Sunday, June 7, 2009

Almost ending our rally early.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Rocky Results

Results from Rocky Mountain Rally can be found here:
http://www.rallybc.com/rmr/Rocky_Results/2009/results_main.html

We finished in 19th place Nationally, and 13th place Regionally.

The Friday stages weren't great for us. My car was running VERY rich with the high altitude and, therefore, wasn't running right. There is obviously some more work to do setting up the side draft carbs, as the car had significantly less power than my mk3 jetta daily driver (which is not modified at all and is supposed to make less power stock than the 16v). Despite being very slow on Fridays stages, we also had a bit of excitement with a small off. We slid wide on a left hand turn over a crest and skipped along in the ditch for about 20ft. We came close enough to hitting a tree that the tree folded in the passenger side mirror :o

Saturday's stages went better for us. The car seemed to run better with the lower altitude, but was still running very rich. The car seemingly ran better near the end of stages than at the beginning. We had no drama ourselves, but 3 stages ended up being cancelled due to a couple accidents that slowed the rally and a small grass fire that started along the stages. It was fortunate that the rally organizers were so prepared, and that the rally had good radio operators, as the fire was quickly dealt with. I was a bit sorry to see the 3 stages cancelled, as we were making up time on each stage on our nearest competitors, and ended up 5 seconds from 18th nationally, and 25 seconds (IIRC) from 17th. I think we likely would have made this up on 1 more stage. Oh well.

Our times improved throughout the day, and we had a great time. I'd like to thank the organizers and volunteers for all their hard work. I always feel guilty that I get to go out and have a fun time racing, and we all rely so heavily on the volunteers. THANKS AGAIN.

My next rally is likely Bighorn in August, but Christa is looking for a right seat to fill at Mt. Trials in Merritt in a couple weeks.

Chad