Jim & Kaari's Rally Diary

Chapter 1

Jim and Fletcher driving the Headwaters 2000 Clubrally course after working as course marshals.

Chapter One: Newbie Views: A Rookie Spectator interviews a rookie co-driver of a rookie team

After years of interest in performance rally, I noticed Minnesota was hosting the national championship club rally this year. My wife Kaari and I had a gap in our summer schedule that weekend and decided to attend the Headwaters National Championship club rally.

Until the week before the event, the only connection I had to what was happening up there were a couple Subaru Club guys I'd met once (Jesse Mullan and Norm Johnson).

The week before headwaters, I found out that a guy (Steve Nielsen) I used to race dirt bikes with was going to be entering his first performance rally at Headwaters. Since I owned a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, and Steve had just built a rally car using the exact same car, I was very excited to see the car and how well he did, because I had thoughts of trying rally myself once I got tired of dirt bike racing.

We arrived at rally headquarters as tech was going on. I got to look at some of the cars up close and ask the drivers some questions. This alone was worth the drive. I was excited to see all the cars just like mine entered. There was some really neat custom stuff like the turbo/awd Saab Sonet and the superchargarged, AWD, IRS, air-suspended S-10 pickup. In a "small-world" coincidence, as I was watching tech, a guy (Bob Anderson) that used to be in the same 4x4 club Kaari and I belonged to, pulled up in a very stock 85 Subaru GL looking very confused. It turns out it was his first rally and the first rally for his driver (Paul Peterson) as well. I thought to myself, this is too weird and I'll have to write about it. I called Bob after the event and he loved the idea of a newbie interviewing a newbie, so here goes…

Jim: How did you find out about performance rally?

Bob: Paul had the idea, he had seen Steve Gingras at the World Of Wheels show. This led us to the Land O Lakes region of the SCCA open house this spring where we got a rulebook and made final plans to enter our first performance rally.

Jim: What experience do you have that will help you in performance rally?

Bob: Not much, I did an Autocross about ten years ago. Paul did a Rally Cross in a 74 Pontiac Ventura. You think this rally effort is low budget, you should have seen the Rallycross car!

Jim: How did you find your driver?

Bob: I met Paul at work

Jim: It looks like you guys just drove up, did you trailer up there?

Bob: We trailered the car to the event and brought a crew, I don't think it would be realistic to drive a rally car to a race or do it without a crew. We were pretty unprepared though, we hadn't been through tech, didn't have our graphics, hadn't got our car number from SCCA,…

Jim: What was your total cost to do this?

Bob: The complete program cost us about $1000. That includes three cars for $380, helmet, suit, belts and entry fees. I built the cage. I got two fog lights and the tires from a junkyard. The cost went up about $50 on race day when we discovered during tech that we needed head restraints. This required a run to a hardware store for a few muffler clamps and exhaust tubing.

Jim: You are driving a Subaru GL-10 Hatchback, how did you choose that car?

Bob: By chance, I did know Subarus were supposed to be good rally cars, but the real reason was that I got the first car for $80 from a kid who couldn't afford to fix it

Jim: That is a HUGE fire extinguisher in your car! No one else's is nearly that big, do you have a fuel leak you're worried about?

Bob: We mis-read the rulebook. The rule said something like a fire extinguisher "20BC" and we thought it said a 20 lb. fire extinguisher!

Jim: That's funny, do you have any other funny stories from the event?

Bob: Yeah, too many to list. We put this whole car together in the last couple weeks. The required shoulder harnesses were out of stock everywhere. We finally found some in California, ordered them, but they mistakenly only sent one set. These arrived Friday before the race, but the shop sent another set next-day-Saturday delivery, and it arrived at 12:30 at the hotel. Even though tech was supposed to close earlier, they allowed us to wait for the belts, install them and tech the car late. This was a real common theme from the whole event, everyone we met was very friendly, helpful and bent over backwards to be sure we had a good time.

Jim: Your car has some cool budget racing stuff; tell me about those lights you've got there.

Bob: We got them from a junkyard, they're aimed and held in place with duct tape since the mounts weren't very rigid. They worked great.

Jim: Those patched holes in the roof are right over the roll cage, is there a story there?

Bob: Yeah, I had to cut a few holes to get access to do some cage welding.

Jim: How did you decide who gets to drive?

Bob: Paul owns the car, and he's been the main motivating force behind this effort, so he get's to drive.

Jim: Do you want to drive now?

Bob: Not really, I really enjoyed the co-driving.

Jim: Are you serious, didn't you barf?

Bob: Nope, I didn't get sick and had a blast. It was tough without an odometer or any working interior lights though.

Jim: What's next for you guys?

Bob: We really had fun, we'll do Ojibwe, the Michigan Pro Rally, and Rally Crosses.

Jim: Any car modifications planned?

Bob: Exhaust and skid plates. When we started, the exhaust was stock. As the race went on we kept ripping more and more pieces off and it kept running better and better. So now the car has basically no exhaust. We'll get a high flow exhaust and skid plates to protect it.

Jim: I did notice your car got louder each time I saw you.

Bob: We'll have to do something with the odo since it quit and the dash lights went out. Also, the junkyard all-season tires were kind of squirrelly, we might try some snow tires next time. We also need to upgrade our driving lights.

Jim: Any other funny moments?

Bob: We turned into a spectator area once when I read the book wrong.

Jim: Any closing comments?

Bob: This was the most fun I've ever had with a motor sport by far!

Kaari and I had a great time at Headwaters. We worked as marshalls which allowed us to drive the course both before and after the competetors. It was very educational to see how the road conditions changed as the event progressed and to see the conditions a rally car must endure. The ruts and holes were very deep by the time the last car roared by. We immediately marked our calendar to attend Ojibwe Forrests Pro Rally later in the year. On the way home Kaari said with a smirk: I suppose we're going to end up doing this sometime aren't we...

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