My Hastings experience did not begin terribly well. After returning home Thursday evening after doing yet more wedding stuff, it was time to pack and load the car up for the 550 miles I needed to transverse in the morning. I quickly hit a snag. Whilst before I could fit 8 wheels and tires in the car if I really, really wanted to, and one might reasonably presume that removing the interior and rear seat would allow one to fit yet more race rubber in the car, I discovered that the cage and the fixed seat backs would only permit two tires in. Not so good. After recalling all I could from my geometry and topology courses throughout high school and college, I did manage to fit three and most of the fourth in the car. However, 3.5 tires is just about as useful as zero, so I went with the latter. In hindsight, it might have been interesting to just throw the rally tires on the front and keep the streets on the rear, but at the time I was a bit frustrated, very tired, and in the back of my head I knew I’d be busy at the event since I was the head Safety Steward and the Chief Steward and worrying about car issues was not a high priority. The car, even with the tires, is by no means close to the rules of RM4 anyway, and the worn out dampers don’t improve matters.
So I decided not to worry about it and just have some fun. I finished loading the car and went to sleep as I was rising at 3:45am so that I could arrive on site early and give the okay to the courses. A few minutes after 4 in the morning saw my boxer four rumble to life, no muffler, leaking exhaust, and all. I quickly dashed for the highway before my neighbors could form a lynch mob. Thrillingly, it poured from St. Louis until north of KC. It keeps you awake, at least, unlike heading north in Missouri to the stupendous state of Iowa. A few hours across Nebraska and I was pulling into the newly paved parking lot of Motorsport Park Hastings (MPH).
This is the same location as last year but now instead of being one gigantic field, it is a smaller, though still plenty large for our purposes, field dwarfed by the new road course and paved paddock facility. Its very nice, though the garages and other edifices aren’t built yet. Instead, some double-wides and circus tents provide shelter for visitors, unless they are in the splendid bathroom facilities taking a hot shower. This all meant that all the competitors got to paddock on smooth asphalt, unlike the Solo Nationals where so many were stuck in the grass. Oh, sweet irony.
After coming away satisfied of the safety of the courses, tech, registration, cookies, and the practice course were all open for business. I did just two runs on the practice course. It was the first time I’ve rallycrossed on the ASX’s and they just aren’t quite up to the task, even for an all-season. Lateral and forward grip were okay, but braking was horrible. The thinner gaps on the outer shoulders of the tread just weren’t helping. Still fun, though.
After helping out with a myriad of miscellaneous tasks, I went over to help run the practice course. I met the other safety stewards there, who were altering the course around some ruts that had formed. We watch a few cars go by to make sure everything is looking good. No problems. As I was getting ready to head back to registration, here comes a red A2 Jetta. It was caged, but not a stage-legal rally car, competing in RM2. This car, with the other driver, would go on to win its class. Given my official positions for the event, I probably shouldn’t state my personal opinion of what caused the soft roll, but suffice it to say everybody was okay, no changes were made to the course, and there were no other problems there before or after the incident.
A bit later, Matt and I headed to the hotel to check in and then grabbed a quick bite to eat with Jon Simmons and some of the Omaha Subaru crew. The evening activities consisted of going to the Hastings College Observatory on the outskirts of town, where snacks and drinks were provided, a movie was played, and we were allowed onto the roof to look through their telescopes. Needless to say, Pleiades was the most popular constellation in this crowd. The skies there are so crystal-clear, it was quite a treat and just one of the many, many fantastic things George Anderson, owner of MPH, organized for us, both this year and last.
Optional transportation to and from the hotel to the observatory was also provided by George. It consisted of a school bus with a stacked exhaust and a stripped interior. In place of those plastic rows every school child learns to hate were sofas, lawn chairs, and some scary looking mattresses, none of which was fixed to the floor or walls in anyway save gravity and a little friction. This made for an interesting ride, especially over the railroad tracks which, knowing his audience all too well, George saw no need to brake for.
After the observatory, a few of us more hardy souls piled back in the bus for the trip back. However, we had a detour…to the track. George drove us around for a few hot laps of his fabulous new raceway. It’s really a very impressive track and I hope to drive it in a car at some point. It would be really sweet in a downforce car as there is this one fast turn linking two straights that would just be a blast! But I digress. George can drive, and he wasn’t letting the bus off easy, nor those of us flopping about in the furniture. Truly great fun.
Afterwards, he took us on a tour around the city and told us all quaint or amusing anecdotes about what we were passing, including his childhood home. It was an enjoyable tour and denouement after the track attack, and it was fun to learn more about this affable character.
Back at the hotel, it was decided that the evening wasn’t quite over and a trip to the local Irish tavern Murphy’s was in order. Matt, myself, and the aforementioned Omahanians headed down there only to run into Mark Walker and Mark Jorgenson as we enter. They’d been there awhile and we joined them for some bench racing and Captain & cokes. We had a good time until Matt angered one of the other customers with an off-beat remark, influencing us to call it a night.
Morning dawned and we headed to the track. After the drivers’ meeting and Parc Ferme, competition got underway on the North course. The format of the event was divided into three heats; Stock, Prepared, and ending with Modified. Each heat was given three runs prior to lunch and three runs after. The same was repeated on day 2 on the South course. I was in charge of safety for the first two heats (I know most of you are cringing as you read this) and then competed in the third. The courses held up reasonably well this year and only one change had to be made in the midst of a heat (heat 3 on day 2) so the competition was kept fair. Inbetween heats I would examine the course with Pego Mack and make any alterations required. This did have to be done between every heat so times across heats aren’t really comparable.
My class wasn’t huge, but it was tough. Dave Brooks, the SEDIV Steward, was there with his turbo impulse. There was also a WRX and two Open class 323GTX’s. Not so good. They all had rally tires. First heat proved difficult for me, giving up 2sec plus every run to Dave, who was driving the wheels (not literally thankfully!) off his Isuzu. This is especially bad since all runs are aggregated for your score. I was finding it a bit difficult to adapt to these tires. Sure, the car was off the pace, but so was my driving as I kept overdriving the tires.
The lunch break was work time for the safety stewards. After the Mod cars, the course was pretty well trashed so we needed to basically make a new course whilst avoiding the ruts from the morning. Luckily, the courses had been designed with a rut avoidance plan in place and we were able to make it work pretty well.
The afternoon went much the same as the morning, though I figured out the secret to my tires: ruts. Just plop the car down into the ruts the rally-tired guys are making and use them like railroad tracks. It was the only way to get grip. I also tried running in 1st gear as many were doing, but that just resulted in constant wheel spin and at first I thought my clutch was giving up the ghost again! I bogged in some places in 2nd, but at least I could create forward motion. I actually drove pretty well using my new tricks, and kept ahead of both drivers in one 323 and was faster than the other 323 (the ex-Gail Truess car for those who remember it) and closed the gap he’d opened up on me in the morning a bit.
After relaxing a bit at the hotel and watching a cheerleader give an oral report on Jackie Onassis on the tv, we piled onto the bus yet again for our steak dinner, initially planned to be at the track, but relocated to Murphy’s. Luckily Matt’s “friends” weren’t there…. Dinner was good and afterwards we did head to the track for a bonfire and marshmallows. George did some more laps of the track with more people in the bus, but clearly wasn’t pushing. Still an experience though.
The party moved back to the hotel and walmart and a good time was had by all, except Matt’s liver.
Sunday also went well, though there were more problems with dust in the afternoon, but nothing the water truck couldn’t keep a handle on. I really nailed it in the morning and once again was faster than the 323 ahead of me, closing the gap to around four seconds, despite us only doing two runs as the course became unsafe and our third run was removed to the afternoon. Lunch was spent fixing the course but we got it done and it worked through the afternoon and challenge round.
I drove well the first two runs, beating my arch-nemesis on the first run but, despite going faster, losing out on my second. I then pushed too hard on the last two, sliding into the loose dirt on the outside both times, killing my times. Still a lot of fun regardless, plus it felt good to be able to keep up with at least some of my competitors despite my handicaps.
Overall, I think Jon Simmons had the drive of the event in a Prepared Evo XI RS. Hot damn, he was really driving that thing. He was so fast that despite his 7 cones and red light start (10sec penalty), he still won by over two seconds, and that was not due to a lack of driving on his competitors’ part. I also really enjoyed watching Jorgenson in his STi. It reminded me very much of when Andy started coming out to our events. Obviously a top tier autocrosser, but he struggled the first day to come to grips with the alternate style needed to do well in rallycross. Just about every run on the 2nd day it was clear he was getting it and by the end he was setting very competitive times.
I left a bit after 4pm, after the class winners’ shootout and awards presentations and got back a bit after midnight, again with ringing ears and angry neighbors.
Jeff Templeton
00 Impreza RS-671 PGT
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