Our goal for the second day was to increase the pace, up until the point where we start having oh crap moments on stage, and then back it down a hair so we finish. The stages were very technical and demanded that John stay on track with note calling. After running the car for seven stages on Friday I had a good understanding on how the car was handling, so for Saturday I really wanted to work on visualizing the notes more in my head to help set up the car earlier before the turns.
The first and second stages went by quickly and we had no issues other than stopping on the second stage to see if Bushore needed a tug. He asked to be towed out all the way, but we had to leave him there since I was afraid of overheating the car. We came into service, checked the car over, tightened a few rear spring plate bolts and fueled up the car.
On SS4 there was a downhill section that got very busy and caught me off guard. John called “Right 4 tightens 2″ and when I heard the “tightens 2″ I was a bit on the outside trying to setup for a right 4 and had to get hard on the brakes so I wouldn’t put the car into the ditch on the outside. We barely came to a stop before the ditch and so I cranked the wheel over, hit the gas and away we went. I told John to call the note earlier on the next run through so I could get the car slowed down in time to make the turn. We came into our second service and noticed the UNI pre-filters on the dual Webers were getting a bit dirty so we swapped them out for fresh ones. Terec made some air pressure adjustments to the tires and dumped some more gas into the tank. John made a couple tasty sandwiches and we were refreshed to attack the next three stages.
SS5 & SS6 went well and I shaved even more time off my last two stages. SS7 (Helvetia in a handbasket) was a short stage that climbed steeply through the forest with a bunch of crests and blind turns. I was more comfortable with the slower turns but I still had problems trusting the notes for a few of the blind 5s & 6s. I usually kept the car wide open in 4th gear for most all 5s & 6s but for some reason I was lifting for the blind ones. I attribute this to my immense urge to finish. At the FTC we saw Doug and Abby and they gave us some encouragement to press on. After a short transit we met T-Rex at the remote Turkey Bone service, checked the car over and found no problems.
We repeated Helvetia (SS8) and dropped a full ten seconds from the first running. However, on stage I was having problems with downshifting the car from 3rd to 2nd. I could get it into gear if I rev matched perfectly but would grind the synchro otherwise. However, I had no issues shifting from 1st into 2nd or from 3rd into 1st. We had a long transit to SS9 (Turkey Bone) and when we got to the ATC all of the cars were waiting. After a 20min. delay, we ran what I now consider a freakin’ awesome stage. It was fast, flowing, wide and tons of fun. It was amazing to hear the engine going flat out at the top of 4th gear over 6000 rpm. The sound inside the car was a symphony of gravel spray, gear whine, exhaust notes, and snorts & pops from the dual Webers, for 6.6 astonishing miles.
The next stage (Field and Stream) had to be transited and we went straight back to service. Terec found a trashed right rear bump stop and made a quick fix to keep brake line from getting damaged if we lost the bump stop completely. We were notified from the organizers that they were canceling Stream & Field and that the last stage would be the reverse running of Turkey Bone. In reverse the stage is mainly uphill, so I was taking all of the 5s & 6s flat out. About mid way thru there is a spectator location at a left 4, so before the turn I quickly downshifted into 3rd and kept the gas pedal floored all the way to redline into 4th gear. Wow was that a blast. John and I finished the stage all smiles and congratulated each other on a successful rally.
We would like to thank Terec for his help in service, our Dad for his help pre-event, Mike Houser for loaning us his trailer, Kim DeMotte & Dennis Martin for loaning us their helmets & HANS, and thanks to Justin Pritchard, Josh Wimpey & Jason Grahn for all of their advise and words of encouragement. Also, thanks to all of the volunteers and staff that put on such an enjoyable event.
:-D <John>
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