....did not include us, except for a "DNS" at the bottom. We had ignition problems that ended our rally before it started. A HUGE thank-you to everyone who tried to help us, most of all to Colin Armstrong (who went on to win the rally, btw - some good karma perhaps?).
The car was running excellent after all the work done to over the winter and we were even planning on pushing a bit more at this rally to move us up the leaderboard. During recce, the car started missing and then quit all together. The distributor rotor had blown apart. No problem, right...just get a new distributor. So Colin provides us with his tow rig so that we can finish recce and tow the car back into Cochrane. He also offers up a distributor he has in his garage in Calgary. We had the car 'tech'd' on the trailer back in Cochrane, then I followed Colin to his place to pick up the new distributor. I put the new distributor in and the car starts right away. I tried to set the ignition timing, but the timing was all over the place and I couldn't find a spot where the car wanted to run right.
Sidenote: The tach is plugged into a pickup on the back of the MSD ignition box (my car runs dual sidedraft carbs now). When the car started missing, the tach started fluttering up around 10,000rpm (but the car was barely running).
So, when I'm trying to set the timing with the new distributor we check and the tach is doing that fluttering thing again. I get the car so that it's running ok, but the timing light tells me I'm wayyyyy off. I jump in the car to go for a quick spin and it dies again. I pop of the distributor cap and now this rotor is melted and in pieces. It turns out that the rotor was only a symptom of a problem with the msd box. So I have a new one coming (thanks ebay), and extensive testing will be done before Rocky.
It was a VERY dissappointing way to finish the weekend. While everyone else was racing, I was on the highway towing my car back to Saskatchewan. My biggest apologies go to John Hall, the teams co-driver. It was a weekend we both looked forward to for a long time, and it's my responsibility to keep the car running good....this time we didn't even make the start.
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Chad, It's unfortunate but that's racing and it happens to the best of us. Hopefully the ignition problem is solved with the new MSD box and we can look forward to a great ride at Rocky. I also am very greatful to Colin Armstrong for his generosity, I'm not sure what we would have done without his help. After some years away from the UK version of the sport, I have now been into Canadian Performance rallying for almost a year and am finding the group of rallying enthusiasts that participate in the WCRC such a great bunch of outstanding people, even when you have a weekend like Cochrane was for us (DNS) the total team spirit and support comes through making it a real pleasure to be part of this rallying community. Thanks to all.
John Hall
Co-Driver
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