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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