Jim & Kaari's Rally Diary

Chapter 3

Getting Ready to Race

After much discussion Kaari and I decided to go rallying.

After consultation with many friendly rally teams, we decided it would be best to start with a cheap, already completed car, in one of the slower classes. First we missed out on an Omni turbo, then we were a little too late again on a Jeep Commanche Pick-up, finally, we were set to buy a VW Rabbit, but the owner decided not to sell. The summer was slipping away, and I was getting discouraged. After trying and failing to buy three cars and seeing no others for sale that met our needs, I got a chance to pick up an 89 S-10 pick-up for a good price. After interrogating two rally drivers who were running trucks (thanks Mike Halley and Ken Stewart!), I decided the truck would indeed be a good starter vehicle due to cheap purchase price, durability, repair-ability (full frame), parts availability, parts cost. Also, this was our only shot at getting to a rally in 2000, so I bought the truck and the project began.

Steve Neilsen, he of the Eclipse GSX rally car, sold me the truck., a 89 Chevy s-10 regular cab, short box, 4wd, 4.3l v-6, automatic, Baja package. There were a couple really good features the of the Baja package--full skid plates, lowest available (3.42) axle ratio, mounts and factory switches and relays for two set of 100Watt driving lights. There are a couple of scary items too--very few drivers use automatic transmissions or 4wd systems with no center differential. The 4wd will also force me to keep the truck heavy to run in the production class. Oh well, the first goal is to participate, second is to finish, and third is to see how well we can do. So this truck should be meet those needs.

Bob Anderson helped us with some welding and built the cage.

Many others provided answers to questions over the Minnesota Rally e-mail list and the Special Stage bulletin board.

We had ambitious plans to make one or more of the last events of 2000 so we'd get the first event out of the way before next year. But the plans were very aggrssive with no margin for error. We lost at least three weeks when the cage took much longer than planned, and some unexpected mechanical problems needed to be fixed. Unfortunately, after a Herculean effort of many late nights in the garage, my hopes for entering a rally in 2000 were dashed. It was heartbreaking after putting so much time and money into getting ready for the Lake Superior ProRally. Oh well, I guess we'll be more prepared for the 2001 season.

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