Conference oass::racers

I'm in need of a co-driver for two Rally Sprints at Road Atlanta on September
1, a week from this Saturday.  It's a fairly low-key event so a good one for
someone who has never co-driven before.  If you're already an SCCA member
you'll need to buy a Divisional Rally license at the event for $35 and cough
up half the $135 entry fee.  SCCA membership is $50 if you aren't a member
and can be paid at the event as well.

If you're interested (or know of someone who is) get back to me by tomorrow
because I'll be on business all next week.

Dave

We had 10 teams entered, but a TR-8 had a minor fire before the start so
we were down to 9 competitors for the rallies.  We used the infield tar roads 
(complete with 5 speed bumps per stage) at Road Atlanta and then over the 
bridge and onto some dirt roads back towards turn 8.  The first Rally Sprint 
ran 6 stages, 3 in each direction.  Chuck McCrary in his RX-3 won with a time
of 14:12, Bruce Newey (RX-7) was 2nd with a 14:31 and then Robert Waits (RX-7)
and myself tied for 3rd with 15:40.  Mike Harris in a rotary Mazda pickup was 
5th, but I didn't write down his time.

For the Rally Sprint II we only ran 4 stages because of time contraints.  We 
had a good battle for 3rd going on between Waits, myself and Harris.  I had
tied with Harris on the 1st and 3rd stage but beat him by 2 seconds on the 2nd.
Waits beat me by 3 seconds on the 2st stage, but I was tied with him after
3 stages.  On the last stage, just as I was about to start we heard that Newey 
had stuffed it into the bridge! 

Both driver and co-driver were okay, but this now meant our battle for 3rd
was a battle for 2nd!  Waits had started just before me so would see Newey on
the side.  But I had a few seconds before I started to tell myself to keep
the car on the road, but drive like hell!  Well, I managed to keep it together
and pulled out a 1 second 'win' over Waits and 3 seconds over the pickup and
came home with 2nd.  I turned a 10:32, Waits had a 10:33 and Harris had a 10:35.
Oh yeah, Chuck won the 2nd event as well with a 9:32.

Rally Sprint I (top 4)

McCrary		2:22	2:27	2:17	2:22	2:17	2:27	14:12
Newey		2:21	2:30	2:23	2:27	2:21	2:29	14:31
Waits		2:30	2:43	2:29	2:35	2:29	2:54	15:40
Burden		2:35	2:42	2:32	2:38	2:31	2:42	15:40

Rally Sprint II (top 4 + Newey)

McCrary		2:21	2:24	2:19	2:28	9:32
Burden		2:37	2:39	2:33	2:43	10:32
Waits		2:34	2:40	2:35	2:44	10:33
Harris		2:37	2:41	2:33	2:44	10:35
Newey		2:22	2:26	2:23	DNF	DNF

                         Rally Right Weekend '90
                            September 14 - 16
                         Ski Sawmill, Morris, PA

I had a difficult time finding someone to co-drive for me for this event, and
I was getting ready to take it personally when I found a willing volunteer
in my friend Anne Thomas.  She had never done a rally before, but this event
was going to be a rally school (hence the name), so it was the perfect place
to start out.

The rallies (there were actually 2 events during the weekend) and driving
practice were run entirely on the grounds of a small ski area about 25 miles
north of Williamsport, PA.  While there were not many miles of roads on the
property, they could be run in many different ways to give the illusion of
more.  Besides, the goal was to practice rallying technique, so many of the
skills drills used only 1 or 2 corners.

Topics covered were the best way to take various kinds of corners in front,
rear, and 4-wheel-drive cars; car setup, including your own mental preparation;
and sponsorship (how to get other people to help pay for your habit).  While
the drivers were out turfing up the parking lot, the co-drivers had their own
curriculum which included how to keep track of timing and scoring, co-driver
responsibilities, safety, and how to get along with your driver under stress.

Saturday night was the first of the weekend's rallies.  Aside from your
expected organizational screw-ups, everything ran fairly smoothly.  We narrowly
avoided several minutes of penalty points during the transits, and put in runs
good for 11th overall out of 23 and 2nd in our class, despite having the
driving lights go out just past the start of the last stage, leaving me to run
on just my high beams.

For Sunday's event, I was determined to make a better finish, since I'd be able
to see where I was going.  It rained all day, which made the roads muddy and
slippery, particularly for the later cars (the earlier cars chew up the dirt).
Fortunately for us, we were able to wangle our way into starting second, so
the conditions were good for our first run (the event consisted of one course
road, run twice).  We had a good run, and going into the second run we were
in a 3-way tie for third place (with some very fast people), and tied for
first place in our class (with one of the instructors).

On the second run we found out how big our initial advantage was.  The roads
were slick as sh*t, and I was having a hard time putting the car where I
wanted it.  There were at least 3 occasions where we must have lost a second
or more because I got the car so far out of shape.  We still had one of the
faster times, but when the instructor went again, he beat us by 5 seconds,
putting us firmly into second place in our class.  The other guy we were tied
with had a slow run and moved behind us, but the guy who was behind us
(timewise) after the first run had a good second run and we ended up tying
him for fourth place overall.

It was my first top-ten finish, mainly due to it being a rinky-dink event and
only a few of the "big names" being there.  Still, it felt nice.  I had some
initial concerns about how I'd drive because my right leg is locked rigidly in
a brace after a dirt bike accident the previous weekend, but I don't think it
ended up having much of an effect beyond making me use my left foot on the
brake, which was the point of all the driving exercises anyway.

                         Rallye Auto Charlevoix
                           LaMalbaie, Quebec
                            October 20, 1990

The Rallye Auto Charlevoix was the 6th round of the General Tire Canadian
Performance Rally Championship, held on the north shore of the St. Lawrence
river, about 90 miles northeast of Quebec City.  LaMalbaie, the location of
this Canadian National rally, means "the bad bay" in French.  This might
have been interpreted as an omen by many of the teams that entered this event,
ours included.

The rally headquarters was the Manoir Richleau, a mansion/castle that had been
converted to a hotel.  The rate for our room (off season) was $300 a night,
but the rallyists got a deal of $75/night for up to 4 occupants, so we shared
the room with another team and halved our price again.

40 cars started the event, a quarter of which were in our class (Production).
We were car #30, starting at 10:28AM.

The first 2 stages of the event were run on pavement in the hotel parking
lots and access roads.  We brought Hoosier autocross tires along for this
purpose which served us well.  The main feature of these stages was a 25mph
90-degree left turn at the end of a fairly winding access road where speeds
over 70mph were easily reached.  The approach to the corner was almost blind,
and more than one car found itself on its side in the ditch outside the
corner, and a bunch more skidded through the "rally Armco" (yellow tape) and
down the escape road.

After a short service to change tires, the woods stages began.  We ran fairly
cleanly and moved up a bit to 25th at the reseeding control.  We were 3rd in
Production class, 26 seconds behind the 2nd place Production car.

Our first mishap occured entering the service area at the reseeding control.
The earlier teams had completely blocked normal access to the service area
with their vehicles, and while I was backing up looking for a way in, my door
swung open and got spun around by the bumper of Wayne Grabowski's Toyota Celica
All-Trac Turbo.  The Toyota was fine, but some hammering was required to get
my door to open and shut right.

At the dinner break we put the driving lights on and prepared for the night
stages.  There were 84 km (50 miles) of stage roads to run before the next
service.  We got off to a good start by putting in the 13th fastest time on
the first night stage.

The next stage was 25 km (15 miles) long, and was run twice, once in each
direction.  It was very narrow and rough, with lots of jumps, rocks, fallen
trees, narrow bridges, and other hazards to contend with.  We had an exciting
moment when we slid wide on a downhill left-hander and found ourselves on a
rock ledge 2 or 3 feet above road level.  Fortunately we had enough momentum
to get back on the road, and drove back over the edge at a square enough
angle to avoid overturning.  We scraped and crashed down to the road, pausing
only long enough to find second gear.  In time we caught and passed the car
that had started a minute before us, thrilling them with some Joey Chitwood
2-wheel driving shortly after overtaking them.  We finished that stage in 20
minutes and 13 seconds, the 10th fastest overall, and almost a minute faster
than the next fastest Production car.

The run took its toll on the car, however.  One of the front control arms
was somewhat bent, the headlight switch would no longer turn off the parking
lights (for some reason), and we lost the starter motor.  Despite my plans to
baby the car for the run back, we clipped some rocks early on, bending a rim
and pushing the rear axle back so it was scaping heavily against the bodywork.
We spent 16 minutes changing the tire and bending the fender out of the way,
which pretty much put us out of the running.  Also by now the car's handling
was a bit difficult to predict, so we lowered our sights and aimed to just
finish the race.

We suffered our final indignity just before the final stage, when the
headlights started cutting in and out.  The headlight switch appeared to be
ready to pack it in early for the night.  The low beams still seemed to work
fairly well, so we ran the last stage using just them and no driving lights.
We limped back to the hotel around 2AM.

19 cars finished the rally; we were 19th, and 3rd in Production.  Trophies
didn't go down that far, but we did get a small check for setting some fast
times in our seed group.  I expect it will fall well short of covering the
required repairs.

Evidently Tim O'Neil won the Coachman Stages rally this past weekend!  This is
his first win this year and second in his career.  I think he was hoping for
better results from the Rallye Golf, but it turned out to be a development
year for the car instead.  I don't have the other results or the year end
standings yet.  This was the last rally of the season.

Part of the rally consisted of the Divisional PRO Rally Run-Off.  The top two
finishers in each division are invited to the rally, free entry and part of a 
tow fund, and the highest finisher of all of them is the winner of the Run-Off.

I finished 2nd in the SEDIV so could have gone for 'free' if I wanted.  My only
expenses would have been fuel, lodging and food.  Figuring on 5k-6k miles
round trip from Atlanta to Washington state that would run around $600 for fuel
alone!  Needless to say I spent the weekend around the house.

As soon as I get the final standings I'll post them here.

Dave

    Dave,
    
    Congradulations on 2nd place. Don't forget, Tim DID win Mt.
    Washington...
    
    jim e
    

technically it wasn't a PRO Rally.  Still a good win for him though.

Hopefully I can do most of the season (SEDIV) next year and maybe make it to
the Run-Offs.  We're expecting kid #2 in March, so things might have to slow
down a bit.....

Dave

Overall:
Paul Choiniere
Audi Quattro

Open:
Bruno Kreibich
Audi Quattro

Prod GT:
Tom Ottey
Mazda 323 GTX

Prod:
?
?

Group A:
Chad DiMarco
Subaru Legacy

Rally Truck:
Roger Hull
Jeep Comanche

These are the class winners, as near as I can tell.  I only know the top 4
finishers from the last rally and some of the classes were real tight going
into the last rally.

You may have noticed that the Chattahoochee Forest National Rally is on the 
schedule for Nov '91.  As part of the SEDiv, I can say we are not going to
have a rally at that time.  Someone else put it on the schedule 'for' us...

We are looking into a national for Jan/Feb/Mar '92, though.

Dave