| A1337STI |
2008-06-24 12:10 PM |
Stage 1 - 4
Yeah that gold subie sounded awesome. The classic Subaru Blue one was my favorite visually .
This event was awesome!!! Very very smooth roads, wow. I was very happy with how smooth the roads were as i'm on stock springs and blown struts, I really only had 3 or 4 inches of ground clearance at the lowest point of my skid plate.
Its amazing how excited i got and how i forgot all of the driving basics on stage 1. things like looking into the corners (where actually possible) , breathing at a normal rate, not trying to death grip the wheel. after the first 2 stages i had calmed my nerves enough to start doing the basics.
My idea was to drive just a lil slow on the first stage, which ended up with me driving VERY Slow. I wanted to get a feel for how rough the roads were and what i would be bottoming out on. I ended up only 3 seconds ahead of bogie. :( Right in to the first stage the Intercom system i had gave my co-driver (Wendy) And I massive problems. it was intermitten during the whole stage. resulting in me hearing things like "3R into crest into 5 ... 4 " with me quickly barking up a semi paniced "Crest into WHAT? Repeat Please!" . Then after we got maybe .2 miles into the transit to stage 2 the rally odo and my speedometer went out :( . Which had me worried over 2 things #1 If wendy were to get lost in the notes she couldn't use the Odo to help get back on, and it would be harder to travel the transits at the correct speed. We decided to turn off the chatter box and move the mics out of the way, as having intermitten communication was much worse than just shouting at each other over gravel noise. :| Not the Ideal way to start off your first rally, but when you some how end up entering your first race on a $6,000 budget you have to accept these things (that includes car cost, building it to saftey specs, and 6 very pricey tires @ $900 including shipping :eek: )
Stage #2 added some unwanted excitement. i belive it was a Crest into 4L into 3R . where as soon as i came up over the Crest i could see a rally Truck had driven into a boulder, and there was a rally car stopped to render aid. He had one triangle out next to his rally car, and was casually walking a 2nd triangle up the road. at which point he started motioning with his hands but it was unclear what he was trying to motion (either keep going or slow down , but i had already slowed down to about 10 so i was thinking he meant keep going) I looked around for an OK or a Red cross, the driver (chuck) of the crashed rally truck got out the route book to display a red cross (in so doing so he inadvertently flashed me an OK (its on the back cover) Which really added to my confusion) at which point i just stopped and asked Wendy what to do. and maybe a 1/2 second later we would clearly see his red cross and we opened the doors. Chuck said his Nav man had back pains, and to head to the HAM operator to call in the EMTs.
So i shut my door and headed up the road asking wendy how far to the Radio, it was about 2 more miles up. Driving those 2 miles gave me a really weird feeling. I had seen a bad crash and heard "Back Pains" so i'm thinking the worst , which caused me to want to drive faster, but i also knew if I Crashed not only would it delay help for the injured navigator, as the last competitor of the group any help for me would probably take an extra long time to arrive. I ended up driving About the same pace i drove on Stage 1 (I had picked up the pace a bit on stage 2 until seeing the accident)
Upon closing in on the HAM operator i started honking my horn and i pulled directly over to him and said there's been a crash about 1/2 to 1 mile into the stage . He got on the radio immidiately and radioed in, then he asked me for further clarification on where the crash was. i told him my Odo had gone out, but i felt rather sure it was about 1/2 a mile to 1 mile into the stage, a crest into 4L into 3R with the rally truck on the Right side of the road, into a boulder. he relayed that info and asked for further info on the navigators condition. "all we got told was Back pains and to send an EMT" he went back to the radio. and then we were all waiting there. At which point i asked him what do you want me to do, wait here or drive up to time control. he instructed me to drive up to time control so i started driving.
Wendy Brought up to me that the stage would be thrown , and there was no reason to push it, might break something , or worse crash when there would be no one coming up behind me to render any aid. so I went back to my driving miss daisy pace of Stage 1. After finishing the stage well past boggie time we had a two fold problem. , 1 knowing i would be awarded a under bogie stage time do i use the normal transit calculation, or do i use the bogie time transit calculation, and #2 if the transit is 12 miles, and i have no Speedo what rpms should i be @ in 4th to make the transit on time. Well i screwed up and drove way to slow on transit and got myself my first road penalty of the day. :(
Stage #3. Wendy reminded me that I just had a provisional license and i should be out there to get licensed not to Race for a class win. so i came up with "Keep the rubber side down, Stay on the road, and beat bogie time" as the 3 goals for the day. This really kept the day Extra fun and pressure free. We also discussed how i needed to communicate back to her, instead of siting quietly in the drivers seat barley so much as asking for a few repeats. while she hadn't gotten lost at all yet, she was reading too many instructions for my Noobie ears and brain to make sense , clearly she was used to a much faster driver who needed to know 4-5 turns ahead. I told her she was about 2 turns too far ahead for me, and we decided she would call out 2-3 turns ahead and then i would repeat the first instruction when i wanted 1 more. Quickly into Stage 3 i realized that having to repeat the longer instructions meant i couldn't ask for the new ones fast enough. so we changed it over to where i would just say "hold" or "next" and Wow what a difference that made. On Stage 3 i actually beat half the field of cars, all of my class competitors , and all of the Moto bikes! :D with a 10:10 Beating K.Marc 10:21 , by 11 seconds who then went on to win the class and drive away from me :lol: I actually had no idea what any of my stage times were until service though, and i ended up getting reports back of all sorts of results that were not accurate. It was the first rally for my entire crew except Wendy.
On Stage #4 i was feeling really good about ironing out my communication with Wendy. :cool: Now i wasn't so damn close to bogie time and i was keeping lil Betsy (ended up naming her that) happy.. well Betsy's happiness was short lived , Shortly into stage 4 i started getting really bad fuel cut off, but i had 3/4 of a tank of gas. WTF! Well i knew my Fuel pump install a few months back was sub par work (i did the install , Doh!) but damn, now it was costing me big time. on several occasions i had to push the clutch pedal down and coast, or lose speed due to engine braking. I'de be flat footing it in nuetral and the car was struggling to keep 2400 RPMS, then it would hit the rev up all the way and drive fine for 60 to 90 seconds. then back to fuel cut off. :( . It had also started to rain a lil bit, not enough to muddy the roads but enough to kill all the dust. I actually still enjoyed stage 4 a Lot, even with the car struggling and having no Odo, RALLY IS FUN :D When i finished the stage i was much relieved but still worried about the fuel pump. The way back was a lil tense listening to the ever changing fuel pump noises. :?: WTF is going on back there i kept wondering, as i pulled into the service park Time control zone, which much relief for both wendy and I that the crew could now Fix up lil Betsy's pump issues...
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