Idaho Rally 2009: My first rally win!

[A1337STI]

Rally Idaho 2009 USRC Round 3 (Round 1 of the western states)

Well i packed up my rally car Tuesday night except for a few items.
I Finishing packing Wednesday morning and headed down to carson for a last minute alignment
before i left town. The alignment shop switched my settings on me, Front to Rear, so i had to
wait as they did it again. The 600 mile drive was scenic but was tiring.

I made it into mountain home at about 11:00 PM and setup our campsite at the KOA. i ran out for
food then came back and went to bed waiting for john. Around 5:00 AM i heard a WRX pull up.
about 10 minutes later john came to the tent , threw in a sleeping bag and crashed out.

We got up at 7:15 am the next day for Reecee registartion Leaving the rally car at the campsite as
you are not allowed to use the compition vehicle for your recee driving. John my navigator was
cool enough to let me drive his WRX all day for reccee and paid for the gas! I was timid at first to
start altering the notes but quickly into stage 2 we were making additional comments and on rare
occasion changing a note (Ruts, Don't Cuts, and a few stay lefts, or rights) which we decided
I didn't need due to the current conditions. also one Stay left to aviod a rock i changed to a
stay right so i could just straddle the rock and be setup for the next corner.

With reccee over it was time to grab the Rally car and bring it to Rally HQ. first i had to find
Dick Rockrohr, An Awesome guy who had his team carry all my spares and gas tanks with him. As i
was unable to find any crew to come up with me. (some last minute cancels) . We started unpacking
and john quickly got to work @ installing our D-clips for our rented Hans devices. It took a lot
longer than i thought it would i also had to secure a new triangle as one of mine was with a friend
back in tahoe.

We rolled into tech at 7:59 pm , which was uncool to the main tech guy. who quickly found all sorts of
issues with my car. A back brake light that wasn't bright enough , he didn't like that my fire extinguishers
had plastic tops (Nasa rules only state they need to be 5: BC). And he did have a great find, that my
helmet was only an M. not an SA. I never knew that until then, I've been using it for motor sports for
3 years thinking it was an SA snell 2005, but it was only an M. he had to confiscate it, and i was left
thinking i wouldn't get to race on saturday or might ahve to wait until someone DNFed . I went
asking around, i left a note on the notice board, but no luck. Finally at midnight Michelle Hoche-mong
saved my weekend by loaning me his helmet and hans device. The loaner helmet had a peltor intercom
setup built in and we quickly found an intercom (terra trip) my navigator and I had a beer to celebrate
that we would indeed get to start the race. I went to bed truely thankful i could run and just wanting
to finish and enjoy playing in the dirt.

We arrive at the service park a few minute before the drivers meeting. we run over to that, get our time cards
and start asking around for an intercom set for my navigator, we found one and an adapter for mine!
i had to wire it in , and add roll cage padding with in about 40 minutes before we left . which wasn't
too bad of a deal. We headed out for stage 1 at about 9 am.

Wow, we finally made it to STage. incredible, seemily against all Odds. 2 minute windows ! Niiice
we shouldn't get any dust at all. This rocks oh i can't wait. We decided to get into our helmets and
Hans early as we might struggle a bit. yep i struggle a lot, i get out and run over to john,
he clips in my hans for me and i run back. I make sure the belts are in their proper place and i
strap in. i tighten my belts really good and wait, 2 cars until us. the next 4 minutes seems to take forever
the interior car temp quickly rising as my vents are stuck on defrost, and the 80F sunny weather quickly
bakes us in our dark suites in dark seats... Finally its our turn we get to leave on our deal start time
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 RALLY!

I take off, carefull not to spin the 1 tire, learning from rallyX that it only slows me down. the tire finally catches at
4K and i ramp up on the gas, hit 6K shift into 2nd and stand on the gas. Go through a few corners and now we are in 3rd. finally
i'm getting some air flow through the roof vents. Ah this is great. for the first half mile
i'm driving 4-6's not much faster then the 3's which i feel that i'm killing. tossing the car in at 4K in 2nd gear
barly able to reach the apex then gassing out hard not needing to left but barely staying on the road , grabbing 3rd shortly
after exit. A few miles off i see the first compeitor off. how crappy maybe 1 and 1/2 miles in. i feel bad for him. hes got the OK Sign out
and no tow line, so i gas on by. then an other one...

About 6 to 8 miles in i notice things start to get Really dusty.. maybe someone got stuck?
or an other Off? nope.. i keep going now i can see dust really flying, as if its coming off of someone's tires
It can't be, i can't have caught someone already... R4 60 Brake L2 i can see the road
after the switch back going the other way. no dust no car.. WAit there's a Red truck turning the corner.
Wow.. i caught him! Its john black the Driver who beat me at my last rally.. cool !
I try to stay on his tail best i can. thought maybe i could charge up and make a pass, but as i got
into the dust and into an L5 R6 L5 section i almost went off the road on the last L5, getting too sideways
and bouncing off the berm. i back down just a touch.

We end up entering the time control after stage 1 on the same minute and get reseeded from there
think we moved up about 4 cars. @ service i couldn't find Dick's team, but the primitive team helps us out,
and then they tell me that my right front wheel bearing is Fucked. oh no.. what do i do?
Should i drop out? we just started... well what's the worst that could happen? the guy tells me
probably a cease up but it won't fall off, but it might last me the entire race. oooKay.. guess i'll charge stage 2!

Now onto stage 2 Its a tight and twisty uphill stage right next to the service area and a turn around @ the end.
The stage is epic seems to be what my car was built for. I quickly notice there are a lot of sections wehre the corners don't change much
that helps out the low HP Guys when you dont' have a tight corner into open ones or a straight. there was a few straights int he middle.
but over all an awesome stage. on the turn around i hung out with several of the other drivers and navigators. Awesome stories and joking around.
The downhill of stage 3 is Awesome!! it finally feels like my car can go fast, i shave about a minute from my uphill time.

.4 miles from the bottom i'm going too fast for an L4 so i decide to hook the ditch hard.. well i found a huge rock in there that smashed my Rim to hell
the inner part of the rim was rubbing against the spindle, and about 1" of the beed was exposed. How this held air is beyond me!
i almost stopped from the vibration, but asked my navigator how far until the end. ".3 miles" he says and i just flat foot the rest
Thinking hopefully if anything major breaks i'll have the momentum to finish.. Everything holds together!
@ service we discover the rim damage and that everything else is okay!

The back sun RAce service Van was able to fix up my ruined Rim. We only had 1 spare with us, so this mangle rim has now become our spare.
WE leave the service area feeling lucky and fortunate. we looked at the timing board for the first time only to discover that we are leading our class by
over a minute. I try to tell myself to hold back a bit as we head out for stage for.
http://marsman.smugmug.com/gallery/8...13_BhRC7-X3-LB (kristen tabor being my closest in class competitor)
Think i forgot that soon as the clock went 0 and we were off.
@ the top i compared stage times with Kristen and realized i was now about 2 minutes up and told myself , forget the race, just finish have fun. Again i was about a minute
faster on the downhill but 3 second slower than my first run down. the road got loosened up and traction was going way. I started to notice
a lot more mistakes in my driving, but my Navigator was telling me i was going faster..

Day 2 started with an awesome park expose, the town of mountain home really came out to downtown and check out our cars!
i heard some teens look at my car and say "no way that's the same car i drive!" and i told them i was on a stock power train.
so exact same i said, minus the roll cage and skid plate! we had a drivers meeting, a prayer, and the star spangle banner
by a group of talented locals, and at the very end they had a B52 fly over head. this gave me chills.

Then we all got in our cars for transit, but leaving park expose was a special treat, the police cheif and mayor closed down the block and let us
do burn outs as we left. the mustang with a 383 did the best one, the V8 desert truck did good. and a few of the
open AWD cars sort of drifted the corner to get some tire noise. All i could do was pull up the E-brake
and do a 1 tire fire with my Open Diffed FWd Car. Very lame, but it made me laugh, maybe someone liked it ... probably not.

Onto the stages! Stage 6 & 7 were Cow creek north a faster and more flowing stage with ups and downs. i really wanted more HP but
had a complete blast. i hit the big jump at about 50 and 55 on the speedo (about 46 and 50 in reality)
i have Video of stage 7 :

YouTube- SS7 Cow Creek North

YouTube- SS7 Cow Creek North

Stages 8 and 9 were the same road in the other direction. I backed off a touch on the jump , again after comparing stage times
and really really wanting to finish / drive my car home. Everything turned out great. Some cool spectators got footage of my jumps
8 was way lame and the crowd doesn't like it :

YouTube- Idaho Rally 2009 day 2 stage 3 #29

YouTube- Idaho Rally 2009 day 2 stage 3 #29

LOL
9 was a little better :

YouTube- Idaho Rally 2009 day 2 stage 4 #29

YouTube- Idaho Rally 2009 day 2 stage 4 #29

actually my 2nd biggest jump. no crowd reaction, but apparently the girl filming needed to book a flight...

On the way back on the final transit we saw a very cute girl in a bikini top pulled over with car troubles. I joked with my navigator
that maybe we could afford a few minutes of transit penalty and still win ... nah better not risk it. We drove back and we were greated by the same
Tech guy as 2 days before. He wanted to Check the car for class legality. Wow, i think we definitly won our class!
after a quick check by him we were able to pull into the check point and park. ran out and saw our results.
1st in Production 2wd Class, 1st in California Rally Series P-stock ! Wow my first win, and i won all 9 stages of the rally too (in class)
15th over all out of 38 cars to start! I was seeded 30th.

Rally guide : http://www.idahorally.com/wp-content...ly%20Guide.pdf

Lots of Pics : http://marsman.smugmug.com/gallery/8882138_qoaDK#P-1-12

Results Link : http://www.rallydata.com/Results/Ida...NatResults.htm

[A1337STI]

BTW this kid Will was AWESOME:

YouTube- Idaho Rally 2009 day 2 stage 3 #38

YouTube- Idaho Rally 2009 day 2 stage 3 #38

[sperry]

Dude, congrats!! I love hearing these stories. Nice job with the race. Now that you've won in production/2WD, how long before you move up?

[Dean]

Congratulations Alex... Great job.

[GusGus91]

Good job man. That was a good read to end my night! Congrats!

[Nick Koan]

Cool, congrats on the win!

[k-dogg39]

Wow! Congrats Alex!

[cody]

Nice! Pics of the bikini chick?

[Jeikun]

Great read! Congrats, it sounds like you earned it!

[Kevin M]

Nice work dude!

[A1337STI]

Thank you all. Thanks for answering all my misc subaru / 1.8 L questions along the way. definitely helped out on the way!

Sorry Cody no pics of the bikini girl who was stuck on the side of the road. LoL!

[A1337STI]

Oh, it will hopefully be quite some time before i move up. Depends how long until i total lil betsy...
I do have a 2.2T closed Deck for my next lil project... but that will stay in storage through 09

unless someone has a nice open AWD powertrain they want to sponsor me with ??? anyone ?? didn't think so ...