The Wishbone Alley Gazette
May, 2003
Rally News
Raindrop 2003-by Ron
Sorem.
Rainier Auto Sports Club and
Rally Master Steve Willey put on another wonderful daylight run through western Washington. Maybe it was just a day of
sunshine after a week of drizzle...
My regular navigator (Max)
said last month that he thought he'd be too jet-lagged from Europe. I contacted
Tom Palidar to serve as a stand-in. His first jibe was as to whether we
could run in the geezer class. ("Ask Satch", he said)
At the start, Tom and I
compared notes with Gary Reid and Steve Richards (another pair of old-timers)
and determined Vintage had to include the driver's ages as well! Gary took it
one step further and claimed the age of the car had to enter the
equation. They totaled 154 with a 38-year old 1965 MGB, versus our 1988
Integra, and so unofficially were the Geezer Winners (154 VS our 116).
Tom and I have lots of rally
years as SOPers separately; this would be our first rally together. To
top it off, he had basically only "seen" the Alfa we were to use. I
have watched in great interest as Max massages the buttons, but usually my
"paying attention to the road" is more in our best interest! As
a result, aside from both Tom and I reading separate manuals, we would be on a
very steep learning curve for "Unlimited" on Raindrop.
We leave the start and for
some reason the Alfa is not behaving quite right- something about being in
"Park". No problem, let's go back to the start and get it
right. All is well; the odo is coming up fairly close. Some marks
are long; some are short- Let's see, "What was this measured
in?" Ah, that might do it, different configuration- At the end
of the Odo check, our mileage is not good enough and we have the Alfa calculate
a new factor. (Just to double check, we manually compute a new
factor. Now we have two factors to play with!) We are off and running
through Bonney Lake.
Instruction 5, R at Stop,
Pause 12 : I'm showing something like 14 late on my display, "Wait,
that's 14 minutes late- in 0.32 miles? " This should be good! I
fall into SOP mode while Tom tries to figure out what the *!@#$ went wrong. I run through a couple miles
of instructions and ignore another pause, while waiting for cross
traffic. Car 2 hasn't caught up so we aren't too late yet (only at the
finish did we find that car 2 didn't start!). Tom thinks we're early and
demands I stop so he can play with the Alfa, so being an obedient driver I
stopped- For a little bit.
I'm thinking massive lateness
so off we go. There's the first control, "Oh well, I guess we'll
find out later". As we close out the Section, the rallymaster is behind us. To clear the
intersection, I go straight and park- the rallymaster honks and turns left.
OK, we've found some of the problems and have reset, so here we go again, back
to the course and into Buckley Transit.
Transit over, Tom is trying
to figure out the pause, but as we would find later the buttons are sensitive
and "enter" didn't Enter. I SOP the pause, get into traffic and
dive off the highway at the end of the free zone to find a control crew (?) not
ready for rally traffic. We've decided to run the 12-second pause as a 12
extra on the clock- or should that have been 12 less than the clock??
This debate went on for a while, past Mr. Nolte's control and up to the Section
end at Mud Mountain Dam.
Rallymaster Steve Willey is
waiting, shakes a finger (index) at us, and leaves. As we turn around in
the park, reset odo, reset clock, Steve comes back. "I guess I don't
even want to know about how many time-decs you guys have planned
already." We all chuckle; Tom starts looking for the
time-declaration sheets.
Neither of us are time-dec
masters, but we needed to do something about this Section! We decided
that the "running 12 difference" on the clock had actually been in
the wrong direction so we were 24 off-time for a time-dec of 30 seconds,
right? (Except, I had been early, the 12 pause put us closer to on time, and
the time-dec scored us late. No wonder we kept catching the pace car! )
Enumclaw brought some clarity
for our crew- We found the "enter" button quirk: "Push it
harder, Tom!" We decided to reset the calculated time readout every
Section time, instead of adding seconds here and there. We have found our
rhythm- if the factors are right. Mileages began coming up dead-on, and
so, times apparently got better, too. Back into Buckley and an apparent
typo in the instructions. "Cast 22 for .01, Right, Cast
23". Just for reference .01 is 52.8 feet. The distance was
closer to .001 or 5.28 feet!
Toward Wilkeson and then
South Prairie. toward Orting and into the Fish Hatchery. Everyone
found the Route Control, right? South of Orting to end the Section, then
debate whether to use the optional "gravel" or the "paved"
portions of the next Section. We chose gravel. However the debate took a
little too long, and we "psyched" the other competitors in the
parking lot by leaving about 30 down! The result being off about 10 at the
CP before the gravel. We are on time through the section; regain the main
paved road, and later wave at the CP just before Kapowsin Highway. We
show on-time at the end of Section a quarter mile later, and the miles are spot
on.
A neat little Section through
Ohop Valley, past the Pioneer Farm, and then the beginning of the Silver Lake
Monte. This Rally Transit Zone (RTZ) was 15:30 with locals and some
twisty roads thrown in, but no CP at the end.
While debating the merits of
"no CP", I find that the Cast is getting hard to keep, with traffic
and stop signs. The route book said this would be the last chance to
accumulate points. I was hoping we would not validate this prophecy and
fortunately we didn't. A zero is a nice way to end a rally, don't you
think?
A word to future Car #1
crews: Tom had called Friday night and asked what it would take for an old
friend to get another old friend really disgusted at
him. "Well, I don't know Tom, probably pretty hard to
do." "What if I told you we were Car #1?" Tom had
specifically requested that I not get a number under 12.
Tom has been burned
several times as first car and is unusually adamant about "waking up
control crews". At the finish, we knew we'd taken several points
with the computer problems, so we didn't pay too much attention to
scoring. The Kapowsin control had missed us! This defaulted in
the scoring computer to a max! The scoring was remedied, without changing the
final award results, but OUR feelings are a lot better.
Just so rally novices don't think
that only computers will win events, take note: First Overall, with 12
(!), was accomplished in Vintage (the Geezers), with a Halda mechanical odo and
a Curta calculator. (Now you'll think you have to be a geezer…) But- 2nd
O'all (Unlimited) had 15 points, 3rd O'all (Unlimited) had 28, then Fourth
Overall a SOP team with 31 points for the day. There's hope!
See ya on the road.
-----------------------------------------------------
Stats: 43 cars: 5 UnL,5
Equ,16 SOP,14 Novices, 3 Vintage. 10 CP's scored in 7 Sections.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Rally New Zealand Trip -By
Jim Hogan
Late last year I got a ticket
to New Zealand just to burn up some United miles, but I wasn't sure I would
go. When Lucent officially laid me off
on March 27th -- call it denial! -- it seemed like the only logical thing to do
was to take a vacation!
I left April 5th and went to
Auckland via LAX on United and Air New Zealand, arriving early AM on the 7th
(that whole date line thing...). I drank
coffee for a few hours to avoid Auckland rush hour (such as it is!) and to
prepare for my first experience of driving on the left. Avis gave me a Honda Accord, a bit bigger
than what I asked for, but I figured that could come in handy for sleeping on
the stages, and it was all they had left with an automatic (no way was I going
to deal with RHD *and* a stick).
I was quite fortunate in that
I had previously hooked up with a gent, Greg Nikoloff, in Auckland via a techie
BBS. He and his wife, Nico, offered to
put me up and I stayed with them the night I arrived and the 2 nights before I
left. That was fun. Very nice folks who were a wellspring of
information about New Zealand and I got to sample some of the local Thai and
Italian food with them.
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday
touring the east/Pacific coast of the North Island and then headed up to the
"Northlands" where Friday/Saturday stages would take place. Rally New Zealand now charges modest fees to
spectators, and I decided on arrival just to buy a "whole rally"
pass.
This came with a logo tote
bag and a nice color program. The
program had great little mini-maps of all stages and access roads that made
finding my way around a breeze. Some of
the roads were closed on Thursday for recce, but I managed to drive pretty much
the whole Brooks stage and Parahi stage in the Accord. Great roads.
Really interesting alternating cambers!
Amazingly, I found a motel
room Thursday night in Dargaville, just a bit north of Paparoa where the
Friday/ Saturday Service Park was situated.
The rest of the rooms in my motel were taken by a couple of New Zealand
teams, and Ford had taken the entire motel across the street. I got up extra, extra early on Friday to
return a phone call from a Seattle recruiter before heading into the woods, so
I was parked on the stage ahead of most anybody else. Like a lot of WRC events, New Zealand ran
many stages twice. Also, the program
showed two types of spectator points: "Prime" spectator points
-numbered spots with easier access and little corresponding maps/diagrams in
the program and "tier 2" spots which were indicated on the map, but
which looked like they would be harder for day-trippers to get to. I decided to go to these tier 2 spots and was
able to get to two different spots on Friday on the Brooks SS3 and SS8. It was a good decision -- good spots but not
crowded at all. A sudden bit of rain as
the first cars came around our corner on SS3, but that was the *only* inclement
weather I experienced in the whole trip!
Perhaps due to the rain,
Patrick Richard went off on SS3 (somewhere before the corner where I stood, I
think; I'll have to check my video for car #76!).
Sans hotel room, I took my
sleeping bag and camped out Friday night near a spectator point on the Parahi
stage with access to SS10+13. The designated, fenced-in spectator point on SS10
was interesting enough, but by the afternoon I was restless. Along with a fair number of locals, I
"went bush" and shagged along a tree line and through a pasture to
come up by a corner where a farmer's water tank stood. I gather that the very restricted spectator
areas this year are due to some spectator injuries last year, but I'd say about
10 percent of spectators broke the rules and walked through the woods; marshals
for the most part left renegades alone.
We laid low by the water tank
as the sweep cars came through and as RNZ's little 2-seater safety chopper made
its final pass.
We stood behind a gate next
to the water tank, ready to dive behind the tank if needed. First car through was Francois Duval in the
new Focus and he cut a nice line through the corner. As I watched him exit I felt
"Whack!" on my forehead and knew I had been seriously beaned by a
good-sized road rock. No loss of
consciousness or anything, but I took off my hat and about 4 of the Kiwis said
in unison "Mate, you are bleeding!"
Which I was. Quite profusely. I
shook my fist at the Focus and yelled "Duval! I'm from the U.S.! You'll hear from my lawyer!" That got a laugh. We all agreed that tiny little face/head cuts
bleed like a stuck pig. One of the gents
loaned me his small supply of tissue, I applied pressure, and it all came to a
stop in a few minutes. Just a little
half-inch cut, with maybe a very small depressed fracture. Nothing to write home about (just one more
dent!).
As we anticipated Gronholm's
approach on SS13, we heard his engine around a bend and then heard it cut out
and we knew something was up. We saw 2
"renegades" run just out of sight around that corner and then Gronholm
appeared, 30 seconds late. Gronholm had
flipped up on the passenger side on a corner that was at least a kilometer from
any official spectator position. I heard
him grouse on TV later that "It took a while. Spectators here are not so professional....". Marcus, if it weren't for a few
"illegals" on the stage, you would have dropped to 6th!
I got to drive the Accord out
through the rest of Parahi and Ararua (SS14) and, while a bit rutted, it was
fun.
What is the most significant
thing I can say about Rally New Zealand?
Not crowded!! No traffic to speak
of as I drove the Accord down the track.
There *were* highway cops all
over the place around Paparoa, so I was definitely not surprised when I read
about Makinnen's radar gun bust in the Auckland newspaper. Oh, Tommi, don't give the nice policeman the
finger!!
I had decided that I wouldn't
drive south on Sunday for the stages but would stop in Auckland and hang out
with Greg and Nico instead...maybe go watch the finish at the Manukau
stadium. With time on my hands I decided
to take the more scenic route back into Auckland along Route 16 and this was
also the rally route. As I turned onto
16 in Wellsford I fell in behind Didier Auriol in his Skoda and did my best to
keep the Accord in line on its squishy suspension (oddly better on gravel!)
until we came up behind a slow, lumbering farm tractor and cart. Auriol easily passed in a spot where I
wouldn't trust the Honda and disappeared into the distance.
A few minutes later I saw a
Citroen in the rear view leap-frogging up the line until he was right behind
me. Sainz or Loeb? (McRae was long
gone), I could not tell, but I started thinking about finding a place to turn
on my blinker and edge over just as we entered an uphill, fairly tight right
curve. I thought, "no way
here!" and at that moment the Xsara was directly alongside.... [pause here to note that this was perhaps a
stupider move than the *stupidest* move I have ever made in a motor
vehicle...made me feel better about my driving history!]
...I let off the gas just in
time to see a mid-sized stake-bed truck emerge from behind the trees zooming
downhill in the other direction. I hit
the brakes, the truck hit his brakes, and the Citroen missed the truck by about
2 feet and the front of the Honda by about 9 inches!
At that point I could only
see the shrinking tail of the Citroen and still wondered who was behind the
wheel, but about 2-3 miles later I spotted a rest area and stopped to clean
some trash out of the car. As I went to
pull back out onto 16, I saw the other Citroen roll by: Loeb/Elena.
Carlos, J'Accuse!
We spent Sunday having brunch
and taking a ferry ride across the harbor and later watched the local coverage
on TV. Not many changes, except that
Martin and Rovanpera had both retired on SS14 late Saturday. Of interest, and I didn't hear this mentioned
on the Speed Channel coverage, Gronholm was the beneficiary of a rock in his
windshield on the last stage thrown by a spectator, it seems. That made a front-page story in Monday's New
Zealand Herald, with rally officials indignantly promising to "invite
Donald Rumsfeld to North Island to strategize on how the offender could be
tracked down and liquidated".
Observations:
- If you happen to have a
spare helicopter, this is the place! There
were lots of them about. Just land in
any handy paddock and walk to the fence to watch the rally go by.
- As places to make the first
attempt at driving on the left, this had to be the easier. Not too much traffic, pretty civil drivers.
- Kiwis I met were very nice,
intensely interested in the sport and also very, repeatedly curious about
whether rallying was increasing in popularity here.
-There were 86 starters. Not
all were Subaru's - there were 44 Mitsu's, (EVO's 4 up to 7). One Peugeot 106
and one Daihatsu Charade GTI, all alone in group A6!
- I chatted with several of
the marshals, some of whom were completely new to rallying, but who came as
part of a club or group. Even with some of that, it all seemed very well
run. The people in charge of the groups
seemed to be working with very detailed instructions about where to set
barriers and signage, how to deploy marshals, etc.
-The guide maps I used were
included in the program, which was published by a NZ autosport magazine.
Very slick and worth the $15
NZ.
-Tommi: New Zealand Herald headline read "Police
Radar Nets Flying Finn". The fine:
$NZ17,950 ($US9,800!), and he got to stay in New Zealand for a court appearance
on Monday up north in Whangarei!
* Heart of Darkness,
4/27-28, British Columbia. 14 entrants, 6 of them Novices. Fouse/Wende won.
Good roads, scoring went cleanly. Weather was good, too.
* No Alibi
coming up May 31st/ June 1st. Things are coming along well with the
organization of the rally. We have 17 entries so far. The start location at the
Family Pancake House and Best Western Summit Inn (Snoqualmie Pass) are awaiting
our arrival.
The Best Western Ramada Inn in Ephrata is just
about filled up for Saturday night, but there is alternate hotel accommodations
available. Saturday's dinner at the Country Deli restaurant is all set up and
our guest speaker for Saturday night dinner will be Gary Reid.
Saturday's route is complete and is looking to
be a long day, but full of great roads and beautiful scenery. Sunday's route is
progressing along and I have been waiting for the snow to melt off of a
particular road on Blewett Pass. Roy and I have been up there the past 2
weekends trying to get through and each weekend we get further and further into
the section only to find the road covered with just enough snow to make it
unmeasurable. If the weather holds up, it should be ready to be measured soon.
Check out is May 17th. If
anyone, not entered in the rally (!), wants to participate in the checkout, or
would like to come out and work the rally, give me a call, we can always use
the help. Look forward to seeing everyone there. -Kirk Simons (425) 806-1741
* Shitepoke/Dryad Quest,
June 7/8. Stage rallying resumes with back-to-back Club Rallys. RASC has once again been asked to man stages.
On Saturday, we get the first
one, since it runs at 10:20, close to Hwy 101.
Then pick up and move towrd Matlock for a 6 miler at 2:30.
Sunday is a variation (yet
another!) of Taylor Hill- a little more than 8 miles. It's set to run at 12:20,
and again at 3:20. It'll probably need 6
Road Guards, and those may be very, uh, picturesque. E-mail Nolte if you can
volunteer for either, or both, days.
Since its almost a certainty
that most of the RASC folks can't make it to Saturday's morning stage at that
early hour, we'll take anyone we can get.
* Cherokee Trails
International Rally, which was scheduled to take place between May 15-17th,
is postponed. A new date in September is expected to be announced in due
course.
* Friday Niters: They have started building a
parking garage at the site of our usual start location on Eastgate Way. Most of
the lot is fenced off. A new park & ride lot is now open. It is 0.50 miles
WEST of the old start location, on Eastgate Way. The May Friday Nighter will
start from the new P & R.
* Alcan: Entries at 18 for winter, plus
2 to 4 from Subaru, plus a fairly exciting press entry that's
still a secret.
Trivia
* Goran Ostlund works for Boeing- but in
Europe. This arrived:
"My son,
Hans Kristian Erik Ostlund (will go by Erik) was born in Stockholm on Palm
Sunday, April 13th at 5:14 PM. Both
mother (Salme) and baby are healthy and doing well. Erik weighed in at 6.75 lbs. and is 20 inches
long and is now gaining weight, and size, like gangbusters. He has a healthy appetite to say the least
and is keeping both mom and dad jumping.
"Also, Salme and I are
getting married on June 21st in Stockholm and will be combining the wedding
with the christening of our son. Salme
is Finnish by birth so maybe Rally is already in Erik's blood; he seems to
enjoy riding in my bright red Audi S3 Quattro promptly fitted with a Britax
Baby Rally? Seat."
* The white 525ix belongs to
Kirk Simons.
* E-mail to share with RASC:
"The 1st checkpoint for
the Raindrop Rally was outside my yard (230th & Old Sumner/Buckley Hwy)
yesterday.
"I wish I had known, I
would have invited the guys to use my yard if needed, or at least I would have
given them a civil welcome.
"I was unaware of the
event. After the guy explained what was going on, & I convinced myself that
this was indeed a legitimate run, I found myself enjoying the passing cars.
You'll have to excuse my apprehensiveness, but when a decaled black sports car
sits in front of my house for 1/2
hr, then a kid with blue hair zooms up, opens his trunk for
something, then zips off down the highway, well, it's about enough to...
"Anyways, please pass
this along to the guys who were stationed outside my house. Next time, I'll
offer some coffee instead of ignorant questions:) Speaking of next time, if
there's ever another run through this area, let me know if you need anything.
Bathroom, coffee, observation space (so you don't have to park on the street,)
whatever,
let me know.
Happy Motoring, Dave Guinn
Buckley, WA
p.s., I enjoyed your web site
& learned a great deal. Thanks."
FOR
SALE / Wanted:
* Lucas' 1994 Ford Explorer XLT is for
sale. It's a 4WD 4-door with brand new
automatic trans & brakes, looks & runs great. Factory alloy wheels, tow package, tinted glass $3950 (May special price), J. Hines 425-823-6343.
* '79 Plymouth
Arrow (see description in April WAG- Ed)
No reasonable offer refused. Ed Storer, 206-282-3145; edstorer@attbi.com
* Future Classic:
TSD rally-ready 1983 Audi Turbo Quattro Coupe.
Mars red. 170K miles. Lots of goodies,
well maintained by owner (retired mechanic) $
7,500.00). E-mail Peter Linde at pjnconn@yahoo.com.
RASC Calendar---------------------------
•June
21st is the Madison House Retirement Community's 25th Anniversary celebration.
From 11AM to 3 PM, they'll have a classic car show, Barbecue, and live
entertainment. If you have a car you'd like to display, call Marianne Holman at
425-821-8210. Madison House is at 12215 NE 128th St, Kirkland, next to
Evergreen Hospital. (They've hinted that they'd like a rally car on display).
• Call the NWRC
Hotline (206) 256-9627 for latest info on Puget Sound TSD events. NWRC Friday Niters start at the Eastgate (Bellevue)
Park and Ride. Reg opens at 6:45, FCO 7:31.
NW Rallys- TSD & stage
- May 9-Friday Nighter (ORCA)
- May 16- Friday
Nighter (Cascade/Portland)
- May 31-June 1 - No Alibi, RASC (eastern Washington)
- June
7- Dryad Quest, Shelton, WA
- June
8- Shitepoke, Shelton, WA
- June
7/8 - Susquehannock, PRO-Rally
- June 13-Friday
Nighter (ORCA)
- June 13-14 -
Pacific Forest Rally (stage), Merritt, B.C.
- June 20-Friday
Nighter (Cascade/Portland)
- June 28-29 -
Coast to Coast, Vancouver Isl., B.C.
- July 11 - Friday
Nighter (NWRC)
- July
12- Oregon Trail, Hillsboro, OR
- July
13- Trail's End. Hillsboro, OR
- July 18 - Friday
Nighter (Cascade/Portland)
- July 19-20 Gold Digger,TSD, Pemberton, B.C.
- July 20 -
Mountains to the Sea, Cascade SCC, Portland
- Aug
2 ORV Rallysprint I, McCleary, WA
- Aug
3- ORV Rallysprint II, McCleary, WA
- Aug
2-3 Maine Forest PRO-Rally
- Aug 8 - Friday
Nighter (ORCA)
- August 9-10 - The
Road Not Taken (SCCA Nat'l) Grand Ronde, OR.
- Aug 15 - Friday
Nighter (Cascade/Portland)
- Sept
6- Sou'Wester, Olympia, WA
- Sept
7- Simpson Stages, Shelton, WA
- Sept 12 - Friday Nighter (RASC)
- Sept. 19 - Friday
Niter (Cascade/Portland)
- Sept.
26-27 Mountain Trials (stage), Merritt,
B.C.
- Oct. 4 - Night on
Bald Mountain (ORCA)
- Oct 10 - Friday
Nighter (Torque Steerers)
- Oct. 17-18 - SCCA
National TSD championship, Portland, OR
- Oct 25-26 -
Midnite Rally,TSD, Victoria, B.C.
- Nov. 1 -
Armageddon, Chuckanut, Bellingham
- Nov. 15-16 Totem
TSD, Cache Creek, B.C.
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