It has taken me a long time to get to this moment, and apparently to post about it, but I finally competed in my first rally. I have to admit that I was nervous for about a whole month before we even got on stage, driving Erik, Kevin, and my wife crazy with my worrying if the car was prepared enough or if I had forgotten anything. Needless to say that everything was prepared and ready to race.

The first stage Saturday was interesting as the first mile or so had snow on certain parts, mainly the tight corners where if you went too hard into them you would find yourself either high centered on the snow bank, like the RX-7 in front of us found out, or off to the inside of the corner where it seemed like the drop off was pretty steep. It was the co-drivers side anyways so I never got a good look at it Somewhere on the first stage we got a flat in our drivers front tire, I’m not sure when it happened but the car did seem to pull a little close to the end of the stage and at the finish when the steering wheel turned to the left I figured something was wrong. Luckily it was only a flat and our crack service crew changed it in no time and we were off to rerun the stage. The second time through there was no drama, except for the Mazda off on the side of the road again, and we were able to shave a few seconds off our time from the first pass.

The next three stages were all about high speed and horsepower, something we were lacking in the 1.8L rally car. I have to admit that I did lift alot on the fast sections, not knowing my car and my capabilities yet made me a little hesitant to come charging into the corners. Of course with only 110hp on a good day you can only go so fast and we lost a lot of time to other competitors, getting caught on both stage 3 and 4 by the cars starting 1 minute behind us was proof enough. We finished day 1 25th overall and 3rd in novice, not bad for the first outting and we finished our first rally.

Sunday was going to be the famous Brooklyn Tavern stage, something that I have wanted to do for along time, but I had wait as we had to go through 4 stages before we got our first run at Brooklyn.

Stage 1 and 2 had both Kevin and I wishing that there were more tarmac stages, we had a blast putting the 110hp to pavement. Except for having to shift into 1st for the cicanes and then get back up to speed after we exited I don’t think I lifted off the throttle the whole stage, even for the corners.

Stages 3 and 4 were back to gravel and suited me better than Saturdays stages as I felt a little more comfortable in the car. By no means did we blast through the stages, but I felt I could push the car a little harder than what I did on Sat. It paid off as on the 4th stage we caught the Saab in front of us and were able to pass them successfully, we found out later at service that they were experiencing brake problems, but nevertheless we caught the car in front of us!

Stages 5 (Brooklyn), 6, 7, and 8 (Brooklyn again) were another reminder of how little power the car has. When your at the start and you see a long hillclimb up to the first sets of corners can be a little sad when you know you cannot accelerate up them. After a long slow climb up the first hill Brooklyn turned out to be what I expected…fast! I had a blast pitching the car into the corners as fast as it would let me, almost too fast for some where I was luckily able to save it. Definetly a stage where I would love to go over again, and again, and again…etc. Luckily I would have another chance going the opposite direction, but we still had to do 2 more stages until we could go back. Nothing spectacular happened on the following 2 stages, me griping about having no power and fighting to find what gear to use going up hill was about the extent of it, although I did have a blast on those stages also. Then it was back over Brooklyn where the dreams of having a turbo motor or a 2.5RS motor in the car would be wonderful for this stage, but not this year, I have to make due with what I have. The second time over going the opposite direction we were able to drop 16 seconds off our time, like I said not a blazing time but an improvement.

We ended up Sunday 25th overall for the day and 2nd in novice, for the weekend we were 22nd overall and 2nd overall novice just missing the overall novice award by a mere 8 seconds.

I would like to say thank you to Kevin for coming out and sitting in the hotseat for me, hopefully he will get back in the car again. To Erik and Erin for being our service crew, although I think Erik will be building a car again soon after the rally weekend I hope he can service a few more events. Also thanks to Mike and Steve from Pacific Import Auto for getting the car ready to race, they did a lot of stuff over the weeks before the race to get the car rally ready. Jamie for not getting rid of the light pod that she used to have on her 1.8L rally car. I would like to especially thank Steve Greer for his help with a lot of things like tires, wheels, and spare parts. Without his kindness I would not have been able to make Doo Wops my first event, I will pay you back as soon as I can.

Thanks again everyone