ok so, where to begin...
This event marked our one year anniversary in this crazy game of rally.
friday started off with travel from Bangor and new jersey to get the entire team there. long day on the road...
we tried to get an exemption from the Novice Competitors Orientation, citing other rallies and other classes of the same thing... well, we didnt have to TAKE the class...but we got roped into TEACHING the class.. Anders Green said to us, "what better way to prove you dont need to be in the class, than to teach it." so with good spirits we gave it our best! sitting in the class was Steve McKelvie and Tim Chevalier, two seasoned rally doods..
saturday was a long day. parc expose wasnt even until 2pm in Croghan NY, so we had all morning to get nervous, excited, and anxious. we still got the butterflies leaving Expose en route to stage 1.
stage 1,2, and 3 were 100 times more fun than i remember from last year, could be we are moving a lot faster than we were last year. the rest of the night was a repeat of the first 3 stages, just in the black of the night forest.
Stage 5 was canceled due to a biker was reported on stage, some kid (19-20 years old) on his pedal bike on stage after course opener cleared the course. dumbass.... so the stage was nixed. rumor had it, his friends tackled him, stole his bike and broke it into pieces and tossed it into the bon fire on stage. these rumors were confirmed by locals at the awards banquet sunday night.
so after day 1, we knew we were doing well, but my brother came to me and said we were running 4th overall!!! i couldn't believe it! we WERE haulin!!!
after racing and driving back to hotel we finally made lights out by 1:15pm
wake up call at 6am came a little too early for Day 2. quick shower and breakfast and we were good to go!
looking at the scores of Day 1 we had a 48 second lead over Luke Sorenson in his turbo saab 99. he was having turbo issues and a 20 second penalty for being late out of service.
with his car being properly sorted and he being a great driver, we knew he was going to be charging back and hard!!! stage by stage passed and he kept taking 10 seconds, 12 seconds, 16....we fired back on a few regaining 1 and 5 seconds on a couple stages. 2 more stages were also canceled for few reasons. our lead was cut down VERY quickly over the afternoon stages, Luke was running good and his car was making full power again... he was coming up hard!
after the last stage we stopped on the road side and Luke and Seth stopped also right behind us...we all got out took off our gear...and had a big laugh and a round of handshakes! we knew it was going to be close, this is what racing is all about!!
they ended up beating us 18 seconds!! dammit! lol but damn it was a GREAT battle all weekend with Luke and his VERY well prepped Saab 99.
we took 1st in our class by a margin of 3:59 over 2nd place. and we were edged out of 4th place to finish 5th overall! Luke won fastest 2wd of the rally.
we had a great event, but it was not without its moments...
we had a moment where we were too hot into a corner, loose gravel, and the back end broke out wide... rear drivers tire ended up in the ditch and being as loose of a surface as it was, it sucked in the front tire too! he managed to drive it out and we went on our way.
we hit the BIG jumps and double jumps on Goose Pond Road a little harder than we wanted to...again.... we did it last year and said we wouldnt do it...well we did. lol made it through ok.
another stage we got into a wicked counter skid coming out of a corner flat out in 4th gear.... I said to Kevin with some urgency " KEEP IT TOGETHER!!" and to which he immediately responded with " I GOT THIS!" hahahaha it was awesome.
and on ANOTHER stage... we went over a L5-/Kick. which is a left medium fast left hand corner with a slight raise on the inside of the corner that can kick the wheels off the ground if not careful. well we hit this pretty quick also and ended up in completely in the air at about an 40 degree angle to the ground... that was by far the hairiest moment we have had in the rally car to this date!!
there are videos of some our runs up on the Vimeo site.
http://vimeo.com/album/1189596
and i can post some pictures as i find them.
theres a breif summary of the event this weekend.
I would like to thank Nigel, for being a great teacher and mentor for this crazy game called rally.
thank our service crew, Jim, Phil and Tim for keeping the car in good running order and going fast.
big thanks to Lance (Mr Poon)and Mac-Lin Medical supply for being a supporting partner to DPR
also a big thanks to Peter Robbins at Bohemian Coffee House in Brunswick for his continuing support of our efforts. he gave us a ton of good schwag to give away and stuff for the team as well. If you are in the Brunswick area, please go over and support him, we have a picture of the car at the counter
