My 2007 season got under way February 24-25 at the DooWop Rally, headquartered in Aberdeen, WA.  This event was my first time co-driving for Barrett Dash in his Subaru.  It was also my first rally in the Pacific Northwest.

With a very Pacific Northwest steady rainfall Saturday’s stages consisted of running the Taholah stage.  The first two scheduled stages were cancelled due to snow.  That left four runs of the Taholah stage, twice each direction, as the sum total of Saturday’s competitive stages.

As with any first-time partnership the first stage or two are going to be a period of adjustment between driver and co-driver.  Preference for cadence, timing and word choice are very specific from driver to driver.  After the first couple of stages Barrett and I really clicked.  Save for one miscue (scroll down to the Tahola video), the second stage went well and we improved on our first run through by ten seconds.  It was also on the second stage that an engine miss in 5th gear began to worsen.

Stage three was a reverse running of the stage.  From my seat things felt very quick, but the misfire was getting noticeably worse.  About  a mile from the finish on a long single-track straight the engine went into safe mode.  We limped along until we reached a spot wide enough to get the car off the racing line and  parked it.

After nearly the entire field passed by Barrett tried to fire the car once again and it started without complaint.  We belted back in and drove out the last mile of the stage.  At the finish control we were informed that the fourth and final stage of the day was cancelled.  We had finished the rally, albeit with a 45 minute stage time that dropped us nearly to the tail end of the field.

Our crew spent Saturday night trying to correct the engine management issue, but several test runs on the edge of town caused a repeat of the misfire and engine issue.  We decided that it was best to withdraw rather than risk damage to the engine.  A disappointing end to our rally, but Barrett, Judd and I had a fun time of it Sunday spectating, hanging out at service, and generally goofing around.

I return to the northwest April 20-22 for the Oregon Trail Rally, the third round of the Rally America National Championship.  Check back here for an update.

Wow!  Oregon Trail was a crazy event.  I don’t think I have the mental energy to relate what went on coherently, so instead I offer this context-free Top Ten list of things overheard during the course of the weekend.

1. 1.“I’m a rally ninja.”
   

2. 2.“Tree. TREE. TREE! Nevermind.”
   

3. 3.“I was promised Hooters.”
   

4. 4.“He got proud.”
   

5. 5.“That was simply craptastic.”
   

6. 6.“Fuel delivery problem.  We failed to deliver fuel to the tank.”
   

7. 7.“To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.”
   

8. 8.“I’ve seen more teeth in a small Alabama town.”
   

9. 9.“I have beer in my underwear.”
   

10. 10. “Demons I command you- GET OUT!  This transmission is healed.”
    

A brief summary: The transmission gave out on the press stage.  Barrett and the boys worked until the wee hours swapping it out, or so I’m told.  I was passed out across the bench seat in the service truck with the worst headache I’ve had in ten years.

Friday’s stages were run at Portland International Raceway.  The new transmission locked and pulled and generally didn’t inspire confidence on the tarmac of the raceway.  At the lineup for the next control we laid on hands, commanded that the demons get out, and lo and behold it fixed itself.  We finished the last stage of the day and looked forward to the forest stages on Saturday.

Saturday started out well, with our tire choice giving us a great advantage over many of our competitors.  Fuel consumption got the best of us however, and we were unable to finish the day.  While that was the end of our run in the National we were eager to run Sunday’s regional rally.

A good, steady run on Sunday resulted in a podium finish of 3rd place.  While the National podium finishers celebrated with Champagne spray the regional podium ceremony culminated with a beer spray, thanks to one of the event sponsors, Widmer Brewery.

This Saturday, January 27th, was the annual California Rally Series banquet.  Held this year at the Doubletree in Ontario, California, the evening was an enjoyable mix of bench racing, prize-giving and good natured needling.  In addition to the awards there was also a prize raffle.  The raffle sold $2,290 worth of tickets, thus putting the CRS back in the black.  I’m sure I speak for all CRS members when I say thank you to all those who donated items to the raffle.  If the batteries hadn’t died in my camera I’d be able to show you Mr. Jon Rood, the envy of all those who bought raffle tickets, because he walked away with the much ballyhooed El Blendero Evo II.  Truly the Mother of All Blenders.  I’ll have to take some pics of the blender in action at a CRS event later this year and post them here.

It was a hard fought battle, and after a total of 2000+ points it came down to a margin of 70 points.  Congratulations to Piers O’Hanlon on his Open class championship.  As an aside I was blanked on the raffle, although I did come within one ticket of winning a prize.  Piers won on that ticket.  I’m tired of coming up just short to him :)  For a list of all the other winners click here.

Some awards not listed on the season end tallies include Rookie of the Year, awarded deservedly to Jennifer Imai. The Kenneth Zimmerman award for outstanding contributions to the sport of rallying went to Donna Hocker and the Galal Souki Memorial Award, in recognition of spirt of helpfulness and competitiveness of the Stock classes, went to Shea Burns.  In recognition of a co-driver’s contribution both in and out of a car the Bill Moore Memorial Award was awarded to Michel Hoche-Mong. The Worker(s) of the Year award to the Millar clan and Brent Ellzey. The dubious distinction of the Captain Crunch award for the most spectacular/destructive/sobering crash of the season went to Lisa Klassen for her roll at the Prescott Rally.  Come to think of it, I was a co-driver for two different nominees for the Cap’n Crunch award this season, fortunately not during the rallies for which they received their nominations!

In the afternoon prior to the banquet Lani, Ian and I stopped by the Potato Stamp Studio to visit with Jeff Soto .  Jeff and I discussed some possible designs for my helmet while Ian found every item in the studio that could be hazardous for a two-year old.  One of those items was a skateboard.  He really enjoyed riding the board around the studio on his hands and knees, so much so he didn’t want to go when it was time to leave.  I envision many a skinned knee and bruised hip in his future.

Only four weeks until the first event of the season!

Laughlin has always been one of my favorite rallies, and one that often yielded firsts for me personally.  My first class victory, my first snow rally, and following the 2007 edition, my first roll.  On the run up out of what is perhaps the Laughlin stage, Diamond Creek, Jeff and I ran wide, missed the fridge sized rock, but collected the washing-machine sized one.  End over and on our roof, that was it for our rally.  What had begun as a rather conservative run on Friday had steadily gathered pace and was feeling really good.  Right up until the very sudden end to our run.

Today marks the relaunch of of my website.  After a hiatus due more to circumstance than choice I’ll be “back in the saddle” next weekend at the Idaho Rally.  I’ll be co-driving for Barrett Dash in a “mystery machine” two-wheel drive car as we contest this MaxAttack! event.  A quick glance at the entry list hints at a potentially epic 2wd throw-down, and I’m excited to be back on stage as a part of it.

As for the website itself there is a freshening of the graphics, an update of results for 2007 and 2008, and the addition of videos and on-event APRS tracking.  Click on the link to the right to find out more about keeping track of our progress over the course of the weekend.

So the first day of Rally Idaho has drawn to a close.  After arriving in Mountain Home at 6 a.m. and grabbing a few hours of sleep Barrett and I shook the car down on the practice stage.  To protect the innocent that is all I’ll say about that.

Tomorrow brings the recce and a chance to see the stage roads and make our notes.  It also gives me an opportunity to try to work the bugs out of the APRS.  We shall see.

We ran recce today.  The stages are smooth, flowing, and are going to be fast.  Additionally, the landscape is just gorgeous.  Apparently this is also prime fly fishing territory.  I’m really clueless about angling, but Barrett gave me quite the education on the transits between stages.

The rooms at the Hampton Inn, the event headquarters, had these padded lap desks so you could read/write while in bed, I suppose.

  I repurposed ours as a lap desk during recce.  It worked so well I was tempted to take it home with me.

Also during the recce of the 16-mile Meadow Creek stage we had an encounter with a vehicle neither of us had seen before while on stage during an event recce: a beer truck.

  Typically rally stage roads are not prime commercial corridors!

Made some changes to the notes, but for the most part the organizer supplied notes produced by Mike and Paula Gibault were excellent.

I’m looking forward to putting these notes to use tomorrow and Saturday.  The Max Attack! competition is sure to be tough, and we are in a position to show that 2wd isn’t just a bunch of also-rans.

Day one of Idaho Rally is done.  For the most part today’s stages were uneventful for us with the exception of the first stage of the day when we caught the car in front of us (despite two-minute start intervals) and rode in their dust for several miles.

For an excellent video recap of day one of the rally go to the video page.

Today comprised the final four stages of the rally.  The Cow Creek stage was run twice in each direction.  Much more open and flowing than the Friday stages Saturday favored those cars with more horsepower, putting our Group 2 Sentra at a disadvantage.  Despite our best effort Mark Utech in his Mustang was able to overcome his day one deficit and relegated us to 9th place.

The stages were without drama, save the jump constructed at the spectator area.  With some serious misgivings after seeing the jump during recce, Barrett and I agreed that a moderate pace of 40 m.p.h. would be the correct speed to take the jump.  I’m not sure exactly when he changed his mind, but we took the jump significantly faster the first three times through.  Passes one and two were without drama, but jump three, well see for yourself (There are now also videos of this jump on the video page):

The landing bent both front control arms, but not to worry.  Nothing the tow strap, a rancher’s fence post, and three quick tugs in reverse couldn’t fix.

By the end of the day we had held station from our day one position, brought the car home (mostly) in one piece, and had a good time doing it.  Thanks to Barrett, Peter Barnes, the organizers, volunteers and competitors for a great weekend of rally!

GORMAN RIDGE and BEER

This weekend brings the annual running of the Gorman Ridge Rally, the event at which I’ve arguably had the most success.  I’ll be co-driving for Clay Harper in his Chevy truck, as I did in last year’s event.  We’ll be looking to improve on our 5th overall, 2nd in G5 finish.  You can follow our progress on the event website, or track us in real-time on the tracking page.

Karl Strauss Brewery has been a sponsor of the after rally party for several years now.  A local San Diego brewery, when the event organizers couldn’t pick the beer up from the L.A. distributor they asked if I could pick it up from the corporate headquarters.  Now Lani thinks I have a drinking problem :)

GORMAN RIDGE ENDS IN DNF

Sometimes I hate this sport.

Gaining speed every stage.  Getting the rhythm down.  Looking at a good finish...

And then the rally gods exact their vengeance.  I don’t know what I did to anger them, and whatever it was I apologize.  Transmission woes left us unable to complete the rally.  To add insult to injury, when I turned in our timecard to sweep I got a paper cut.  The rally gods demanded a blood sacrifice, I suppose.

Photos and more to follow.

GORMAN RIDGE RECAP

Long story short, we started fourth on the road, ran fourth pretty much from the beginning, but with a severely overheating transmission.  Eventually the transmission succumbed, and we DNF’d.  At least the APRS Tracking worked. 

Oh well, here’s some photos, all Photos © by Louie Minette.

MIDWINTER BLUES

This time of year always makes me feel like I’m suffering from withdrawal from rally.  It has been almost three months since my last event, and with this year’s plans still up in the air there’s no date to focus on getting back in the car.

One thing that does make the lack of personal rally activity a little more tolerable is the annual running of the Dakar Rally.  This annual event is one of the last great sport challenges, and is definitely on my life-list.  If you are unfamiliar with the event check out the video I’ve added to the video page.

Speaking of videos, I’ve had occasion several times in the last few weeks to explain exactly what a rally co-driver does.  I always describe the pre-event planning and organization, the role as sports-psychologist to the driver and the “lawyer” during rules protests, etc.  What always seems to be the most difficult to explain is the most basic function of the co-driver--- describing the road ahead.  If I had access to a computer during those conversations, I would just shown them this:

CRS SEASON BEGINS

In just over one week the 2010 California Rally Series season kicks off at the Desert Storm Rally.  The event marks the first time partnering with Chuck Wilson in the Old Dirty Racing Ford Escort GT.  If you are going to be in the Colorado River valley on the 13th or 14th you have an opportunity to come check us out.  For more information see the spectator guide.

Other news includes some updates to the site, including a twitter feed page that you can find through the navigation bar at the top of the page, as well as a contact page that finally works correctly.  If you have tried to contact me previously I wasn’t ignoring you, I never got the message! Don’t forget the APRS Tracking page where you can follow our progress throughout the rally weekend.

Sometime next week before the event I hope to have a little something new I’ve been planning for quite a while.  Stay tuned...

The weekend of March 13-14 marked the inaugural event of the 2010 California Rally Series championship at the Desert Storm Rally, based in Blythe, California.  The rally also marked my debut as co-driver for the Old Dirty Racing team and driver Chuck Wilson.

As with any first time Driver/Co-driver pairing there is a period of adjustment as the communication and confidence level build.  Additionally, Desert Storm was the first event on the freshly built Old Dirty Ford Escort.  Consequently, we adopted a conservative approach and a “just finish” attitude to the event.  The results show that we did exactly that.  Our times didn’t set the world on fire, with the exception our run at the I-10 speedway spectator stage.  Our four laps of the 1/4 mile tarmac oval were only a few seconds off the winning time set by Jim Morris in his Camero.  That’s right, a rally Camero.

Our times did steadily increase over the course of the weekend, but with relatively few DNFs on an event that typically has 50% attrition our finishing position was modest, to say the least.

Next up is the High Desert Trails rally on April 17th, in Ridgecrest, California.  I’m looking forward to tapping into some of the speed we didn’t use at Desert Storm and seeing what the Ford is really capable of.

ON MY WAY TO HDT

I’m moments away from loading the car and heading to Ridgecrest for the High Desert Trails rally.  Check back Saturday for updates, or follow our progress through the Twitter and Tracking tabs at the top of the page.  Rally On!

DESERT STORM RALLY