Doo Wops Rally
by brian @ 21:44:56 - [perma-link]Josh and I raced the FX-16 in the Doo Wops Rally this weekend. It was
the best rally ever. We took home a third place novice trophy! It was just the two of us with no service crew, but the 420 team
offered to share a spot and help us out. It was amazing having an
organized service crew of several people helping us between stages.
After each stage they checked our wheels and oil and washed the
windows. They even spotted and fixed a broken wire on the driving
lights. All Josh and I had to do at the first service was eat a
sandwich and drink water. When we broke a strut mount during the second stage, the crew helped
us replace it quickly. Our previous experience breaking one at
Olympus last year really paid off. We had the spare (even if they
were junkyard issue) and knew what to do. The repair was made with
plenty of time to relax before transit to the final stage of the day. On that third stage we had a "Less filling! Tastes great!" moment. I
thought we broke another strut mount. Josh swore we got a flat. The
steering was all screwed up like the break on the second stage, but
the rear end was really squirrely and it hadn't been before. Turns
out we were both right! Front right strut and left rear tire were
both blown. Still we limped through the rest of the stage and back to
service and back to the trailer and saved the repair for after
dinner. We were done before midnight. Day two brought us a new problem. The Parc Expose (all the rally cars
line up on display before heading out to the first stage) was across
the street from the hotel, but there were two service areas that were
about 40 miles away. Since it was just the two of us, we had no one
to drive our service truck. Lucky for us, the Red Menace team had an
extra. She had been spectating on Saturday, but on Sunday she totally
saved our day. She drove the Defender towing the trailer to both
service areas. She helped us with everything during service. When we
broke our last replacement strut mount (that'd be 3 of them!), she
helped Josh set up the welder so he could weld them solid. And at the
end of the day she drove the rover and trailer down the Brooklyn stage
to the awards banquet dinner. (Thanks, Missy! We'll see you at
rallycross.) With the service vehicle problem averted we set off for Blue Slough,
where we ran the first two stages on pavement. It was really fast,
and reminded me of last year's Idaho Rally. We topped out at about
87mph according to the GPS, which is the fastest I've gone in that car
by far. The third (and subsequent) stage was on gravel. Josh and I
both remember hearing the loud pop when the strut mount blew out. We
finished the stage and went into service already discussing who would
change the tires (from gravel to the new Silverstone mud tires) and
who would change the strut mount. As we were tightening the last few nuts someone stopped by and asked
if we had another spare for the other side. "That one's fine," one of
us said as we slowly walked around the car to see he was talking about. He told us, "its not poking through yet, but its definitely torn." He
was right, and we had no more spares. We did have another 30 minutes in service, a big generator and a
welder. Everything came out of the Defender and we started a mad
search for "pieces of metal." Tim (co-driver of 420) dug up some fat
washers and Josh welded them to the inner and outer parts of the mount
to make them solid. Mostly solid anyway. We strapped the generator
and welder onto the trailer in case we'd need them again (we did.
several times), and made it to the next stage just in time. I took it
a little easy on Pico Reverse, since we really wanted to make it to
Brooklyn, which everyone had said was the best rally stage in North
America. Brooklyn was a blast. We stopped in at service and Josh made some
quick repairs to some broken welds on the strut tops, and we were back
out. We ran the Smith Creek stage in both directions, then one more
service, and a few more welds (I believe the technical term Josh used
was "welded the s[no]t out of it"). The final stage was another pass on Brooklyn in the opposite
direction. The start was delayed due to "domestic violence, shots
fired", apparently in the spectator area. After the cop ran Brooklyn
West (someone wondered what his time was), it was all clear but
considerably darker than it had been an hour before. The driving and
fog lights we installed last week were a total success. We ran
Brooklyn East at night 5 seconds faster than Brooklyn West a few hours
earlier. The driving lights shined much further down the road, and
the fog lights were aimed slightly outward to spread light around the
turns. It was a huge improvement over the night stages at Mt Hood
with just the stock headlights. As for the broken strut tops, we got a tip from one of the rally
veterans about how they solved this problem on their late 80's
Corollas. Hopefully we can fab up some supports and eliminate that
weak link before Olympus in April.
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