USRC / CRS wrap up

[A1337STI]

Well it was a great first season (well did 2 events in 08 but)

USRC Wise it was really a great year for me. I finished the most points in production 2wd, but due to the rules requiring that you attend the final event (it was in new york) i got dropped down to 2nd place, and 3rd in open 2wd.

The USRC season started off for me with a Big win @ Rally Idaho (100 stage miles over 2 days)

followed up by a Barely able to finish at Gorman, as you may recall I nailed the rear bolts holding in my skid plate and it ripped the bolts out, obviously ruining the threads so after that i couldn't get the skid plate to stay in place. and that exposed my oil pan that i already had to use high temp silicone and metal tape on to get it to stop leaking.

Cause for all that was the skid plate got deformed, lots of impacts and not very good support for the skidplate. basically 2 bolts way up front and 2 bolts way in the rear (all very centered) So the side "wings" which cover the headers can flex when hit hard and smack the headers (broken 2 or 3 sets so far)

And the last west coast event was Prescott! I had managed to get a limited slip differential installed and Big thanks to Kevin for saving my rally/season he had a complete flywheel and clutch kit for me (minus the throw out bearing, the only part i had for it) the flywheel was out of an RS 2.5 , and my motor is getting really weak. which lead the car to be HP limited during the event and caused a very very very close battle between john black and I . end of friday night i had 45:25 versus his 45:53 over 40 miles of night stages. day 2 was 60 miles of day driving including 2 , 22 mile stages. he eeked me out by 1/100 of a minute on Stage 1 of the day (Refused to give me his stage time after i shared mine with him) , And he made a critical error on the down hill stage that followed, Having a Major off that cost 2-3 minutes . He claimed to be having clutch troubles after that .. i've learned that you can't trust what he says though.


the California Rally Series included those 3 events, and 5 others. I went to High desert trails to start off my season. which was broken into 2 coeffient 1 rallies for scoring, (my choice to attend a (1,1) rally over a (2) cost me the season) . anywho it was a Great beginner event with about no transit miles, service inbetween every stage, and roads that were not very likely to damage your car even if you stayed flat out (and on the road) near the very end of the day the Ruts were horrible, and i got stuck . Bad ride height / tire choice lead to me getting stuck. i got pulled out by Sweep, but due to a CRS rule , if you pass sweep before the finish, you are not scored a DNF, and i was able to pass the sweep truck after the big rut section.


And the last event i attended was Seed-9

Interestingly just 3 weeks prior i saw J.Black at the RallyX finale and he was telling me how his truck was broken, transmission was all taken apart and he wasn't going to the last event, yada, yada. i Told him i was thinking of going but just to volunteer as i was low on cash and really wanted to fix up my car's motor issues before racing again. Well at this rallyX my motor pushed out all of the coolant and on my 2nd run of day #1 the car started making a horrible whinning noise (i suspect the water pump sucking on air?) car wouldn't drive above like 2200 rpms and didn't want to accelorate at all. before Day 2 i figured that out, refilled with lots of fluid, and put on a new pressure relief cap. it still pushed out some coolant, and seems to push / consume coolant now ... (head gasket )

1 week to go before the event and I lost my job, so i decided since i was in the points lead, and J.Blacks truck was taken apart getting repairs i could go down to volunteer at Seed 9. Plus i really really didn't want to race my car, with how it was, to mathematically make it impossible for J.black to win , all i would have needed to do was to finish, could have driven every stage at the bogie time and won the championship... but i kept checking the entry list every day prior, and never saw him on the list. When i got down to seed 9 I asked the organizer about the list and his name was not on the list, he mentioned a colorado team that signed up very late and wouldn't show up on the list but was coming. Awesome i thought i just won a championship.......


WRONG with out ever registering for the event before hand (he didn't want to tip his hand) J.BLACK shows up the morning of and registers on the spot. it would have cost me about $500 to enter (not the smartest thing with out a job) and about $500 more to uhaul if i crashed... but since i didn't have my suit, helmet, anything down there (and i Rent my hans) i had no way to enter last minute enter.

Also i had been out on the stages the day before recce doing stage setup (putting up the banner tap on side roads, putting up turn indicators for all the entries in the route book, etc, etc.

and that of course really sucked the enjoyment out of the weekend. It was cool working a road block, watching all the cars whiz by me, as i called in Car #44 passing block 3. its a lot of standing around waiting for the cars to finally go by you, but lots of fun, and way cheaper than entering...

All and all it was a great season and i did lots of learning. got some useful tips and super needed parts from these forums I just need to wisen up and maybe i can win the championship next year...

[Libila]

From reading this and your event overviews from DI it sounds like you had an awesome first season Alex!

I look forward to meeting you and going on a dirt drive when I get back.