Four for four with first-timers

For the second time this year, I teamed up with a first time rallyist. Eric Hansen and I enjoyed a great time at Maine earlier this season and now I had a great weekend with Bryan Short from Ft. Collins at Rally Colorado. For the uninitiated reader (and I doubt there are many of them here…not sure if there are even readers, uninitiated or not), beginning rallyists are not allowed to use Jemba Inertial course notes on their first events. It’s a safety thing with Rally America. But there’s a loophole that says if the co-driver has enough experience, then course notes are allowed no matter how inexperienced the driver. So I was allowed to use them with Eric at Maine and now with Bryan at Colorado. R-A is really interested in how this goes, because there’s this ongoing debate on whether the use of notes is safer or not. My vote says it depends on the co-driver, so the idea that an experienced co-driver is the determining factor works for me. I think they need to do a better job of defining “experienced.” For the time being I would develop a named pool of co-drivers that would be allowed to do this. Coefficients is not the equivalent of “experience” when it comes to interpreting and delivering notes and managing a driver. OK. Off the soap box.

Bryan bought Cowboy Kenny’s PGT car from Jeff Moyle last November after LSPR (because Jeff acquired the Colin McRae X-Games car to run open with this season with Scott Putnam). On a sad side note, we’ve just learned that Jeff was killed this past weekend in a parasailing accident in Houghton, so the fraternity loses a plebe. Jeff was a fun guy with a smile on his face and just enough ‘attitude’ to be a great member of this group. He’ll be missed. OK…back on topic. Geeez I’m A.D.D. this morning!

Bryan has been using the ’02 WRX for hillclimbs in the Colorado Cup series around the state this year and since Rally Colorado was part of the series, he decided to enter. Where to find a co-driver. Special Stage. Since Heath was busy turning in a Senior project at MTU and unavailable for Colorado, it was looking like I was going to go out there and be a finish control captain….sigh. But I contacted Bryan who had no idea who I was (expecting a woman to answer the phone!...yeah….really!), and told him I was available and a deal was struck.

I caught the shuttle from DIA to Ft. Collins and Bryan picked me up and took me to the house where the Subie was mounted on the trailer and ready to go. Over to the shop and pick up parts, tires, parts, gas cans, parts, and more parts. Where was the crew? What crew? He hadn’t really needed a crew at hillclimbs, so really didn’t think it was going to be a big deal here. Hmmmmmm. Tires were about 6 pretty worn out Michelins, although they might have worked, they wouldn’t have been much fun and a worn out set of Silverstones (slightly better edges, but not enough of them). So, no crew, and 10 worn out tires and we’re ready to go!

This is where I LOVE this game and the people in it. I’d emailed Scott Crouch at Flatirons Tuning to ask if his people would “watch over” us in service. He was now aware we had no crew. Flatirons had gone through the car when Bryan got it, so they knew the car already. Now the tire situation began to look large on the horizon. I finally got a chance to talk to Buffum and Smith to see if we could work a deal for their shakedown takeoffs and they said sure! When I looked at them, ours were better! Ooops!

A short conversation with Scott again and voila! We had a set of Michelins they’d used at Oregon and shakedown that were clearly 60% better than the ones we had. I told you I love this crowd!

There’s a reason very experienced co-drivers should go with beginners. It takes every bit of concentration to put together a successful weekend for a first-timer. When I co-drive for Dennis or Heath or someone who’s been at this for awhile, the boundaries between responsibilities is fairly clear. There are three areas of responsibility usually clearly defined, between the driver, the co-driver and the crew chief. There are some things that require input from two and even sometimes all of these, but mostly the three can work independently. In the case of the first timer, none of these boundaries are clear and it falls on the shoulders on the experienced crew member to see that to the best of his or her abilities all the bases are covered….ALL the bases! So besides the normal co-driver duties of fuel allotment, logistics, note editing, computer knowledge, and general operating of the event, one can now assume that they will be involved in tire selection, educating both the rookie driver on the “operations” of a rally (where to go when) and the crew chief on setting priorities, that’s assuming one HAS a crew chief, or even a crew! This is why I claim that coefficients is not an adequate measure of experience to allow this situation.

Enough of the background. Bryan and I agreed we had three goals for the weekend.

A. Have fun

B. Finish

C. Improve throughout the event.

We nailed ‘em! We had a blast. Bryan got about three or four rallies of experience in one. He had crises and lived through them (changed a flat on Stokes Gulch in front of 500 spectators and drove 6 miles on a skid plate hanging on by one bolt and making horrendous noises). And took the Regional PGT wins for both Colorado Cog-1 and 2. Not bad for a first outing!

His car is a real handful for a rookie. It’s got full diffs which means that all wheels are driving all the time (not the situation in the stock WRX). So to get the car to go around sharp corners, it’s an absolute requirement that it be tossed in as the front wheels have a tendency to understeer you. Bryan has a lot of motocross experience, so tends to “drive” through corners, and dealt with the understeer on the exits of turns all weekend. Toward the end he was really getting into the swing of diving deeper into corners and tossing the car a little more, but the old finish line in view took some of that “fire” out so he could accomplish goal B. Our flat on Stokes Gulch was caused by an overzealous understeer problem that took us off the road substantially. He did a masterful job of downshifting and pointing the car (thus preventing the roll) and getting us back on the road. Too bad the cost was the right rear tire, because he deserved to get away with that one.

And we ruled out stopping with the noisy skid pan because it didn’t seem like it would cause much problem even if it let loose (which it didn’t). But boy, was it noisy! At the end of the stage, Bryan pulled past the control zone sign like a pro, jumped out and removed the lone bolt holding the skid pan with NEEDLE NOSED PLIERS (the only tool he had in the car…..another lesson). We left it with Mitch Williams at the control and took off only losing a minute getting into the final stage. We drove it gingerly as we were now without any protection underneath. But a finish is a finish and that was goal B. Goal A was a slam dunk! We pretty much giggled and scratched the whole weekend with the exception of my first “road points” in my seven years of co-driving since coming out of retirement back in 2000. But I’ll leave that to the next post. It’s a story unto itself.

Thanks, Bryan! Had a blast!

Ojibwe '08

Ojibwe is good to us.

Two years ago Matthew Johnson and I took advantage of some late event mishaps from Tanner Foust to not only win Ojibwe in PGT, but stand on the podium as third overall with Travis Pastrana and Matt Iorio.

Last year Heath and his Mom won PGT here.

We were looking forward to some good luck for a change as 100AW hadn’t been kind to us and STPR sucked the life out of the engine after 3 stages. A new engine and a borrowed ECU from Travis Hanson gave us hope.

This year Heath drove a steady focused event overcoming no end of minor dramas to take his second PGT win here in as many years and land a respectable 6^th overall.

The list of mini-crises looks like a Murphy’s Law who’s who.

There was:

• a strut tower top hat that broke studs
• power steering fluid that leaked and smelled up stuff
• a watch that disappeared into the car somewhere for three stages
  
• parts that just fell off the car
• interior mirror
• fuel filler door
• right front fender liner
• 1/2 of a rear bumper cover (later recovered and re-mounted)
• jacks that didn't want to hold up the car
  
• an intermittent Coralba
• the “outhouse” intrusion
• a flat discovered 3 minutes before entering ATC
• an impact wrench that decided it wanted to run stage 15 until it ran out of juice
• a big beautiful easy-up that blew away at the final service.
• ...and this is only the stuff I heard about!
  

…and STILL the team held it together to win. Like the kid who came home with a black eye told his mom…..”you shoulda seen the other guy!” This was a rally of attrition.

Skipping the stuff mentioned above (which is really just in a day’s work on a rally team), our international rally Olympics (US vs. Poland) was a blast from the git go. Poland fielded a squad of 3 PGT cars any one of which stood a chance of winning Gold. Wild man Jaroslaw Sozanski, who is flamingly (albeit sometimes recklessly) fast was here to keep chalking up points. This has been a good year for Jaroslaw. He’s only dnf’d one event. Adam Markut in the older venerable DSM proved to be the real challenge for the weekend. He’s always fast, but we could usually count on him entering the Regionals and not bothering with the National points race….not so this weekend. He was in the big hunt. And Robert Borowicz is always fast and has beautiful, well-prepared equipment. This was going to be a challenge for the US.

A couple of early stage jitters Saturday afternoon and a set of uncut Hankooks put us at a small disadvantage for the first 4 stages. We sorta skated on top of the gravel and Heath was having to saw at the wheel to keep things going in a straight line. We remedied that at the first service by putting on some cut Hankook 202’s and promptly went out and set some 6^th and 7^th fastest times overall. We were definitely settling down.

Sunday morning dawned chilly and cloudy, but soon brightened up as things dried out and the dust started to hang.

In the motel parking lot Chris Lowe and John King, our venerable crew for this adventure was “going over” the car finding a little crack here and a little loose there. We had to locate another front strut top hat (thanks Rock Star!) and that issue was averted….then fuel and go over to the parc exposé at Northwest Tech. We had moved from 23^rd on the road Saturday to 17^th on Sunday, so that felt good. And our PGT competition was right in front of us. There was about a minute separating all three of us (Amy BeberVanzo had rolled Saturday, and Robert for some reason was not going fast and had fallen quite far behind). So Adam, Jaroslaw, Henry Krolikowski (running open and declared on the AMERICAN team) and us headed out to the woods.

On the first stage, Adam took us by 3 seconds and we took Sozanski by 2. This was gonna be a dog fight!!

About 2/3 of the way through the next stage, we rounded a corner to triangles out, a perfectly good live tree down across the road and a steaming WRX PGT car of Sozanski’s parked about 30 feet into the woods. This was going to take more than a Dent Wizard to fix! Scratch Sozanski. But Adam spanked us on this one by almost 30 seconds.

About ¾ of the way through the next stage there was Adam having slid off the road and it appeared centered with no traction. He apparently got out (an official “yank and spank” was allowed here), but had accumulated a ton of time getting out, so that left Borowicz and us to thrash it out. Robert was running his own race, as were we, apparently waiting for us to join the group of woodsmen who were communing with trees. But we were not going to give him that pleasure.

Despite having a PGT win solidly in hand, Heath didn’t change his modus operandi and kept driving exactly the way he’d been driving…even thrashing it on the short 3.7 mile stage with a dozen dry bottom water ditches. Markut, having been pulled out of his aforementioned situation, proceeded to drive like a madman and set some blistering stage times on the last three scored stages. I say scored stages, because shortly after we passed the Ken Block off on the last 22 mile monster stage, a damaged tree fell across the road blocking the stage and forcing organizers to cancel it and give everyone from us back the same time.

So that’s it. The race is not always to the swiftest, but it pays to be fast anyway. The old adage was never truer that to win you have to finish. Heath does amazingly well for a young man who only gets to run 3-4 times this year. Being off two months does not set you off on early stages with a lot of confidence. Then you look up when you start to get it together and you’re already 45 second down. But he was consistent and continued to get smoother and more confident as the rally progressed. You heard it here first. He’s the next MJ.

Oh. The outhouse incident? The short of it is we gave the spectators a really great show when I late called a L3 after a R5/CR at a spectator point. I understand we moved an abandoned DNR outhouse somewhat when we overshot the corner and that no one was in residence at that time. I’m told there is at least one set of sequential photos of it and I’m waiting to buy the negatives (wait…there aren’t any negatives any more….are there?). Look for somebody's video to show up on YouTube!

Bronze to Adam Markut (who exhibited incredible persistence). Silver to Robert Borowicz (who just drove an amazingly clean event). And Gold to Heath Nunnemacher (who deserved the win tiptoeing the line between too fast and too cautious). Raise the flag. Play the Star Spangled Banner!

You never forget your first.....(long)

I know I never will. Moonlight Monte, 1970. 1964 Corvair Fitch Sprint. DNF with a dozen stories I still tell.

About three weeks ago Andrew Havas from Havspeed texted me inquiring of my availability for the New England Forest Rally. I’ve always (not so) secretly wanted to tackle some nice smooth Cherokee – like roads (where I first heard, then saw the RX-7 at Cherokee in 2001) with Andrew. I checked with Heath (Nunnemacher) to make totally certain that our engine woes at STPR were going to preclude entry at NEFR and texted back to Andrew, “let’s talk."

He called and informed me that unfortunately he had little funds and less time for driving these days, but was finishing up some cage work on the ex-Brian Goss (the human version) now Eric Hansen (no, not the one from Team O’Neil) ’95 Neon and would I be willing to break in a newbie.

I had to think about that one a bit. All of my rides have had Rally or Racing experience, understood the game and most of its nuances, and had exhibited strong tendencies for self (and consequently MY) preservation! But a good chat with Eric convinced me that his short years on this planet was an unfair estimate of his reasonable maturity and a deal was struck.

Then it hit me. No notes! In Rally America events, drivers are not allowed to have high powered 4WD cars or race on organizer supplied Jemba notes. They’re supposed to putter through the courses without enough power to hurt themselves and not enough information to abandon driving what they see. It had been 2002 since I had co-driven a stage off the route book. What had I gotten myself into?

But like a good co-driver I checked the rules (and not in an area I’d normally be concerned with) and it would be LEGAL for us to use course notes since the co-driver (moi!) has at least 20 coefficients (oh, yeah…..at LEAST!!!).

Andrew advised Eric that this would be an incredible boost to his learning curve (since without these notes we would run with just the tulip instructions about every ½ mile or so). With one exception of an instructor at Team O’Neil (Wyatt I think) who already had great car handling ability, no R-A driver had begun his career using notes. This was going to be a great experiment.

I met up with Eric the first time Thursday morning (he’d arrived at the condo at Sunday River at some ridiculous hour of the night before that only twenty-somethings recognize) and we headed off for a cup of coffee and the recce route in Berlin, New Hampshire.

The plan was that Eric would drive my Dodge Journey rental and I would read the Jemba notes so he could put together the visual observation with the audible one and start to make a connection. As with any driver, I was editing on the fly mostly just explaining the direction and nature of each approaching driving action. He was a serious student and was going to get his money’s worth out of his investment. Within a couple of hours, he was beginning to make the connection. By the end of the day, we were both convinced he at least INTELLECTUALLY understood the link. What would happen the next day….at speed….on real stages….would be a different matter!

Eric is a rallycrosser, so the first Mickey Mouse stage behind our condo at Brookside was little more than a shot at one of his RallyX runs. In a disappointed tone he informed me he hadn’t heard a thing I said in the first 48 seconds of his rally career. But one thing was certain. This was gonna be fun! He wasn’t shy about throwing the Neon around.

We then transited over to Mexico rather silently. Eric’s an interesting dichotomy. As gregarious and schmoozy as he can be in a crowd, he’s totally opposite in the rally car. Focused and quiet. That’s a good sign. It was a silent ride to the Mexico Rec area while we both pondered what was ahead.

We did talk about how to handle the infamous jump at this well known and well attended Super Special. It’s notorious for suckering competitors into breaking their cars (and it did not disappoint this weekend….ask little Burke), and we decided potentially ending his seat time with under a mile of stage was not a good idea. With apologies to the crowd we pooched the jump on purpose. Reports from other spectators, however, are that the sweeping right up onto pavement at the finish looked terrific. And our time pretty well confirmed it. To my surprise this time he told me he not only heard everything I’d said, but he “felt” it all fit together.

We ran the three more real stages into the evening ending up on super fun Concord Pond. Again I wouldn’t let him fly the jumps (well, OK…we did get some air over the “Big Crest” drop off about a mile from the finish), and put the first Regional Rally in the books.

Back to the barn with his first rally under his belt and his first win. It’s not our fault there was only one Prod car entrant in the Regionals. A win’s a win and he drove well enough to deserve it.

I’m not sure Eric understood the Friday stages were just a warm-up, but he had a pretty stern look on his face when it finally sunk in that Saturday’s stages would be three times the mileage of Friday’s.

Feeling pretty cocky with his first place trophy rattling around in his head, he set out Saturday as if to challenge our Havspeed stable mates, the PGT entry of Scott Wilburn and Aaron Crescenti. Now these guys WON one of the Regionals at STPR outright!

Question. How many offs can you have in one 15 mile stage and still be running? At least 3! We’re calling this one Eric’s Red Mist Stage. The first one occurred in a sweeping left hander which had the whole car off (on my side, of course….he’s got that part right) and very lucky to be able to jostle the car back and forth and finally drive out. Well, thought I, that should be a lesson that would get his head in the game.

But critiquing on the fly just doesn’t work. The co-driver loses his place in the notes. The driver loses concentration. And someone’s feelings usually get hurt. So we were going to discuss what happened over the hour or so we had at the turn-around.

Not 4 miles later, I was calling him into an 80 L4/Cr>. About half way to the crest I got the unmistakable feeling that he was thinking this was about a 5+ and setting the car up under full throttle with my bellowing “this is a L4, 4, 4!"

In hindsight, that was pretty dumb of me. What right did I have thinking he would translate my urgent “4’s” as useful? My words should have been “Slow the hell down!!!!!” But I’m a co-driver and I was teaching a driver. You don’t immerse yourself in Hispanic culture to learn Spanish and then speak English, do you?

This time we landed hard. I thought at first we were going over, but he managed to keep it on the wheels and we were hung up on rocks and not moving. I grabbed the detestable symbol of defeat (the triangle) and headed back up the road to the crest. I was about to place the warning when a big ruckus down at the car informed me that the media types on the hill had swept down and helped the car off the rocks. I ran back down off the crest and jumped in the car suggesting we move to the inside of this little L4/Cr> so we wouldn’t get collected by Rick Spaulding who was behind us. We settled down a bit and took our time getting buckled in. Rick passed us and the car of Conor Malone and Glenna Chestnutt pulled up along side us. The rule says if you don’t see an “OK” sign or a “Red Cross” or a triangle, you ASSUME it to be a Red Cross situation which requires you to stop. They did exactly the right thing. I just had my head down trying to get the damned buckles to snap. It took us a while to convince Malone/Chestnutt we were OK and off we both went. It would behoove R-A to work out some procedure for what to do after a triangled incident while a team is buckling up getting ready to re-enter the course. I vote for flashers indicating everything’s OK, but who am I.

All buckled up and back on the road, I’m just CERTAIN he’s learned his lesson by now. How silly of me! Just to add insult to injury (and balance the damage on both sides of the car) we took a quick ditch visit on the outside of a R3 (said ditch being full of melon sized boulders) ripping the left rear tire off the rim with about 4 miles to go. It’s a rear, so we drove it to the finish, but it wasn’t pretty. I’d had this type of experience up here with Matthew Johnson two years ago and it cost us the win in PGT.

In 15 miles we’d probably done $1500 worth of damage. I hate to think what percentage of the purchase price that represents!

Question 2. Did you ever have one of those incidents like maybe playing baseball at lunch and sliding into home in school and you tore your pants? Then you had to parade into your next class with your pink plaid boxer shorts hanging out? That’s how we felt after the finish control driving past all the earlier cars who were turned around waiting to run the stage in reverse. Destroyed tire carcass. Rim all bent up and busted. Fender lining hanging out and dragging and noisy. You don’t sneak around with car in this condition! Eric was a tad dejected to say the least.

Then Travis Pastrana saw us and gave us a big grin and a thumbs up…then Chris….and Matthew and others. You’re in the fraternity now, Eric!

Tire changed (and another spare borrowed from Alan Moody in another ’95 Neon) and we set out on that same treacherous stage backwards.

To say that Eric had been humbled would be an understatement. My right foot kept mashing down that imaginary gas peal all us co-drivers have on our side of the car! He came back out on that road about 6/10 the pace he went in on. He’d learned a lesson. That’s what he was here for. It was going to be a long day.

Back in Berlin, our service crew had a lot of “stuff” to deal with in 30 minutes from our multiple excursions, and ended up doing triage figuring some things weren’t going to get done in time. We had bent spindles and arms, a huge poke in the gas tank which put the pickup so high in the tank that we only had the effective use of about 5 gallons (even thought the tank was full). We had a small gas tank leak (not terminal) and a dragging skip plate.

To make along story loud, we drove the 54 mile transit, the 17 ½ mile stage and the other 9 mile transit to the next service dragging the skip plate. Mostly it sounded like a snow plow on dry pavement. We did finally realize that it was aerodynamic, because over 60 mph it actually picked up off the pavement and gave us a break! This was REALLY going to be a long day!

In the middle of the 54 mile transit we were watching the fuel gauge start to drop precipitously. We’d been following ACP’s monster service crew trucks at speeds so slow it was jeopardizing our ability to get to the start control on time….and we were running out of effective usable fuel. We made the decision to stop at a gas station (allowed at this event as “emergency fuel”) and top off the tank. We put almost two gallons in. Yeah…I know….late to a control for two gallons. But better a couple of minutes late than dead in the water with a faulty pickup that won’t yield more than 5 gallons.

Fuel maximized we set out to try to make the start control with minimal time penalties. This is an obsession with me. It actually got Heath and I kicked out of the 100AW for trying to get to an MTC on time and speeding to do so. I HATE road points. I REFUSE to allow road points to enter my score card. Rallies are lost by co-drivers who get their teams road points. And this trip took some creative driving, although we were never more than 5 mph over the allowed speed (that’s the margin before an official will start awarding penalties). And we got some strange looks as this white Neon snow plow snarled past slower vehicles, but we made the ATC with about 1-1/2 minutes in hand. The South Mountain stage was long and noisy, but otherwise uneventful…..oh…except my intercom microphone finally failed and I had to yell over the car noise and the skid plate noise to give Eric the notes. It came back a bit for us on the next stage, but failed by the end. For the last stage we swapped helmets. Drivers don’t have anything useful to say at speed. They’re supposed to be concentrating! I offered to swap seats, and Eric actually offered, but that’s not what I was here for.

So the kid won the first two rallies he entered. He’s now a rock star! He’s already developed a nice flair with the Sharpies on adoring fan’s posters. He’s on a first name basis with Travis and Ken and Matthew and Andy. He does the post rally bar scene like a pro!

Do I think notes with a novice works? I’ll answer with a qualified ‘yes.’ Qualified because the current rule calls for 20 coefficients in the right seat. That’s not enough for the job I did this past weekend. Minimally that would be the Regionals associated with 4 National rallies…possibly less than a half a season.

Doing this with a beginner is 50% more difficult than jumping in with an experienced driver. With the experienced driver each can count on some basic understanding of each other’s roles…or at least have the language to sort them out. With the total novice (even a talented one like Eric and they all won’t be that competent off the shelf), the experienced co-driver takes the responsibility for the whole enchilada….like not using Jemba language to save the 2^nd off…..my bad.

Actually the thought of a part-time co-driver with 20 coefficients doing what I did last weekend scares the hell out of me. I’ve got a lot of years in this game (and many other forms of rally) and I didn’t get it all correct this weekend by a long shot. I’m sure there are others who would make better teachers. But they’re a Marc Goldfarb, or a Jimmy Brandt (oh, I'll pay for that one), or a Martin Headland, or a Doug Woods, or a Cindy Krolikowski, or a Keith Morison, or a Rob Bohm,..….not a sophomore with 20 coefficients.

Eric will recognize the full impact of his Red Mist Stage as he invests in band-aids and transplants to bring his Neon back up to fighting trim. But that won’t deter him. He’s hooked. You never forget your first.

A new temporary gig

Well, Heath's motor is not feeling well, so we're opting out of NEFR. Somehow he thinks we "scuffed" pistons at STPR. Not sure how that happens, but it certainly acted like it. Over heated, slumped quickly in power and finally expired.

Anyway, that aside for the time being and hoping it's all OK by Ojibwe, I got a call from Andrew Havas to see if I'd consider breaking a newbie, Eric Hansen. Eric, it seems has purchased Brian Goss's venerable Neon (I'm told 23 events and 21 finishes. No mechanical dnf's. Pretty impressive record!!). The Havas shop is upgrading the cage in this car (along with jumping in and helping rebuild one unfortunate MR2 from STPR AND crewing the Wilburn PGT effort) and tweaking some other stuff. A deal was struck and I'll be at NEFR in a P Neon and getting yet another youngster addicted to this sport.

Eric has rallycrossed and knows the physical dynamics of throwing a car around, and we'll be able to use notes since I have enough experience as a co-driver to qualify for that. So we will get the notes and run recce and start to understand how to communicate. This will be a great exercise for both of us. Eric, because he's never done this before and won't know what to expect. And me, because I'll be looking for confidence and maturity in a person who's been let loose on a road with no rules! Havas has me expecting to be pleased!!!!

I thoroughly enjoy the role of bringing new drivers up to speed. This is a game where often, then role of the co-driver with a new driver is underestimated. In many cultures, fathers take their sons to professional prostitutes so they can experience a quality "first experience". While many teams progress well from roommates to building a car to rallying together, most discover the rallying experience lacking. Not so when the newbie finds a veteran to "break him (or her) in." There will never be another "first time" and I intend for this on to be a memorable experience for Eric and one that snags his ass in this sport for a lifetime!

What's Big Brown and Nunnemonster RallySport got in common?

When Big Brown got out of the gate at the Belmont Stakes last weekend, the crowd was hoping for the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

When the Nunnemonster team set off on the stages at STPR last weekend to avenge their “issues” at 100AW, the team was hoping for some real good seat time, flashes of brilliance (from both sides of the car) and even a possible PGT podium since Stephan Verdier was not in attendance.

Thursday recce went well and Heath and I got a lot of good data into the notes for us to use. We were introduced to the new stage at STPR, Waste Management I (and it’s turn around evil twin, Waste Management II). For 9+ miles this stage has everything. Some of the tightest twistiest roughest stuff since Echo Lake on LSPR (picture first gear RallyCross stuff) high speed smooth stuff (rev limiter in 5^th), high speed rutted stuff (throwing your car every which way), jumps (which we chose not to jump and for good reason….cars dnf’d on these jumps!).

Thursday night we took the 686 car out to the shakedown stage and discovered we had a nicely running normally aspirated rally car. For some reason the turbo decided to take a holiday. Back in town we consulted a few local Subie geniuses and got the whole thing worked out. We would start with plenty of boost.

On Friday morning, while we were set up in the service area at the Fairgrounds, Heidi Niday (JB’s wife and a steward at this event) approached me to see if I knew of any co-drivers available. Seems Don Conley’s Co-driver flunked a breathalyzer test at the Novice School and they threw him out. Well now….It also seems that Heath’s Mom has about 8 or 9 “notes” events under her belt, so the hookup was made. Oh….a true co-driver, Heidi (Nunnemacher, not Niday) showed up with helmet and suit so she was ready to go!!! I LOVE IT when things fall into place!

Our pass on Waste Management I was less than stellar, but we were one of a very few cars not changing a tire in the turnaround. We discussed why the relatively slow time and decided we had not attacked the slow stuff hard enough. In 15 mph competitive sections, 18 mph is a 20% increase…or 12 seconds per mile….so we had to take the slow stuff more seriously. It’s a math/co-driver thing, but it’s real. Getting an extra mile per hour at 15 MPH is much more critical than getting it at 115 MPH. On Waste Management II (WM I in reverse) we turned a very respectable time and boosted our finishing position 10 slots. Felt good.

Then on to the Fairgrounds and the Subaru Spectator Stage. This was actually kinda fun. A walk through revealed the surface (which was on land fill) was strewn with all kinds of metal chards, but they never seemed to cause a problem. The rally ended up running this twice and I only remember seeing one flat. We actually turned the fastest PGT time on this stage. Unfortunately the Conley/Nunnemacher car discovered some weak linkage issues with their G2 VW and dnf’d the stage, but the rules allowed for that and they were only penalized 1:00 and allowed to restart the next morning.

So home to bed and up for the Parc Exposé on the square in Wellsboro the next AM.

There was a little excitement as Crew Chief Chris Lowe was forced into the Parc Exposé by an official before we had an opportunity to refuel. So a quick chat with steward Steve Gingras got us the opportunity to fuel on the way out of town at Crew member John King’s abandoned gas station…worked out well. But having killed 5-6 minutes refueling, we had to scoot to get to the next stage, the iconic Asaph stage with the great R2+ over bridge with 1000’s of spectators. We made it there with time to spare, but as we checked in it was obvious there was a “hold-up”. Seems Pastrana had turned his new ’08 STi into a VW Beetle about 4 miles in and a red cross had been (justifiably, since his co-driver, Derek Ringer had been hurt and needed medical attention) thrown. So we transit Asaph. RATS!

Now here’s where Big Brown comes in. We started the next stage all full of piss and vinegar. Heath was driving quite aggressively and I was on the notes….and about 3 miles in the car just started to “back down”, Big Brown style. By 4.8 miles we pulled it off to the side with very little power, LOTS of temperature, and she finally died. Fortunately Big Brown didn’t die, but the 686 car certainly did.

The Conley/Nunnemacher G2 car, however did finish and took second in G2.....great run!!! They ran the final Subaru Spectator Stage in true "Never-Say-Die" fashion unable to get the car into any gear but 4th!!!!!!

So that’s the story. I know. That’s racing. But I want the world to see what a talented young driver Heath is. We kicked some PGT ass at 100AW and were set to repeat here.

The prognosis on the engine is, at this printing, unknown. So NEFR is a maybe. Ojibwe will be the next certain event for Nunnemonster RallySport.

Many thanks go to a marvelous crew....Chris, Karen, John, Eric, Nick, and Heidi even 'tho she ended up co-driving for someone else. I'm sure that was a helluva lot more fun than bumming around service and cooking burgers!!!!

Lots of car parts!

Oergon Trail '08 should go down as the rally of the decade.....for attrition! Cars littered the hillsides of rural Oregon all day Saturday and Sunday. After running a handful of Mickey Mouse stages at Portland International Raceway Friday night and yet another in Hillsboro Saturday morning, we went out west to run some proper stages.

In the first 10 miler we saw 5 sets of triangles and drivers and co-drivers with OK signs. But no cars. The cars were all so far down the mountains they weren't visible at road level! Then into service at the Vernonia School and back out to a nice 16 miler....3 more off. In two stages we'd lost over 1/3 of the cars in front of us!

Dmitri drove a fast but cautious rally. Our times (when everybody was running) were in the 13th -15th spot among all the cars running (both National and Regional). We had a real battle going with Dave and Rick Hintz (local NW Rally heroes) for the overall win of the first Regional.
But by the time the day had ended, They'd broken a header and we'd lost a turbo pipe so we both dnf'd! SubieGal Jamie Thomas (I co-drove for her at the rain shortened Wild West in '06) inherited the Regional win in her PGT WRX Wagon. Great drive!

A similar story benefited Pat Moro over the weekend. Piotr Wiktorczyk had rented a PGT Subie from Cascade Autosport (the same guys who'd worked on Dmitri's car between Olympus and here) to challenge Stephan Verdier and Scott Crouch in PGT. Before the sun set Sunday, both Piotr and Stephan had gone off and dnf'd and Moro inherited the PGT win.


But close on his heels all weekend were the husband and wife team of Nate and Brandye Conley. While not setting blistering paces all weekend, their stage times were frequently in the top 10 which left them a position to inherit whatever anyone wanted to give them. Wiktorczyk and Verdier went off late. Add to that Norm LeBlanc flying off on the penultimate stage and Travis Hanson had gone off on Saturday. Jamie Thomas was only running the regionals, so PGT left the Conley's some real opportunities for points. And they took them. AND fifth overall! CONGRATS!


So next on the Hemispheric calendar is Rocky....in Alberta, CA. There are a LOT of cars withdrawing from that event this week!

Oh...and how cool is it that two of the podium cars are Mitsubishi's!!!!!

Off to STPR, but first a little diversion to the UK to see my daughter, Mindy, her husband Chris, and our rally buddies in the West Midlands!

Once more into the brink!!!

So Dmitri left the car with Cascade Autosport near Seattle after Olympus for some well deserved R&R. There I understand she received some gusseting in the rear suspension and a left front wheel that was actually properly located (thus allowing Dmitri to drive in a straight line!). Also she received new knees (rebuilt suspension struts) and had her internals examined (drive train found to be in excellent condition.....a phenomenon the Subaru guys wish they had...Mitsu drive trains are BULLET-PROOF).

So we'll meet at the Holiday Inn Express in Hillsboro, OR Thursday and start to figure out how to keep up with the Hintz Brothers (local regional experts at this) to try to get Dmitri some additional regional points. Chasing National Points with the likes of Block, Pa$trana, Pinker, Foust, Johnson, etc., etc., etc., is not worth the head games it plays on you.

Oregon is one of those irritating events that just eats up days. We have to be at Portland International Raceway (45 minutes from our motels) to run about 7 2/3 miles of stages between 7 and 9PM Friday night. Then we race all day Saturday. Then we race all day Sunday....so we get a lot of miles, but we also use a lot of motel nights. And those of us who live East of Oregon (and who doesn't) most likely will not fly out 'til Monday morning. But that's OK, too, 'cuz the party these guys throw at McMenamin's micro brewery is about the best in the business (although prime rib at Olympus last month was pretty awesome, too!).

Current entry list shows 60 cars entered and we're 22nd on the road....about where we started Olympus. But I'm looking for good things from Dmitri out here. He got real comfortable with the car and me and his driving as we ended up in Pomeroy last month....stage speeds were improving exponentially. And we're seeded in among some friends of ours George Georgakapolous in front and the Conleys right behind, so we're gonna have some good ol' fashioned mountain side racing fun!




Oh. I have a checkered record here. In '04, Dennis Martin and I fell off the mountain (literally)









Then in '06, Matthew Johnson and I won PGT out here.

And last year Justin and I tried a Formula Ford line through a crowned road L4-> that didn't quite work as planned. And that was after ripping off suspension parts and a rear bumper at PIR and then the next day running 15 stage miles with nothing but 5th gear and Matthew's crew and Otis's guys completely rebuilding the car in the basement of the Holiday Inn Express to the sound of many languages and some really esoteric music. The scene reminded me somewhat of Apocalypse Now!