ok so having been home for a few days i can gather my thoughts and put together a complete post event write up.
Thursday was travel day for the entire crew, I flew from Portland VIA Jetblue to JFK and then on to Raleigh NC. our crew (Jim) flew from Bangor to Baltimore where Kevin picked him up in the service van with rally car in tow. A fellow competitor and friend Simon Wright of USUK Racing, picked me up in Raleigh and put me up for the night at his place about 5 minutes from the airport.
friday morning was a short 2 hour drive from Simons house to Rally HQ in Cheraw NC, which i quickly learned is the birthplace of Dizzy Gilespie. once registered, i met up with the rest of DoublePlus Racing at the hotel and we began preparing the car for Shakedown. The rain was getting heavier.
Shakedown was a 2 mile road that was going to be a accurate representation of the Stages we would be racing on. We soon discovered ow bad the roads were. They didnt give us any note for Shakedown, so i basically sat there and made mental notes on the surface changes.
Race Day: It had not stopped raining by the time we made it to Parc Expose. weather forecast promised the rain would stop. we hoped it was correct. we started the rally and immediately missed our FIRST TURN in the route book! oops...my bad. so we quickly got back on course and away we went. we got lost a SECOND time on the way to stage 1. by the time we actually found our way to stage one we checked in 1 minute late. our first road penalty of our racing careers.
Stage 1: still sprinkling, we headed out into the treacherous sandy slippery water covered road... we started gaining speed as we began to get a better understanding on how to drive the conditions. maybe a little too much speed. coming into a R3+ L3+ the rear end kicked out on the slippery clay surface on the L3+ sent the right rear of the car sliding into a small tree. a glancing blow to the rear sent us spinning wildly the otherway, and made contact with the left front quarter panel. we managed to back out and keep going. the noise of the tire rubbing in the fender we knew instantly the control arm was bent and possibly the tire was flat. with 4 miles left in the stage, Kevin put his foot down and we pressed on.
finished the stage with the tire absolutely falling apart and flapping in the wheel well. So we stopped on transit once we got back onto Tarmac. about 4 minutes to change a flat and we were on our way to Stage 2. it was rubbing immediately..all we wanted was to get the car through Stage 2 and back to Service.
Stage 2: more of the same style roads for stage 2, tire was still rubbing... away we went. we made it about 4 miles in before the Focus behind us caught us and passed us on stage. we were notably slower due to damage from stage 1. around mile 9 we came downhill to a Turn R2- @T and we kind of cut into the corner. there was a unseen ditch inside the corner and we dropped our right front tire down in the ditch. when the wheel was forced back up into the sand bank..it shattered the axle. now figuring we have a limited slip diff in that impreza we figured one good axle we could go on. but no, we lost all driving power and were forced to retire. boo...
It was a fun event (the 17 miles of it we saw) and would like to go back next year and take another shot at it.
those 2 trees caught out 3 other teams including USUK Racing. they ended up hitting the first tree like we did..but hit the second tree head on and caught fire. 4 extinguishers later it was out. Jason Smith who owns Nigel Prodrives old rally car also hit the first tree IN THE SAME SPOT WE DID...but managed to pull out of the spin after. when i mean the same spot..the SAME SPOT...we were comparing dents
there was also a TDI golf who hit those trees and DNF'ed 3 corners later.
to be continued...
