SOLO2.ORG Ultimate Autocross

To be continued...

Ummm....we're waiting here...!

:)

DaveW

Too much of a wimp to Rally myself, so I live through Jeff.

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www.solotime.com
www.sccagear.com

DaveW:

To be continued...

Too much of a wimp to Rally myself, so I live through Jeff.

You need to rally the Mustang.  Mark Utecht brought his 1988 Stang with a 5.0 in it.  It kicked ass... well... for a Ford any way. 

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STLRallyx.org / 321GoVideo.com / 100AW.org
St. Louis, MO - 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi - COBB ProTune Stg2
2 Samuel 3:21 "I'm ready. Let me go now to rally..."

You need to rally the Mustang.  Mark Utecht brought his 1988 Stang with a 5.0 in it.  It kicked ass... well... for a Ford any way. 

I have 2 3/4" of ground clearance, is that enough? :)

DaveW

Still a wimp

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www.solotime.com
www.sccagear.com

2 3/4"  hmm... yep that's plenty.

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STLRallyx.org / 321GoVideo.com / 100AW.org
St. Louis, MO - 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi - COBB ProTune Stg2
2 Samuel 3:21 "I'm ready. Let me go now to rally..."

this is great Jeff, looking forward to the next installment!

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Smart Ass.. All Day.. All The Time

Prometheus6krpm:

You need to rally the Mustang.  Mark Utecht brought his 1988 Stang with a 5.0 in it.  It kicked ass... well... for a Ford any way. 

i'm pretty sure its more than 5.0L, or at least it was when Hurst still owned it.

Sorry for the delay, Dave, I have been trying to get *a little* work done today

Now, back to the story.  I realized I'd left out a couple important details.  After the test stage on Thursday, the bushing that centers the steering column in the firewall decided rally wasn't for it and vanished.  Completely gone.  Luckily, a few hose clamps to the chassis and the wheel was just as secure.  During the first couple of stages of Friday, Heath had continued to be frustrated by the rally computer.  It would creep along even when we were stopped, and every time he would get close on the correction factor, it would change.  Then, before the start of SS3, we did a little test.  Stuck it in neutral, and reved the motor.  Man, watch those miles fly by!  It seems we probably spliced into the tac lead rather than the speedo.  As such, we ran the first loop of stages mostly using the stock odo, which worked, but not well.  This was fixed quickly at the long service.

Other things went on at this service too.  I ran inside the school to use the bathroom, only to return and find out that I'd broken the RF ball joint.  James ran over to the Subaru Parts Truck (Thank You SoA!!!) and picked up a replacement.  They then went to town and swapped it out in about 10 minutes.  They also gave the car a good once-over, and everything, minus the side skirt and ball joint, were in good shape.  That was a big relief after my previous shunt.  James also enjoyed the broken ball joint, since he engineers them, and seemed quite impressed at my ablity to break things.  The last thing we did was throw on the light bar as the sun was setting.

After service, it was another run down the Haul Road for SS5, this time in the dark.  Unfortunately, it seems my lights had shifted since I'd had them on the car previously, and did a fantastic job of illuminating the ground.  I kept my foot in it over the rough stuff better, but I braked earlier for the chicanes, since I couldn't see them until we were on them.  As a result, I was 2 sec slower, but it was still one of my best overall stage times.  Most importantly, the rally computer was actually working now!

Once again, we headed back to Viburnum for another quick tire-changing service, and went back north to run Ollie Coleman and Camel's Hump again.

I ran almost the same time on the second run-through of Ollie Coleman (SS6 vs 2), but its inaccurate.  I kept my foot in it much more, and got way more air over the big jump, enough to ride on the skidplate on the landing and hope nothing broke.  I also successfully navigated that cattleguard .  The dust, however, was abominable.  I presume the same amount was in the air as during the day, but the pencil beams just scattered off it horribly.  There were times where I had to lift just because I couldn't see more than a car length or two ahead.  This is one place notes would have really helped.  Numerous times throughout the rally, I'd find myself in a dust cloud, be forced to lift, only to have it clear and find myself in the middle of a long straight.  D'oh!

SS7 was a slightly different version of SS3, but it drove the same.  I pushed better than the first run through, but I took no risks with what I couldn't see.  We then headed back to Salem after what has to be the smoothest run day of any 100AW in the past 5 years, and one of the highest completion rates, with only 3 cars DNF'ing.  We closed out the evening by watching the in-car and some of Mark's footage.

Saturday was a much earlier morning, as we had to be in Parc Expose in downtown Salem before 8:30am.  It was chilly too.  Still can't complain as, as we all know, the weather can be alot worse this time of year.  After that, we headed off on the long transit to SS8.

SS8.  Now there is a fine road   The roads still had fast sections, but all-in-all, it was slower, narrower, and rockier.  This meant I drove it better, and our power deficit wasn't as pronounced, though I could have done with more as I'd bog coming out of the hairpins!  Heath and I were developing a rhytm by now, and we were communicating much, much better.  Instead of being ~15-30sec off those I was pacing myself with on Friday, it was more in tune to ~5sec for much of Saturday.  I was feeling more relaxed and getting in a better rhytm for driving.

SS9 was more of the same but even better.  It flowed really well.  There was a hairpin right that I botched.  I had it all set up to flick, but then realized I was too early and I'd nose right into the abutting bank at the apex, so I held off but lost my momentum.  As such, the car wouldn't rotate fully and I did what apparently alot did, and slid to the outside of the road, which had become very soft.  I thought I'd escaped without hitting anything, but the car picked up a bad vibration from what felt like the LR.  There were still 7 miles to go, so we decided to keep going.  There were some good sized rocks I did my best to avoid and also our first real water-crossings.  One of these knocked out one of the floor plugs on Heath's side, and he got sprayed pretty good!  At the end of the stage, I hopped out and checked the tires; they were all fine.  Indeed, it was just an inordianate amount of dirt and rocks that had gotten inside the LR and thrown it out of balance.  Easy fix!

SS10 was one I was really looking forward to.  Scotia.  It hadn't been used in years, but its one of the finest sections of road out there.  This is the stage Pastrana crashed on.  He was not alone.  One of the WRX's also crashed, caused a little fire, and was partially obstructing the road.  As we all waited in cue at the ATC, I got out out and stretched my legs.  At one point, I looked inside the car and the intercom and camera, which mount just behind my seat, were exceptionally filthy.  This suprised me, so I looked closer, only to find a hole in the floorboard underneath my seat that looked like an Alien had finished gestating and exploded forth.  I guess I did catch one of those rocks on SS9 after all.  In the end, the stage was thrown and we transited through.  I tried to pay extra attention, as we'd be running parts of it again that night, but backwards.

SS11 had Phil, Steph, Danno, and my Uncle Jim, who's a HAM, all working the start, so that was fun.  It also was very fast and straight.  It started out with 3 HUGE jumps in a row.  Bottomed out on each but the car held up very well.  It was quite a rush!  I seem to remember giving a 'yee-haw' at some point, but I'll have to check the video to be sure   On the transit to Ellington, the car kept getting louder and eventually a CEL was thrown.  I was pretty sure we had an exhaust leak, and I was right.

Afterwards, it was into Service in Ellington where we received a pleasant suprise from the orgainzers.  Instead of two shorter with a loop through the dreaded Mail Route and Hill o' Doom after each, it had been condensed to one long service and only the second run-through of the 'pray-you-survive' stages.  Here is where James, Jeff, and Ben really shined, even more than they had previously.  First, there was the stuff I told them about; the hole in the floor, the exhaust leak, and the out of balance wheels.  After they fixed all that (the header had come loose from the block on the right side.  The gasket was gone, bue they tightened up the bolts so it was still loud, but not as much and wouldn't lose too much power), they started giving the car a through check.  I was worried something had called it quits from the jumps and deep water crossings, but all seeemed well under the car.  Then Seelig used his spidey-sense and found the loose slave cylinder.  Amazing.  Saved the rally, without a doubt.  Thanks, man!

*deep breath*

 

 

 

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Jeff Templeton
00 Impreza RS-671 PGT
Special Thanks to:
Izzy's Custom Cages
321GoVideo.com
Solo Performance Specialties

Before we left service, I checked times from the morning and found I was only a couple of seconds adrift of the Celica All-Trac that was ahead of me in class.  This was much better than the 2 minutes or so they beat me by on Friday.  I really wanted to catch them, but I tried not to think about it as I knew I had to finish, even if it meant swallowing my pride and competitiveness.  This was important, as the first stage out of service was the one I was most apprehensive about finishing.  I'd driven it before, though in a different configuration, and knew what to expect.  Heath I don't think bought into my talk and concerns about it.    Ignorance truely is bliss!

SS14, The Mail Route.  Unlike previous years, this stage didn't start out on the fast, wide, well graded gravel road that leads into the logging two-tracks.  I suppose Tom decided to drop the pretense and just start off right in the narrows.  The majority of this stage I did in 2nd gear.  The first part can only be described as very similar to a RallyCross.  Except narrower.  And with trees, stumps, and rocks in place of cones.  And the course was thrown together by some sick *** with a weird dementia.  They might as well have a start, and tell us the bearing to get to the end and have us make our own way.  It would be easier.  If, for the sadistic types out there, this wasn't enough, there always seem to be mud puddles right in the braking/turn in zones as you go to slolam around yet another hickory, that do a superb job at inducing understeer at precisely the worst time.  A few minutes in, Heath just starts laughing.  I guess he realized just how crazy this road is.  Then, after a blind hairpin over crest, comes the first big downhill section.  No way I was going to push here.  Its steep, its off camber, its twisty, its loose, its rocky.  There was a crazy photographer lying on his stomach at the end of the straightest, fastest downhill chute right at the turn in for an off-camber left.  Hope the shoots were worth the risk.  Then comes the fantastic part of the stage where one drives along a ledge 20' above a creek, with a rock wall on the inside.  Its straight at first, so you can get going, but then it goes into some sharp switch backs.  The goal: keep it on the road any way you can.  Nasty stuff.  Then comes some more crap where you are amazed you cleared each of those trees.  A final downhill leads into a dry creek bed up to the finish.  The front-runners had cleared two tracks and piled up the stones and pebbles in the center.  As it turns out, since I'm on stock springs and have the additional weight of the cage lowering the car, I was probably one of the lowest cars there.  My prize?  Getting to listen to all those rocks scrape past my undercarriage for ~150m.  Nice.  Then the finish, at long last.

The brief transit to SS15 revealed that the Celica I was chasing had been a victim of the postal violence.  Not sure what happened, but they took a late start on the next stage, though they finished the rally.

Hill o' Doom is much the same as the Mail Route, but with the biggest water-crossing of the rally.  That was fun, trying to avoid the watermelon-sized rocks that had been dragged into the road was not.  There was one I still can't believe we missed.  Almost took off a wheel.  Almost.  You definitely have to pick your momments to be entirely commited to a corner.  Being able to adjust your line, even if only by a little like in this case, is invaluable.  Not as fast, but it helps get you to the end.

The last stage of the loop was the short Bob Johnson Road, repleat with haybale chicanes and the mother of all low-water bridges.  Notes don't matter here, just hp and transitional ablity.  We ended up setting the 2nd fastest club time and 18th overall, IIRC.  Not bad considering we were spotting between 70 and 250+ hp on most of those cars.  Dropping into that LWB was a weird sensation, though.  It just felt like the trunk was going to flip over the hood.  Never experienced anything like that in a car before.

The final service of the day was uneventful.  The car had rebuffed the punishment of the two roughest stages, and now all that stood between me and my first finish was 3 stages heading back to Salem.  Granted, they aggragated to 25 timed-miles, but this finish line was in sight.

We headed up the terrible transit road to SS17.  This was SS11, but backwards.  We ran it in late dusk.  It wasn't as severe going backwards as it was coming down, but it was still fun.  The dust wasn't bad due to all the moisture on this particular road.

The same can't be said fo SS18&19.  They are both classic 100AW.  Fast, flowing, and fun.  The dust was a problem though, and we had to lift several times.  We almost found the trees as the dust obfuscated a pretty sharp left-hander until we were nearly on it.  The car got crossed-up pretty good, but we made it.   I was trying to make sure I finished, but I was definitely driving better.  Braking later, carrying more speed into turns, letting the car slide more.  Towards the end of the ultimate stage, the brakes even got a little soft.  Not a big deal, but it was nice to know I was beginning to use them.

And then it was over.  What a feeling crossing that final stage finish!  Just huge.  Its hard to put into words.  Over 100 miles and nearly 2 hours of unbridled speed, we'd survived to the end.  The final transit to Salem was spent unwinding and calling my Mom and Tara to assure them I was still alive.

Ok, that will have to do for now.  I'll try and post up some Springer-style final thoughts tomorrow.

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Jeff Templeton
00 Impreza RS-671 PGT
Special Thanks to:
Izzy's Custom Cages
321GoVideo.com
Solo Performance Specialties

You just had to be at the finish line to see the joy and relief on Jeff's face.

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STLRallyx.org / 321GoVideo.com / 100AW.org
St. Louis, MO - 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi - COBB ProTune Stg2
2 Samuel 3:21 "I'm ready. Let me go now to rally..."

Congratulations, sounds like you did great! And thanks for the entertaining writeup. I'm particularly glad that it didn't involve any collisions with trees.

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Reto
2005 Lotus Elise, #94 SS
2005 Nissan Xterra (LSV)

One of the Midwest Jeepthing members has photos up:

http://community.webshots.com/album/548084926zdISgd

Including this one of Jeff:

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Great write up Jeff, sounds like a blast (Im jealous but VERY happy for you).

What will you do differently for the next one?

What is the next one?

And what was your final finishing position?

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Smart Ass.. All Day.. All The Time

link to the thread in speedarena with some pics eric took this weekend, hardcore rally man drove down from Minesota eh to spectate...

 

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2285730&page=1

 

page 2 has some of his images

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Smart Ass.. All Day.. All The Time

Alright, here's my wrap up.

All in all, I learned quite a bit.  Here are a few things off the top of my head:

The interaction between driver and co-driver is very important.  Having a good crew is also just as important.  It very much is a team sport.

Its also an endurance test far more than a speed test.  Alot of the time I had to slow down because I was worried about the car on jumps, LWB's, and the rough stuff.  Also, given the stuff I broke without any major incident, it seems that with rally, unlike auto-x, rally-x, or road racing, you break stuff no matter what, even if you have a good, clean run.

the chassis takes a pounding.  Seam-welding and a robust cage are mandatory.  The entire undercarriage needs to be protected as well.  This is something I'll work on for the next event.

Suspension is also very important, but in a different way than for auto-x.  On gravel, the car is so easy to adjust with your feet, it really masks handling deficencies.  A great example of this was doing 1.5 gravel stages with a broken ball joint and not knowing it.  As soon as I started the tarmac stage, it was clear something was wrong with the suspension as the car was ultra-twitchy.  However, suspension keeps you alive.  I often would bottom out landing from jumps and couldn't charge the LWB's.  I was also lower than stock as I was on stock springs but increased weight due to the cage.  This caused some problems on the rougher stages.  What I need is some firmer springs, a return to stock ride height, and some proper dampers.  I had recently been reading about the different valving curves for dampers for various motorsport application, and having run a rally now, I can really understand why a progressivly-valved damper would be far superior than the digressive we're all used to for auto-x.  Alot of the time you're just moving over uneven ground and need to keep the tire in contact, there's not alot of transitional movements, and when you need lots of dampening (landing a jump, etc) the shaft speeds must be rediculously high.  So, a more appropriate set up than stock springs and leaky AGX's is in order before the next event.

Coming into the event, I figured that the longer stages and the night stages would be more difficult than their counterparts.  I was wrong.  All the stages were the same.  You're just completely focused all the time, so it doesn't matter.  With the lights, you can see fine (when they're aimed right ).

Driving wise, it was clear I was far more comfortable on the slower sections.  I really need to work on the fast stuff.  Tellingly, on the slow stuff, especially junctions, I was yearning for more hp, on the fast stuff I often wasn't using every pony available.  Notes and not worrying about wrecking would go a long way, but I'm sure practice and experience so I can develop the same 'feel' for the car at high speed as at low will help quite a bit.  I certainly improved my pace on these sections especially as the rally wound on, though there is still a long way to go.  I might see about doing some more track days just to increase my high speed repetoire.

Overall, I'm very happy with my finish.  Most importantly, I did finish!  Beyond that, I finished at a reasonable pace.  As we all know, I like to win and to go as fast as possible and be competitive, but some swallowed pride is in order.  Its just like when I started auto-xing, I paid some heed to those at the top of the timesheets, but focused more on trying to match, then better, those just ahead.  Given my time differences with those ahead of me between Friday and Saturday, I made great strides.  I also have to recognize my mitigating factors for performance.  The largest, of course, is me.  Auto-x teaches you to drive the perfect line on a course you've never driven from the word go.  However, walking the course helps immensely.  You also don't have to make split-second decisions as to how tight this corner actually is and whether the ideal line is congruent with reality, since road crown, ditches, and rocks can really influence where you put the car, especially when you're just trying to finish.  Also like auto-x, sometimes the fast line is the clean line, not the ideal line.  Making these judgements quicker and more accurately, along with trusting the car and myself more, will go a long way.  That said, I was the fastest Seed 8 driver on Saturday, so its a good start.  A decent suspension will also drop the times, as it will help me keep my foot in it over the jumps, etc, so I only have to worry about my sense of self-preservation interfereing, not my car-preservation concerns.  Finally, tulips suck.  Completely, totally.  It wouldn't be so bad if everybody was in the same boat, but when everyone else in your class has this huge advantage, its difficult.  Its worse than if everyone else in your class got to walk the course 10 times, and you only got your blindfold removed when the starter said 'go'.  As such, it was nice to finish ahead of some people with notes and, I believe, be the highest finisher using tulips.  Lastly is the issue of power.  It really makes very little difference for auto-x.  Sure, it helps, but only so much.  Rally, however, requires a turbo; at least it does when all your competitors have them.  So much time is spent WFO, both coming out of sharp turns and down long straights.  This will be the last thing I address sometime down the road, and, ultimately, it may have to be fixed with a different car, but I knew this coming into it.  All these factors combined tell me I have a long way to go, but I have the potential to make it.

i think that just about covers it.

Shawn-next event won't be til summer.  Probably one of the MN events.  COG and Paris in the fall are on the short-list.

I'm not sure what my combined finishing position would be, since the club events are seperate each day and pro is the two-day aggregate.  Probably high 20's or 30's would be my guess from the stage times.  I finished 3rd and 2nd in class for club, and 12th and 10th overall, though I think one of my saturday times may be in error.  I'll see once I get the video back.  My best individual stage was Bob Johnson, where I finished 2nd in club and 18th overall IIRC.  not bad for spotting a couple hundred whp to the leaders!

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Jeff Templeton
00 Impreza RS-671 PGT
Special Thanks to:
Izzy's Custom Cages
321GoVideo.com
Solo Performance Specialties

Very cool.

I guess you could get a better NA engine and move to open after seed 8.  Or do an STi swap. 

 

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STLRallyx.org / 321GoVideo.com / 100AW.org
St. Louis, MO - 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi - COBB ProTune Stg2
2 Samuel 3:21 "I'm ready. Let me go now to rally..."

well, if the chassis survives the next couple of years while I fix the driver, a swap and open class is a possiblity if the money is available.

Within the rules right now, I can reflash the ecu and could probably get some modest gains running higher octane (i didn't see other rally cars lined up at the local stations for the 87 pump ).  Other than that, there's not much more I can do.  I'll never have the 200+whp that the 2.0L WRX's have.  We'll see what the 2.5L ones can do once someone builds one.

Then again, as Subaru keeps upping the game with the WRX, as PGT car become as fast or faster and than Group N and a price tag to match, maybe there will be some rule changes to restrict the turbo cars or speed up the older cars.  Like I said, its certainly a liablity, but suspension and diffs are a higher priority.

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Jeff Templeton
00 Impreza RS-671 PGT
Special Thanks to:
Izzy's Custom Cages
321GoVideo.com
Solo Performance Specialties