After a great run at STPR I decided it was time to go through the car thoroughly as it hadn’t been done since last summer.  I pulled the whole drive train for inspection and made some improvements and repairs.  The new injection pump I fitted delivers a lot more fuel so I upgraded the turbo and exhaust to match.  Both drive axles were removed, cleaned and re-packed.  Wheel bearings and ball joints were replaced and intake and intercooler piping were improved to avoid the damage we had at STPR.

De-laminated engine mount that was allowing a bolt to rub against one of the timing belt pulleys (not good)

The torn boost hose that caused us to lose much of our power on the final stages at STPR (must upgrade)

Replacing silicone boots with “V” clamp connections.

Left: original  VNT-17 turbo. Right: larger 17/22 hybrid off of my street car

I had to do a bit of welding to make the turbo plumbing fit in the Rabbit, but hopefullt it will move more air and be more secure than the previous setup.

Added vents to front struts to allow air to escape upon compression and hopefully prevent water build up.

The old 50mm down pipe next to the new 2.5″ pipe.

Surprisingly the clutch has plenty of meat left after a year of abuse.

After the re-prep was complete I headed to Okemo Hillclimb for a bit of a shakedown and to accumulate some more Rally America Regional points before the New England Forest Rally.  Unfortunately due to the weather Saturday was a bit of a wash out with no timed runs but they did allow us to make some brisk caravan runs.  The car was full of vibrations as the new engine mount and exhaust settled in and a bad alignment made steering a bit darty but the upgrades certainly made more power.  Jay brought the 1.6L Rabbit up and made some strong times despite the long initial climb.  In the end he took almost 20 seconds off of my best time last year in my 1.6L Rabbit.  We did get 3 timed runs on Sunday but a couple of cars went of and really slowed down the day.

The car proved to be solid after the rebuild but still needs some tuning to get the exhaust smoke and temperatures down while still offering the power of the increased fuel and air.

Here’s a cool video from the weekend:

watch?v=7iUX4Quts2g

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STPR (Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally) is a Rally America National event located in Wellsboro PA.  Geoff Clark who had been an active driver 10 years ago in the SCCA days would be riding with me for the first time.  Geoff has one RA event under his belt, co-driving for Luke Sorensen at the New England Forest Rally in 2009 but the majority of his co-driving experience  has been in the 00 car at Rally NY.

We arrived in Wellsboro on Wednesday night and after registering for recce the next day checked into our rooms  at Ski Sawmill ski resort former home to the Ski Sawmill Rally years ago. As usual recce started early and dragged out all day.  Aaron Crecenti’s driver could not make recce so he hitched a ride with us and helped with some insight based on conditions last year.  Unfortunately since I left my fire suit at Ski Sawmill, we had to bail on recce early to fetch the suit for tech.  There was so much construction going on that what had looked like a 40 minute detour turned into an almost 2 hour excursion.  By the time we reached Sawmill it was clear we didn’t have time to re-join recce and headed back to HQ to finish tech and run the practice stage.  Cyrus, Joey Kale’s crew chief was kind enough to run our car through tech while we were away so all we need to do was get my suit checked then headed to the shakedown stage. It turned out that everyone was hung up on recce so we were the first to the shakedown stage and were able to run about 5 passes which allowed us to dial in the new performance injection pump I had just installed.

The first stage of the day was the notorious and extremely rough Waste Management stage. Much of this stage appeared to have been cleared earlier that week by simply driving a bulldozer through the woods, where there wasn’t dust and rocks there was mud and tree branches.  For some reason we had been seeded very far back in the pack which lead to us catching cars on each of the first 3 stages which cost us valuable time and both of us lost our voices by the end of the day from dust inhalation.  Still we made it through Waste Management and had a strong finish on stage 2 which was the reverse of the shakedown from the previous day. After service we were able to re-seed closer to where we should have been and did not catch any other cars for the rest of the event.  At the end of day one we were behind Healey  by 36 sec and Sorensen by 15sec and had three staged to make up for it Saturday morning before the second regional event started.

On Saturday morning we were determined to push real hard and shaved 4 seconds off Healey and 7 off Sorensen on the first stage of the day,  Then on the second took 12 more seconds off Healey and 4 of Sorensen so that we started the last stage of the “Finger Lakes” Regional 20 seconds behind Healey and 4 seconds behind Sorensen.  We felt confident that we could take 4 seconds on Sorensen who was driving with a little reservation after rolling on these stages 2 years ago and hoped to at least give Healey a run for his money.  As we checked into time control Geoff realized he had made a calculation error and we checked in a minute early which meant a 1 minute penalty! We were both frustrated since we had pushed so hard to close the gap but I was determined to drive hard and make up as much as we could just in case one of the other two made an error.

We flew through the stage which included a number of switch back up hill turns.  I still didn’t have the hang of flicking the car through tight turns so I did my best to make it through and make my time on the straighter high speed sections.  As we approached on of the last switchbacks of the stage, I pushed hard and tried my best to drive the turn as it is supposed to be done.  Sadly I over-thought my attack, mis-shifted and stalled the car.  Since we were running so hot the engine vapor-locked and would not turn over.  Geoff had to run back with the triangles as corner workers helped push the car off the road.  Frantically I tried to diagnose the problem as our coolant boiled over.  I assumed the worst that the headgasket was blown or the cylinders were filled with oil.  I loosened the fuel injectors to allow any fluids/gasses to escape and tried turning the engine over again.  Now it was turning with ease!  I tightened the injectors up and fired the engine bit the idle was running very high.  Since I didn’t know what the problem was but had the car running we were able to transit out of the stage and avoid disqualification.  Sadly however we lost 10 minutes which cost us any chance for a strong finish.

back at service we found that the rev problem was simply a hung up accelerator cable that I had upset when I was wrenching on the engine.  We performed a quick look through on the car and then were offered an opportunity to leave service early so that we could be re-seeded back up with our speed factor cars for the beginning of the second regional.  We were determined to not make any mistakes and drive strong for the rest of the day. We played leap frog with Sorensen and Healey all day long, down on them by 6 and 3 second on the first stage then up by 12 and 14 on the second.  With a couple of stages to go it looked as though we had a solid second place and just a few seconds to make up for 1st when all of a sudden the car’s boost was cut in half and our power band changed dramatically.  Upon inspection I assumed we had a blocked air filter which was caked in mud.  (After the race however we found it was a torn intercooler hose) We pushed as hard as we could and were able to keep our lead on Healey but couldn’t make enough time on the final long stage to beat Sorensen who was running consistently all weekend.

STPR is definitely on the top of my list of worth running events, except for the dust and giant flies.  And with our new injection pump we finally have that extra bit of top end power to keep up with the competition and had our first real battle of seconds.  I look forward to making a few more improvements for NEFR only a few weeks away.

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Ascutney Hillclimb 2009 was my first hillclimb and the car’s first high speed event. Unfortunately at the time all the bugs had not been worked out and the car was underpowered so my expectations this year were high. This year however since Rally America is offering Regional points for the hillclimb series I will be running with a co-driver in the newly formed rally class rather than in my usual hillclimb class. Scott Nickerson, who co-drives for Joey Kale, offered to sit with me since Joey opted to run the hillclimb series in his hillclimb class rather than as a rally competitor. (This was a smart move since he is now leading in RA regional points as well as NEHA points despite running the two series independently) The extra weight of a co-driver and some of the additional equipment required for the rally class would prove to be a bit of a handicap despite the additional power of the now tuned car.

Jay was able to carve time out of his busy schedule to bring his Rabbit up so we split a campsite. Dave Baker and Jesse Whitsell would also be showing up with their Mk3 Golf TDIs to bring the diesel total up to 4! Interestingly enough we were all running in different classes.

Friday night on of the crews threw a Buffalo wing party at their campsite which not only drew a crowd but generated the race fuel that Jay and I ran on Sunday.

Ascutney is known to be the hill with the fewest runs and this year would be no different with 3 runs on Friday and 3 on Sunday. Our only competition in the rally class suffered an unfortunate off on their 3^rd run on Saturday and were not able to continue the weekend. Disappointed to be running with no competition I set my sites on beating the breakout time on the hill. Our first run of the day was strong but it was clear that we needed more power to break out. Between runs I adjusted my turbo for more boost while Jay set up an intercooler misting system out of his windshield washer to help with the heat soak he was experiencing.

Unfortunately the added boost blew off one of our intercooler hoses halfway up the hill and forced us to finish the run naturally aspirated (which equals lots of smoke and not much power). Meanwhile Jay had shaved off a considerable amount of time since Saturday but hit a plateau and was running times within .10/sec all day. “I guess that’s as fast as she’ll go” was all he could say. Still, he was clearly squeezing everything he could out of the car’s current setup and refining his driving style the whole weekend, he’s going to be a real contender once he gets some power under him.  Jesse was having fun and though he and his car were capable of faster times, we was trying to keep cool to avoid breaking out (since he didn’t have a cage or fire suit).  Dave was suffering from some mechanical problems and had to back off since he had to drive the car back home to RI Sunday evening.

On our final run of the weekend I had repaired the boost hose and dropped our tire pressure as low as I could, Scott refined the notes to a tee and we gave it all we could. Tires smoking around every corner, I kept my foot to the floor in third gear tapping the brakes with my left to scrub speed into the turns but otherwise giving it all I could. As we blasted through the finish it was clear it had been our best run of the weekend and we broke out by over 2 seconds. The tires had been so low that we scrubbed the lettering off of the sidewalls but managed to break out and take 1^st in class by default.

Next up, the gravel tires go back on for STPR in Wellsboro PA for a 2 day Rally America National event that we’ll be running for Regional points.

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The first gravel rally of the season has finally come!  After a false start last weekend when the alternator pulley on the car failed at the start of the Team O’Neil test day, the time the time finally cam to head back up to Dalton NH for the “Team O’Neil Rally”. Last year this rally was sanctioned by NASA and was a winter event which unfortunately conflicted with the SCORE desert racing schedule and I was in Laughlin NV.  This year the event is being run as a one day gravel rally and is part of the Rally America Eastern Regional Championship.  The 40 or so stage miles are made up of a combination of Team O’Neil School roads along with adjacent local roads and Chick’s Gravel Yard next door. Many of the stages are classified as “technical” which translates to “Friggin’ Rough!” and consist of a lot of big loose rocks and gravel.

Since we missed out on the test day the week before Kathy Moody gave us the opportunity to come up early on Friday to get some test runs in at the school. I finally got a proper open trailer for the Sprinter so I packed everything up and headed north in the morning with the car in tow. Sadly after 100 miles of driving the Sprinter died on the side of RT 91 N and once again I had to call in Rick and the trusty Duramax to come to the rescue. I hooked up the trailer to the pickup truck and AAA took the immobile sprinter and Rick back down to the shop. Fortunately, even though I was late, I got the chance to get a few runs in to shake down the car and grab lunch before recce and registration.

My sister Kerry was going to join me again with co-driving duties but wouldn’t be able to make it up until after 9:00 so I hitched a ride with Chris Duplessis and Will Maddox who would be making his rally debut with Chris riding shotgun. I did my best to make notes from the back seat and just hoped Kerry would be able to understand them.

After recce I ran the car through tech and Jay Orzell arrived to help out with service. With the car teched we headed off to the Mountain View Lodge where I had put my parents up. Sunday was Mother’s Day and since both siblings were in the car we decided to make a family vacation out of it. Jay and I grabbed dinner with my folks before Kerry and her boyfriend Gus showed up. Then we left the luxury resort for the economy motel where we stayed for the night.

The morning started early with a parc expose at the Dalton firehouse before heading to the stages. Dave Baker and his friend left RI at 4am top arrive in time for parc expose and help out with service for the day. The weather, which had been beautiful all week, looked as though it was determined to get nasty in true spring rally spirit. Sure enough by the first service the rain was coming down and making it miserable for spectators and workers.

We started the day with consistent but conservative times as we felt out the roads and Kerry got used to the Jemba style notes. The first set of stages were smooth and quick but soon we encountered the “technical “stuff. The stage sections that run through Chick’s gravel yard included a steep climb with hairpin turns that would be run in both directions. Many cars struggled to maintain the torque needed to keep momentum around the tight turns but the diesel chugged right up. Unfortunately, as we found at Rally NY, we lacked some of the top end power we needed to make the most of the faster parts of the course. Our only mechanical issue was a broken engine mount which Jay spotted before it turned into a problem and was able to patch.

In the end we finished with strong consistent times and took 2^nd of the 2WD cars with Mike Reilly and Josh Benthien finishing just over 2 minutes ahead of us (we’ll get those guys one of these days).

The next event will be the Ascutney hillclimb which we’ll be running for Rally America Regional points in their Rally Car class.

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Rally NY USA would be my first tarmac race and would bring me full circle to a year earlier when I had my first hand introduction to the sport as a marshal at the event. I was happy when Aaron Crecenti signed on again to co-drive. Aaron ran this race last year with Andrew Havas in his famous orange Mazda Rotary. Rick and Conor would be filling out the team on crew duties.

A couple of months ago I bought a Dodge Sprinter van outfitted with tool boxes and storage cabinets and had been eager to use it as a crew/towing rig. Knowing it would be a struggle for the little 5 cyl. Mercedes engine to haul our 20ft enclosed trailer I had sourced a beat-up used flatbed trailer which I restored, repainted and put new tires on. Sadly some degenerate stole it out of my parking lot the week before the rally with a mile and a half on new tires, I never even got a chance to load it. Since I had already swapped all of the tools and spares into the Sprinter I decided to try and pull the trailer with it. A ten mile test drive around the neighborhood led me to believe that a slow and steady pace would get us to the event and back.

Thursday morning I finished packing up and headed to out on the 200 mile trip with high hopes. Sadly it became clear on the first long pass West on Rt 90 that the little Sprinter was over it’s head and I had to pull over three times in 10 miles to clear a limp mode. Though I did make it all the way to Walton NY (occasionally at speeds of less than 20mph) I called Rick and asked him to bring up our trusty Duramax for the ride home.

When I arrived at rally HQ it was a beautiful day, completely uncharacteristic of a Rally NY event. After registration I met up with Aaron and we ran through tech. The two wheel drive field was going to be very competitive including the Mainiax team of Reilly and Benthien , Tomas Greer and his supercharged VW VR6, a BMW M3, Mazda RX3, new comer Erika Detota and others.

Many of the roads from the previous years were not available and surprisingly the Dunkhill Rd stages were still on the schedule. These stages were plagued with protest signs and angry residents last year but apparently they didn’t make the effort to petition the town to cancel the rally permit this year. One resident did however throw several handfuls of screws and nails in the road that would cost Mike Cosgrove a couple of tires before Bill Lockwood discovered them and cleared them away. On recce it became clear that these roads were going to be fast and there were many opportunities to exceed 100MPH which, unfortunately is at the upper end of our power/gearing band. We were determined to make up as much time as we could on tight sections with the nimble Rabbit and then find lines that would allow us to maximize our momentum on the faster sections.

After Recce we met up with other competitors at the welcome banquet and tried to size up the competition. As usual Mike Reilly and Josh Benthien were going to be our main competition and having seen Tom Greer’s performance at several hillclimbs last season I knew he was a serious contender. After the banquet we headed to an apartment we had rented for the weekend and were joined by Rick.

By morning it was clear that we were at a Rally NY event as the clouds rolled in. After grabbing breakfast we headed off on the hour long drive over to Monticello Country Club for the Friday stages.

The country club road was short but narrow, winding and rough in places leading to several offs in the first few stages. Reilly and Benthien had mechanical misfortune early on and we had to give them a tow back to service, it turned out that they had multiple failures of their clutch system which took them out of the running for the weekend.

As the weather kept changing so did the grip and conditions of the stage roads which lead to inconsistent times on our first 3 runs but we tried to remain brisk and treated the stages as shakedown to get fuel and tire pressure settings dialed in for the long Saturday stages.

Saturday was back up in Walton and stages were made up of two roads being run in both directions. Meredith and Bogart were very wide and open farm roads linked by two very sharp intersections while the Houck MT stages started out with a steep hillclimb from one direction and a gradual, narrow winding climb from the other direction. Though we lacked the flat out top end speeds to make the most of the Bogart and Meredith stages but tried to keep momentum through clean lines. Our low end diesel torque really helped out on the mountain stages though I didn’t have the nerve to push as hard as I would have liked through the faster narrow sections, especially when the snow and hail started coming down.

We were able to improve times on later runs but unfortunately the last stage of the day was cancelled when the weather was finally clearing up a bit. Still, at the end of two days of driving we found ourselves second in 2WD behind Tom Greer and Robert Della Rocco in their supercharged V6 VW and closely followed by Mulvey and Dooley in their vintage Mazda RX3. Unfortunately since we didn’t pay the extra $300 to be included in USRC scoring we didn’t get the glory of the champagne ceremony but our points put us in first place 2WD in the Rally NY championship.

Here are some videos:

Meredith stage

Chris Meegan’s Highlights

Next up is the Rally America regional “Team O’Neil Rally” our first gravel race of the season and the start of our Rally America Eastern Regional championship.

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After a great run at the NY Winter Rally the plan was to run Sandblast Rally, a one day sand and gravel event put on by NASA. However with nice finish in NY and since the car was still all set up for snow and ice duty we made the decision to head 8 hours north to Quebec for the famous Rallye Perce Neige rather than 13 hours south to South Carolina. I am not a big fan of the cold so I was conflicted with the decision but had been assured by a number of folks that Perce Neige was a world class event and worth the trouble, I was to find out they were right.

Perce Neige is part of the CARS National Championship series and is made up of over 120 stage miles and an almost equal number of transit miles packed into one long day . Mostly due to the lower entry fee but also biased by the fact that we would have no service crew for the event, I opted to run the regional event which excluded the final 3 stages. Experienced Canadian co-driver Jeff Hagan had a last minute cancellation and offered to ride with me and ACP offered up a spare hotel room, so with the final two pieces of the puzzle in place I made my last minute entry.

Ice sculpture in down town Maniwaki

The drive up was a bit long but uneventful, culminating on the beautiful mountain roads of western QC. Since this was my first Canadian event I stumbled through registration and signed up for my CARS license and event package. It turned out I was the only American who made the trek out of over 50 entries, which I still don’t understand.

Jeff showed up later that evening and we made our plans for the long day of recce to follow the next morning. I had been concerned about the car starting since it would sit all night in the sub-zero temperatures in the hotel parking lot. Extension cords had been run out of every hotel window facing the parking lot feeding power to block heaters. I was surprised and relieved when the trusty TDI fired right up on the first click in the frosty morning. Unfortunately since we were driving a 31 year old rally car will few creature comforts Jeff and I spent the rest of the morning with our teeth chattering and scraping ice off of the inside of the windshield until the sun rose high enough take the bitter edge off. After a 10 hour day of recce we ran through tech and headed back to the hotel for dinner and some rest.

The next morning started early with parc expose and I was introduced to Tim Hortens breakfast sandwiches a Canadian favorite. The 50+ Car field was varied including everything from the open class Evos of Antoine L’Estage and ACP to an AWD MK2 Golf and little Suzuki Swift which promised an interesting outcome.

We were seeded near the back of the pack and passed cars heading back to service as we were on our way to the short Marie Anne spectator stage. Though the stage was short it was very slick and the first turn visible from the start line claimed several cars including those of the top runners. The enthusiastic Quebecian fans were able to rescue all but one car that rolled on that turn. Fortunately I took the corner at a conservative speed and did not require their assistance. Marie Anne was followed by a slightly longer and quicker stage followed by a brief service then a second set of that pair before heading off to the amazing Kitigan Zibi reservation stages.

On our way out of the second service as we headed to a long set of stages we heard an awful clanging from the back of the car that sounded like a strut had come loose. I jumped out on transit to find that one of the heim joints on my new rear beam reinforcement links had broken and the link was bouncing around under the car. Our only option was to unscrew it, throw it in the boot and hope that our rear alignment wouldn’t suffer too much. On my way back into the car I plugged in my intercom and was greeted with a loud screech of feedback. I quickly unplugged and started making plans with Jeff on what we could do during the long upcoming stages with no intercom, fortunately we made it to time control early and I was able to diagnose my loose intercom connection and avoid the note shouting we would otherwise have had to do.

The Kitigan Zibi reservation roads are an amazing combination of wide crest filled sections and narrow technical off camber roads linked by twisty snow bank lined portions that felt more like a bob sled coarse than a road. We saw attrition early on as some of the high powered cars carried a bit too much speed through slick turns and found themselves in the trees and snow banks that lined the epic stages. One of the most memorable aspects of the stage was the disabled groomer that had been abandoned in the middle of the road around a blind corner the day before and caught us by surprise on each run through.

After several long run throughs of Kitigan Zibi, Farley and Blue Sea we headed back to our last service before finishing the regional event with the longest stage of our day in the dark. This stage was not only long but included a number of long crests and culminated with a fast winding section that finished up In the Black Rollaway service park lit by the lights of service crews.

We came to the stage start at dusk knowing that we would be finishing the 16.5 km section in full darkness. The tightly run event meant that we barely had a moment at each stage start for a piss let alone a breather and with nearly 200 miles of stage and transit behind us I was exhausted. Several teams had retired due to fatigue and though I was disappointed not to be able to run the final 3 stages I certainly felt as though I had gotten my moneys worth.

As we pulled up to the start line I flipped on the driving lights and when the start light turned green we rolled into the first downward crest. The road was slick and fast at first but became even more technical as we had to keep speed on down hills to maintain momentum on the long crests that followed. The first 10 miles were like a long icey rollercoaster and I gritted my teeth and clenched the steering wheel as we rolled around each off camber turn on our studless tires knowing that there were few competitors behind us to pull us out if I made a wrong move. I was relieved to see the stop sign and hard right that marked the end of the rollercoaster and beginning of the fast and narrow snow bank lined road that made up the last few miles to Back Rollaway. Unfortunately my enthusiasm was curbed a bit as we came on the tail lights of a less committed competitor with nowhere to get out of our way. We had no choice but to click off the driving spots and back off, blinded in the cloud of his snow dust the last couple of miles through the flying finish. In the end we still had made enough time to clinch the Group 5 regional trophy and made it back to headquarters in time for a late dinner while the rest of the national competitors battled it out until after 12am in the sub zero temperatures.

In the end it was privateer Bruno Carre who took the overall win with all three of the top national contender plagued with mechanical and terrain related issues. The Canadian Rally Association certainly knows how to put on an event and the fans can’t be beat in North America. I look forward to my next chance to travel north (hopefully in milder weather) and I encourage more US competitors to do the same. Next up: Off with the snow tires and on with the soft compounds for one of only 2 US tarmac rallys, Rally NY USA.

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Soon after a successful event at International Rally NY, rally organizer Ivan Orisek announced that the USRC would be sanctioning a NY Winter Rally for the first time.  The rally was to take place on some of the same roads in Narrowsburg NY.  With two an a half months to go we dove into re-prepping the car for the 2010 season with improvements to suspension and in car ergonomics.  Fortunately the car was finished with a week left to the rally which gave me the opportunity to spend a day up at Team O’Neils for a little testing.

With the car adjusted for slick conditions, we packed up on Friday morning and headed to NY. Experienced co-driver Aaron Crecenti signed on to ride with me and would be meeting us down there. Conor and I were amongst the first teams to arrive and immediately took to the task of having our studded snow tires mounted by Tread Zone who were providing tire support for the weekend.  Unfortunately we ran into a snag when we discovered that the wheels I had recently purchased did not have the proper bolt pattern as promised and once the tires were mounted we were not able to bolt them on.  Fortunately we had a spare set of wheels with gravel tires and Joe from Tread Zone was kind enough to disassemble and remount the tires once more at no additional cost (thanks Joe!).

With the tire situation straightened out we breezed through tech., met up with Aaron and made our way to the Western Hotel for a home style dinner and much neede rest.

The next morning we were up before dawn, temperatures were in the teens and the sky was clear.  Because of a recent warm spell most of the snow had melted and now the roads of the course were glare ice.  To make things worse temperatures were supposed to rise into the 40s which would form a film of water on the ice surface and would be polished and frozen again by day two.  Our 2 pass recce confirmed the concerns and it became clear that this was going to be a slower and more technical course than expected.

After a brief parc expose we headed out to the first special stage with the goal of setting a conservative baseline time to feel out road conditions.  By this time it was already after noon and the temperatures had climbed quite a bit, offering probably the best conditions of the weekend.  Our conservative time would cost us at least one place in the overall by the end of the weekend but set the tone of driving to finish.

By the second service stop we had run 4 stages and improved times significantly on secondary passes.  Now it was time to mount our lights as temperatures plummeted back below freezing and we headed out onto the icy night stages.  With only a few minutes to time control out I attempted to start the car only to discover we had developed an electrical problem.  With Conor and Rick wiggling ground wires we were finally able to jolt the car to life though a six minute late check out cost us a minute in penalties.  On our transit to the stage I tested our lights and found the extra load was causing the whole electrical system to crash.  We were forced to run the first night stage with only our DOT headlights and try and fix the problem during the next transit.  The lowered visibility  and re-frozen surface did cost us a bit of time but we hoped to make up for it on the next stage.

We had a 50 minute transit for a 3 mile trip so we had time to remove and re-crimp our engine ground strap which we believed to be our problem (thanks to Tom Barton for lending us a couple of tools).  This adjustment allowed us to keep out lights on and we hoped to make some time on Mike Reilly who by now had a couple of minutes on us.  Unfortunately since we had been six minutes late out of service with our electrical problem we found ourselves seeded behind a few of the less confident drivers and in the 9 mile stage came up on two of them.  Because of the narrow course we were stuck behind each car for some time before we had enough room to pass. Both encounters added up to an additional loss of about 1 minute on our stage time which meant we would be going into day to with a margin of more that 3 minutes behind Rielly, but a lot can happen in day two.

Sunday started early while the temperatures were still low and only got worse as the day went on and drizzling rain fell on the ice.  Several cars had met their end on day one wrapping themselves around trees and the carnage was to continue.  When we attempted to start the car and take it out of overnight parc firme we found that our electrical problem had reared it’s ugly head again as the starter would not turn.  We were able to roll start the car and decided to keep it running as much as possible (this proved to be a challenge with no parking brake).

The first two stages were a bit disappointing but were consistent with our slower times of the previous day.  By the second run however I modified my driving technique to minimize wheel spin and we were able to shave over 40 seconds off of our best time from the previous day’s long stage though we were on the very edge of comfortable car control.  Unfortunately we also sustained a significant undercarriage blow on that same stage that tweaked our alignment and caused a slow leak in our oil pan.  At service we topped up the oil and stashed a jug of spare oil in the back to run the last two stages of the day.  By this time it was clear that though we had made up some time Rielly remained quick and consistent and there would be no way to close the margin by more than a minute or two which would be risky in the deteriorated conditions which had taken 4 more cars out of the competition in the last 4 stages.  Since we had a safe margin between us and the closest runner up we chose to take it easy for a safe finish, this cost us one place in the overall but we maintained a 3rd position in 2WD for a podium finish.

After the ceremonial finish final scores and penalties were calculated bumping us down a spot to 5th overall with our 1 minute late penalty and up one position in 2WD do to an unfortunate DQ for Rielly on a time control error.

With the early ending of the rally we were able to pack up and be home for Sunday dinner.

There are two rallys Feb. 6th Sandblast Rally in South Carolina (14hr trip) and Perce Neige in Quebec (8.5hr trip) then a blank calender until April.  Though I would rather travel somewhere warm Perce is closer and considered a world class rally and since the car is currently prepped for snow and ice I hope to make the trek, unfortunately at this time I am lacking a co-driver so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

As usual big thanks to Pete Kunis and Rally Addict for the great photos check out their full galleries at www.onalimbracing.com and www.rallyaddict.com .

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International Rally New York was the final round of the USRC Championship and the Rally New York annual series.  Set in Sullivan county NY this gravel event is made up of roads on the Ten Mile River Scout Camp which covers over 10,000 acres in Narrowsburg NY.  The 2WD competition this year was stiff and included long standing champs like Josh and Jeremy Wimpey, Greg Healy and the US 2WD debut of Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino in the Monster sponsored MK II Ford Escort.

Once again Robbie Baker would be co-driving with me and we hoped to carry forward our momentum from a 3rd place win at BRS and 1st at the NY Rallysprint earlier that month.  The weather forecast was grim and called for heavy rain on Saturday which would had the potential to destroy some of the newly created roads.  We knew that we would have to try and make some good times on Friday while the conditions were better while maintaining a strategy of driving to finish if we had any hope of a podium.  With a number of strong competitors in the class we had little chance of consistently winning stage times and a better chance of climbing through attrition by staying in the race.

We arrived around noon on Thursday and rushed from rally HQ over to the Scout Camp for recce. Recce had started a few hours earlier but Rich Otis the clerk of the course encouraged us to drive some of the roads that were scheduled earlier in the day which meant we would be driving against the regular recce traffic (of course, not everyone was happy about this).  After a good look at the roads we headed back to HQ for tech inspection while most of the others did a shakedown run.  Back at HQ we ran into some of our regular friends including Ozgur Simsek, Brian and Tom Barton and Matt Gottlieb and Austin Gager who have been having awful mechanical luck and were installing their second transmission of the week out in the parking lot .

The weather on Friday was perfect, warm, dry and a bit overcast keeping the light very even.  Our first heats would be made up of a run of “Davis Pond North” a short, narrow and twisty stage followed by “Mortimer Schiff Long” a nine mile stage with wide fast sections as well as a very tight and rough section that was newly constructed for the event.  Earlier in the summer I had bought a used set of Michelin tires that had been in storage for a few years, they had a bit of cracking in the rubber but I didn’t think much of it since the treads were fresh.  I had run another set of tires for the last three events so I though it was time for an upgrade.

We treated our first Davis lake run as a warm up since we had missed shake down the day before.  We worked out the initial jitters and tried to get our heads straight for what was known to be the hardest stage of the race. The first few miles of the stage are wide and fast with a series of long up and down hill sections then the road narrows and kicks into a right 3 where the tight new road starts.  Our plan had been to make up as much time as we could through the open stuff then play it safe in the new tight section.  We had a strong start but within the first mile the rear end started feeling real loose and the familiar smell of a high speed flat came into the cabin.  Even though this was a long stage there was no point trying to change a flat especially since we were already behind due to our conservative start so we decided to just keep going.  We plowed through the whole stage an probably lost at least a minute due to the flat but far better than what it would have if we had stopped to change it.  We transited to service with the shredded rag on the rear and threw one of my spare Silerstones on.

Our second pass at Davis was stronger but a late call on a left three cost us a few seconds fortunately we avoided a major off.  This time we were determined to really make up some time on Mortimer.  Blasting through the first six miles we were confident that we could make up for the bit of time lost on the first run until we made it to about mile 5 and the steering got real funny, then that smell again.  Driving at speed with a rear flat is one thing but with only one driving and steering tire is a whole other experience.  As we continued into the loose clay and gravel it felt as though we may have lost both fronts and in the spirit of our “driving to finish” strategy I felt like I needed to check the car before causing any permanent damage. Since there was nowhere to pull of in the tight section we pushed on through at a snails pace until we made it to an opening at the spectator area.  I hopped out and found that it was only the driver’s front that was flat and decided to finish out the stage. We completed our second 3 wheel stage of the morning then changed our second flat on our transit back to service.

At service we pulled off the last two Michelins and threw the second rag on the pile.  at this point it was clear that our rear beam had been significantly bent and the front end had taken some abuse but nothing to keep us from staying in the game.  We also found out that Ken Block and the Wimpeys were both out due to mechanical failures.  We called Jesse Whitsell who was heading up that night and asked him to bring a set of rear struts for the Wimpeys in hopes that they could continue the next day but they had left by the time he arrived with the parts.

With our second set of tires mounted we headed back down to Davis Lake where we made a clean run then headed back to Mortimer Schiff determined to finish it our at speed this time.  We roared through the first 3/4 of the stage into the treacherous tight section which was really starting to get torn up.  Robbie and I were having a bit of a hard time keeping on the notes at this new pace and a combination of a late call and my jerk reaction on the brakes sent us right off the road into a soggy ditch as we stood on the side of the road with our tow strap getting passed by the rest of the 2WD Field unable to pull us out I knew we were out of the running for a podium.  We finally were pulled out by heavy sweep and allowed to continue through “Super Rally Rules” but our 40 minute stage time would not help us out too much. We continued the rest of the day without incident knowing we were out of the running for the day but were able to improve our times significantly on later stages towards the overall scoring.

Day two was looking pretty grim, it had been raining all night and promised to rain all day.  The stages had been ripped up pretty well the day before and mow looked more like a series of small ponds than gravel roads.  In addition to the condition of the roads our heater fan was fried meaning that we had no defrost.  Fortunately Dan Brosnan came to our rescue with a spare 12v heater/de-froster he had in his truck.  We quickly mounted it then lined up for transit to the first stage of the day, Davis Lake South.  We would be running the same series as the day before but all the stages would be in reverse.  With the weather conditions involved and most of our heavy competition out of the race the stakes were much higher.  WE made it through Davis lake and headed to the reversed Mortimer Schiff or “Crystal Lake Long”.  About a half mile into the stage we blew the fuse to the defroster but continued on as our visibility grew less and less along with my patience but still achieved a decent time.  At service we replaced the fuse and removed everything else from the circuit which solved that problem for the rest of the day. Michael Reilly and Josh Benthien were now our major competition as they laid down some scorching times in their Ford Focus, unfortunately an off on Crystal Lake and an incident in which their hood flew open cost them a win for the event but they still took first in USRC and RNY 2WD Championships.

Despite the conditions we ran a strong and steady day placing 1st in 2WD for the day and 5th in class for the weekend.  Almost every competitor suffered handicaps through offs, mechanical issues and penalties which just goes to show that it isn’t always the one with the fasted stage times that wins the race and you never know where you’ll place until the scoring is over.

A bit worse for wear we packed up the car and headed home Sunday after awards.  This race would finish off the 2009 season in which we placed 3rd in class in the Rally NY Championship and learned a hell of a lot about what to do and what not to do.  Next year we’ll run a nice full season and accumulate points for USRC, Rally America Regional Championship, Max Attack and Rally New York.  There’s a lot of work to do before the season starts up again in January and the word on the street is that we are going to be seeing a bit more TDI competition….

Thanks again to Pete Kunis from Onalimbracing.com as well as Dave and Luke at Rallyaddict.com check out their websites for more more photos of this and other events.

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After having a blast at Black River the next rally opportunity was a more laid back one day Rally Sprint put on by Rally New York.  The event was only three hours away, a single day with morning recce and a chance to pre-view some of the roads that would be used in International Rally New York at the end of the month which would be the final round of the USRC. After the disappointment of the Rally sprint in June we hoped to make up for the event this weekend.

My sister Kerry had been asking me for the chance to co-drive and a rally sprint seemed like the perfect opportunity to try things out.  The weather was great and the roads recently re-surfaced and because the event format offered multiple passes in each direction the opportunity for improving times was great.

We showed up late in the evening on Friday and tracked down our cabin on the Ten Mile River Scout Camp which was rustic to say the least.  After being woken up in the middle of the night by a busy community of mice that called the cabin home we were able to catch a few hours sleep.

Kerry did a great job figuring out the notes and after a clean initial run we were ready to start making some time.  As usual some of our primary competition suffered some mechanical and impact related DNFs early on and our strategy of running safe in a few trouble spots then making up for time on clean sections paid off.  We made up time on almost every run with our best time under five minutes giving us first in class and 5th overall out of 17 starters.  Can’t wait for International Rally NY in three weeks!

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Black River Stages is a long standing rally known for amongst other things, it’s Goose Pond stage jumps and smooth, windey gravel roads.  Located in the Northwest corner of New York state, Harrisville is a bit off the beaten path and offered limited lodging and amenities but we were fortunate to find a couple rooms at a motel about a 1/2 hour away.

We showed up to rally headquarters for registration, orientation and tech on Friday evening after a 5 plus hour drive.  Many of the teams wouldn’t show until late that night or early the next morning but a number of the usual suspects were on site including our friends Tom and Brian Barton, Luke Sorenson and Josh Jenny and the Simseks to name a few.  Robbie Baker would be co-driving for team Greasecar and it was his first stage rally event.  With no recce we would be driving the stages with only our route book to show the way and since half of the stages on the first day were night stages the stakes were high.

After finishing tech and orientation we headed back to the motel to grab a bite to eat and get familiar with the notes before the next morning.

Saturday started slowly as teams who showed up overnight registered and passed through tech.  Parc Expose took place at the local Maple Museum around mid day before the start.

We set up between the Saab Rally team and Team Barton.

For the first time in Greasecar Motorsports history we were competing in a class with another diesel that also happened to be a 1.9L VW TDI.  This Golf has been in rally for about 7 or 8 years now having changed hands a few times and really set the bar for diesels in U.S. rally.

From the Expose we headed out on our first transit stage, seeded at the back of the pack with a few other rookie teams.  Our strategy was to run the first few stages conservatively to get in a rythm and familiurize ourselves with the roads before we had to run them in the dark.  With unfamiliar roads an a new co-driver our strategy was; drive to finish.

Our first couple of stages were slow but we quickly found our niche and began to feel more comfortable but an unfortunate crash of the Olson Subaru lead to a couple hours of delay and cancellation of 4 stages.  Olson and his co-driver were both injured but fortunately they were not too serious and have since recovered.

As a result of the delays we were only able to run a couple practice stages in the daylight before going back to service and heading out for night stages.  With our confidence nocked down a few notched we did not set any records and ended the day at the back of the pack.

Due to the delays the day ended late even with the cancelled stages so we headed back with enough time to grab a sandwich at the local gas station  and have a quick debriefing before heading off to bed.  Disappointed with the days times we made a commitment to pick up the pace on day two.

On Sunday we started the morning with some heavy breakfast sandwiches from the local diner knowing that we had a full day of racing ahead.  The weather was beautiful and after a short expose in Harrisville headed right out to the notorious Goose Pond.  We had been warned that Goose Pond offered serious air time opportunities and knowing that our suspension was not prepared for such maneuvers we tried hard to avoid the launching, however we were caught off guard a couple of times.

Both Ozgar Simsek and Mike Hordijk sent their VWs flying and unfortunately one of the hard landings was enough to break Ozgars distributor and take him out of the race while Mike lost a few body parts and at least one rear strut mount.

On each stage of the day we ran our first pass conservatively and improved our times on the subsequent passes.  Mechanical issues plagued much of the field causing a number of DNFs and causing some of the fastest teams their lead.  In the end our strategy paid off as we were able too keep our car on the road all the way through the finish and pick up enough time to take third in class.

Unfortunately since I had to head to D.C. for work the following morning we had to pack up and head out before the awards ceremony.  Thanks to everyone who made the event happen and to the Simseks and Rally Addict for all the great photos! and here is a video that Ozgar took from one of the spectating areas.

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