saturday and night, along with some occasional rain Sunday during competition, it made for some muddy runs.
This was the first time I finally got to take the Rally Truck out and play. The first run started very rough.. I babied it. Could barely get out of the start line, stayed in 1st the entire course. I got sideways through both slaloms basically the entire way. It was a sad sad run to be honest. Hell i ran a clean 3:00... while the rest of the field was running low 2 mins clean... It really didn't help that i had no weight in the rear to put the power down.. So i was lacking traction quite bad.
After that though, i heard from others, that they're just stabbing it all around. So i took advice, and launched from the line, and stayed in 2nd the rest of the way. It helped! i got 2:07 this time. This alone wasn't enough to impact my score, as it was only 8th best of 12 in my class.
3rd pass i felt i knew more of how to control a RWD, no weight @$$ end truck. And i did.. well as compared to the prior runs. My time was now 1:48... i DID however loose all traction coming into the final slalom, and barreled through 3 cones counting 2 seconds a piece, adding 6 seconds to my time. So ya think now, 1:54, HELL YA! improvement! i was stoked. OH!!!! and to add even more coolness to this last run, it was awesome! the final turn to the finish, i slid way too much i spun sideway, and couldn';t correct in time, so i just cranked the wheel more following my turn, completed a 360 right in front of the finish throwing 20-30ft rooster tails of mud! Very pleased with my end result... Now compare it to the rest of the field... it was the 3rd worse time of my class... That tells you we were all now under 2 mins. Which is really cool. If it would have been a clean run, I would have had 5th fastest pass.. But we don't play with 'if's... Final result.. Ya, dead last in my class... I didn't mind one bit. It's all learning.
I decided to stick around and run Time Only for the afternoon, as I plan to compete in the Mt. Hood Rally in October, so I want all the practice I can get.
The wind has been blowing, a lil bit more rain, and I worked the first half of the afternoon runs, so now we're last, and the course had 'cleaned' up a bit. First run out, course is backwards as it was in the morning session, I again was sloppy as sin through the slaloms... Completely sideways through every one... But I still pressed on pretty strong. Good speed, figured out kind of how to hold some long sweepers in a slide. Until the final finish corner... It was VERY tight, i almost creamed the timing equipment.. Had to go in reverse to avoid hitting any more cones. I already nailed 3 cones, and missed a gate... that's 16 seconds total added to my time... :'( Raw time is 2:03, total is 2:19 though...
Next pass, I don't remember too many details, but I know again i Improved. My time was quite well I think. Looking at scoring it shows I was 22nd fasted of 61 cars! =D with a clean 1:36
Ok, so now comes the final pass of the day.. I felt GREAT through it, felt very smooth, didn't really fall out of my line to extreme... Coming through the finish, I was laughing so much, had the biggest grin I've had in a while. That was so fun! Time turned out to be a clean 1:29. 17th fastest of the 61 cars. Oh and btw, the afternoon class was ALL AWD/4WD cars except 4 of us who were running time only. So I felt ****ing great! That was awesome!
I made a lot of new friends. People who recognized the truck and were pleased to see it out and not being a lawn ornament. I was surprised by a few people offering to come crew for me when they asked if I planned to stage it this year and said yes. I had so much fun though you have no idea. throwing a rallytruck around in the mud brings out so much! I can't wait to hop in and do it again.
Open invitation is there for you guys to come check out what the Oregon Rally Group has to offer as RallyCross comes around. Way more fun than autocross. WAY! Next event is April 18th. It will again be at the Washington County Fairgrounds, in Hillsboro Oregon.
Oh... and I walked away with now being co-captian for ORG's stages for Olympus Rally here in a few weeks, along with likely having the title of Stage Captain again for a couple stages of Oregon Trail Rally. So if you guys wanna come out and watch and/or volunteer, I'm your guy!
We had our first Rallycross of the year for Oregon Rally Group Sunday. With intense rains all saturday and night, along with some occasional rain Sunday during competition, it made for some muddy runs.
This was the first time I finally got to take the Rally Truck out and play. The first run started very rough.. I babied it. Could barely get out of the start line, stayed in 1st the entire course. I got sideways through both slaloms basically the entire way. It was a sad sad run to be honest. Hell i ran a clean 3:00... while the rest of the field was running low 2 mins clean... It really didn't help that i had no weight in the rear to put the power down.. So i was lacking traction quite bad.
After that though, i heard from others, that they're just stabbing it all around. So i took advice, and launched from the line, and stayed in 2nd the rest of the way. It helped! i got 2:07 this time. This alone wasn't enough to impact my score, as it was only 8th best of 12 in my class.
3rd pass i felt i knew more of how to control a RWD, no weight @$$ end truck. And i did.. well as compared to the prior runs. My time was now 1:48... i DID however loose all traction coming into the final slalom, and barreled through 3 cones counting 2 seconds a piece, adding 6 seconds to my time. So ya think now, 1:54, HELL YA! improvement! i was stoked. OH!!!! and to add even more coolness to this last run, it was awesome! the final turn to the finish, i slid way too much i spun sideway, and couldn';t correct in time, so i just cranked the wheel more following my turn, completed a 360 right in front of the finish throwing 20-30ft rooster tails of mud! Very pleased with my end result... Now compare it to the rest of the field... it was the 3rd worse time of my class... That tells you we were all now under 2 mins. Which is really cool. If it would have been a clean run, I would have had 5th fastest pass.. But we don't play with 'if's... Final result.. Ya, dead last in my class... I didn't mind one bit. It's all learning.
I decided to stick around and run Time Only for the afternoon, as I plan to compete in the Mt. Hood Rally in October, so I want all the practice I can get.
The wind has been blowing, a lil bit more rain, and I worked the first half of the afternoon runs, so now we're last, and the course had 'cleaned' up a bit. First run out, course is backwards as it was in the morning session, I again was sloppy as sin through the slaloms... Completely sideways through every one... But I still pressed on pretty strong. Good speed, figured out kind of how to hold some long sweepers in a slide. Until the final finish corner... It was VERY tight, i almost creamed the timing equipment.. Had to go in reverse to avoid hitting any more cones. I already nailed 3 cones, and missed a gate... that's 16 seconds total added to my time... :'( Raw time is 2:03, total is 2:19 though...
Next pass, I don't remember too many details, but I know again i Improved. My time was quite well I think. Looking at scoring it shows I was 22nd fasted of 61 cars! =D with a clean 1:36
Ok, so now comes the final pass of the day.. I felt GREAT through it, felt very smooth, didn't really fall out of my line to extreme... Coming through the finish, I was laughing so much, had the biggest grin I've had in a while. That was so fun! Time turned out to be a clean 1:29. 17th fastest of the 61 cars. Oh and btw, the afternoon class was ALL AWD/4WD cars except 4 of us who were running time only. So I felt ****ing great! That was awesome!
I made a lot of new friends. People who recognized the truck and were pleased to see it out and not being a lawn ornament. I was surprised by a few people offering to come crew for me when they asked if I planned to stage it this year and said yes. I had so much fun though you have no idea. throwing a rallytruck around in the mud brings out so much! I can't wait to hop in and do it again.
Open invitation is there for you guys to come check out what the Oregon Rally Group has to offer as RallyCross comes around. Way more fun than autocross. WAY! Next event is April 18th. It will again be at the Washington County Fairgrounds, in Hillsboro Oregon.
Oh... and I walked away with now being co-captian for ORG's stages for Olympus Rally here in a few weeks, along with likely having the title of Stage Captain again for a couple stages of Oregon Trail Rally. So if you guys wanna come out and watch and/or volunteer, I'm your guy!
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