Rally Maine

[griffsfsr]

I had attended the Maine Forest Rally as service crew for the Dodge Neon SRT-4, I worked with a 1G Talon at the last event. So per Ludachris' effort to get this site more into racing I thought I would post my pictures. I hope you enjoy.

The only DSM Entry.

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Datsun 510 won its class.

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Women Rally also, she is a stunt driver.

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Old school Toyota.

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Factory backed Mazda.

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Mazda

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Travis Pastrana Late to check in.

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[griffsfsr]

Ham radio truck

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Team Subaru at the refuel.

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Changing a blown shock on the EVO took less that 10 minutes.

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AWD tiburon in for service.

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Service Area.

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Dirty Subaru at the start of day 2.

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Just to funny.

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Parc Expose Day 1

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EVO 8

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Flat tire after 2 miles of driving at speed.

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[griffsfsr]

You don't see many of theses.

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The Neon

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It won group 5

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You can't get better spectating than this. Rally at it's finest.

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Alignment

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Questions and comments are welcome.

 

[Slow old poop]

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So, how did the DSM do?

The white 510 made my heart go pitty-pat. That was just like the one we used to campaign, except ours was orange. We won the OSU Winter MONY Series rally in that orange 510, and finished the Press On Regardless when it was a WRC rally. Them lil ol 510s were, very possibly, the best cars ever made by anybody, any time, any where. They were absolutely bulletproof (I should know, because we were shot at in ours), reliable, and --like a Saab 96-- ran like hell on gravel roads once you got them up to speed. Last time I saw our old rally car, it was being used as a pizza delivery car for Domino's Pizza in Dayton, Ohio, roll cage and all.

*sigh* Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be.

 

[griffsfsr]

I believe the DSM was running the regional rally that took place on Friday, I seen no national results for it on Saturday. It did finish as far as I know on Friday, which as you know is more than half the battle. I got a chance to talk to them a bit and they gave the good advice that all beginner rallyist should hear. Buy your first car.

What year did you run POR? Did you ever run with John Buffum? I got the chance to meet him over the weekend, and am currently enjoying his book. The POR TSD is coming up in the beginning of September. Also if you have not heard rally will be featured at this years X-Games which is starting soon.

 

[Slow old poop]

I got a chance to talk to them a bit and they gave the good advice that all beginner rallyist should hear. Buy your first car.
What year did you run POR? Did you ever run with John Buffum? I got the chance to meet him over the weekend, and am currently enjoying his book. The POR TSD is coming up in the beginning of September. Also if you have not heard rally will be featured at this years X-Games which is starting soon.

Buy your first car? I don't get it.

We ran in 1973, when my wife and I were just punk kids. She was the only American woman to finish. We wound up in 20th place, thanks to a disastrous creek crossing, where a Vega with low ground clearance got hung up in the mud. It took us 20 minutes to unstick him, and we nearly got timebarred. We took a 19 minute penalty, and never made it up. We also hit a deer 50 miles from the finish. But we finished that 2000 mile rally and we weren't last.

Yes, I knew Buffum. And Scott Harvey, Gene Henderson, Wayne Zitkus, Erhard Dahm and all the great drivers from the 1970s. In those days, we ran at night, except for spectator stages. Start at 6 pm, run until midnight for a meal halt, then run until sunrise. About 700 miles a night, all through the woods of Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, on fire breaks, creek crossings, snowmobile trails, deer runs, and--once in a while -- on an actual forest road. We encountered deep sand, strut busters, bunyip crossings, rockadillows, drunk hunters, herds of deer, snow, ice, fog, and $%$#ing idiots in the stages who took flash photos from head on, blinding us and ruining our night vision. These days, they run in the daytime and miss all that fun.

Rich

 

[griffsfsr]

Buy your first car instead of building one. You can find a used car with a good spares package for far cheaper than you can build one. If it is your first time rallying it will give you more money to put into events so that you can get more seat time. I am sure you know how important seat time is. Reading the history of rally in America has been much fun. It had to be a blast. The events where longer and the support was better. Hopefully we will get back to that some day. Maybe even another WRC round.

 

[Slow old poop]

Buy your first car instead of building one. You can find a used car with a good spares package for far cheaper than you can build one. If it is your first time rallying it will give you more money to put into events so that you can get more seat time. I am sure you know how important seat time is.

OK, now I get it. And I agree whole heartedly with that advice with only one becept: Know the car you are buying, or buy one from a reputable builder, like Millen or Vermont. I bought an already-prepped car to go road racing, and it has been one headache after another because of the inept car builders, shoddy workmanship, shortcuts, and so on.

I also agree with the seat time idea. The only mods you should spend money on in the beginning (road racing or rallying) are those that help the car survive, not go faster: that is, spend money on tires and brakes, and not on bigger turbos. Run a reliable car, get seat time, and you will go faster than you will with a fully modded car that breaks all the time. When learning either sport, you want to concentrate on your driving, not repairs.

Reading the history of rally in America has been much fun. It had to be a blast. The events where longer and the support was better. Hopefully we will get back to that some day. Maybe even another WRC round.

As I've mentioned here before (somewhere in these forums), we used to run the old MONY (Michigan Ohio New York) rally series, all of which were called "Saturday Night Crash and Burn Rallies." We ran 400-600 miles in a single night through the forests and strip mines of southern Ohio, the Finger Lakes region of NY, and the deep woods of Michigan. All were completely illegal, outlaw events, with no sanctioning body, no insurance, no notification to the local law, and no publicity. We ran in the winter, from October through March, when the roads and forests were deserted. It was run what you brung, and no classes.

We ran 600 W of lights on the front of the Datsun 510, including the infamous aircraft landing light sealed beams. Sumbitches threw a ton of light, and lit up the night.

I was shot at, teargassed, roadblocked, stoned (that is, they threw rocks at me), and chased by drunk hunters. Because the police were not informed, rally masters would never double back the route; we would enter a county at one end and leave at the other end, so by the time a sleepy deputy sherrif responded to angry phone calls from farmers at 3 am, the rally had moved on.

Buffum ran up front, so he never encountered any of this fun stuff. He was the one who woke up the farmers and we back-of-the-packers took the brunt of their anger. I finally got into the Top Seed, and could run up front. Then there are different problems. As first car on the road, you find all the deer, the gravel in the corners is deep, and you wake up checkpoint workers, or they practice on you. The best road position is #5, because the deer are gone, the first 4 cars have swept off most of the gravel leaving a nice hard pack, and the workers are awake.

Gawd, those were the days! Then SCCA came along with Pro Series, legalized everything, imposed a billion rules and regulations, and took all the fun out of it.

I thought about trying it again, but I don't have the stones for it any more. I tried driving my 92 Talon AWD hard on some gravel roads, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it sideways at 100 mph like I used to with the old 510.

IMHO, rally drivers are the best in the world. A WRC driver is better than any F1, Indy Car or NASCAR driver, because he can deal with more situations. Even Schumacher admitted that he couldn't be a rally driver. Like they say, a road racer sees the same turn a thousand times; a rally driver sees 1,000 turns once.

Now that I am an old poop, my night vision is gone, and I am no longer fast on gravel, I'll stick to road racing. It's a lot easier.

Rich

 

[Slow old poop]

As first car on the road, you find all the deer, the gravel in the corners is deep, and you wake up checkpoint workers, or they practice on you. The best road position is #5, because the deer are gone, the first 4 cars have swept off most of the gravel leaving a nice hard pack, and the workers are awake. Rich

Dang! I thought road racing was safe. No more deer. Ooops. Even the best can hit a deer at Road America. See:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?slug=afp-autochampcarusabra&prov=afp&type=lgns