Jim & Kaari's Rally Diary

Chapter 4

Our Performance Rally Careers Begin

Rookie Driver, Rookie Co-Driver Build A Truck And Try Rallying In Michigan:

Our Sno Drift 2001 Notes And Thoughts From The Day After (1/29/01)

We really don't know exactly what to think of our results at Sno*Drift. But we are ecstatic! Even though I've stressed about preparations for our first rally, got about four hours of sleep per night for the last week, trailered 26 hours, and competed in the event itself, I was wide awake today due to adrenaline still pumping away. Did I mention we're excited? We're also a little unsure of what the results may or may not mean and what to do next. A few things we think we know for sure:

We had a blast! I did not want it to end. Especially once night fell, because then I could kinda read my factory odometer! I still had to slow down to read the dim glow, but at least I could read it now. Our instruction location accuracy went from +/- 0.5 a mile to +/- about 0.1. Now I had a pretty good idea when instructions were coming up and I could go much faster. I can't wait to check out the stage times. I think some weren't so great, but I also think we cranked off a few I'll be proud of. I wish I could fix the computer and re-run the event to see how we'd do!

We made it to Atlanta MI at 4 AM Thursday after a very hectic week of preparation and it felt REALLY good to pass tech on Friday and be "cleared for take-off".

Some were looking unhappy when it started snowing, but I thought "bring it on"! I knew the worse it was, the slower the top speeds would be so the logistics of the race would be more manageable. I also liked my chances in bad conditions (vs. high speed) because it suits my strengths better as a driver and plays to the strengths of our 4wd truck.

The race started like this:

Jim: Here we go, this is gonna be cool! I hope not having a computer doesn't ruin this for us.

Kaari: Slow down!

Jim: I'm under control…next instruction!

TRIANGLE! OK is out, did you get the number

 (Note: A reflective triangle is placed on the road when a team's car becomes disabled)

Kaari: Yup, sweep right at .31

Jim: I see it…holy Hannah is it slippery…Hang on we're going through this berm

-baaaWWWAAHHHHH-

-POOF-

Jim: (expletive deleted, expletive deleted, expletive deleted)

Kaari: -Gulp- Nice save, why did you gas it into that berm?!

Jim: Cause I knew we couldn't make the corner, and I wanted all the momentum we could get so we didn't get hung up on top.

TRIANGLE! OK is out.

Kaari: Got it. Tight right in .91

Jim: .91 from start or last instruction?!

Kaari: From the start!

Jim: TRIANGLE! OK is out.

Give me incrementals cause I can't read the odo so I have to estimate mileage and I can only estimate the shorter mileages from the last instruction.

(Later, when Jim got better at reading the odo, we decided to use overall mileage--even though the accumulated error was so much greater--because without a computer it was very easy to get "lost" in a stage, and if we zeroed the odo at the wrong time then we were really up the creek.)

ANOTHER TRIANGLE! Ok is out.

Damn it's carnage out here, if we can just finish this thing we might do pretty good.

Kaari: Slow down and keep it on the road.

Jim: I feel sorry for these guys DNFing on the first stage. Next instruction.

Kaari: Single caution rough, gotta be soon, slow down!

Jim: Don't worry, looks minor, we're high enough, won't hit any of it, low cars have knocked it all down. Next instruction.

TRIANGLE…

I loved the conditions. These were the slipperiest roads I've ever seen. Hard to describe how slippery it was. We play a lot of broomball and many sections of these roads were honestly much more slippery than a hockey rink. Some cars had to be pushed off the line and up hills… Yet we're wailing down the road at up to 75 MPH on glare ice pitching it sideways between tress about 30 ft apart at times with me looking down at the factory odo on every straight away. Hmmm, kinda nutty when I think about it. The roads did have nice safety banks on each side. The banks were frozen hard enough that I could see where cars had bounced from bank to bank like a tennis match maybe six times before regaining control or spinning out.

Our marriage survived just fine and we think we'll make a good team (Kaari wasn't so sure going into it). Kaari also did not get carsick, which is often a problem for co-drivers.

We got to pass people. Not just stuck or wounded cars either. That was fun! We actually were able to close the 5 minute gap between Club and Pro a couple times catching and passing a couple of the slower Pro entries on the longer stages. Nothing motivates me more than taillights in the distance (Co-Driver's note: sometimes the taillights motivated him a bit too much and I had to repeat my mantra "slow down, slow down, we just want to finish!"). We worked our way through all but one of the club-only entries, mostly through re-seed. Performance rallies doesn't have much room to pass. Most folks pulled over real nice, some others required squeezing past.

I think we botched every spectator corner. There were spectators EVERYWHERE. Not just on the inside of the corners but on the outsides and in the run-off areas at the apexes. Scary. This was an especially big problem for us since we essentially had no odometer and thus I was driving by sight. I expected the spectators to be on the inside of the apex and exit, so I'd set up my braking to turn after the crowd. Often it turned out that the turn was in the middle of the crowd and I couldn't see it until I was about 20 ft. away. I'm pretty certain this set of circumstances provided some high quality entertainment for the spectators! Some times we just slid to a slow embarrassing stop, backed up and continued on. One time I tried to set up for the corner, even though I had no hope of making it. I grabbed a little snow bank with the right front wheel to start the truck rotating. The rotation speed was correct, but the forward speed was way too fast (about 5 MPH was way too fast for some of these corners) so now the truck was rotated correctly to accelerate down the straightaway but my direction of travel was straight off the apex. We did a complete slow motion 360 as we slid uncontrollably past the spectators at a walking pace. We must have looked like a piece of space junk spinning away yet appearing to go nowhere. I was cussing a blue streak at the time, but it's pretty funny in hindsight. I finally figured out a solution for these corners; I'd come into the corner hugging the outside snow bank, once I saw the turn, I'd steer into the bank until I'd scrubbed enough speed to turn in toward the apex. Then I'd intentionally hit the inside bank right before the apex, the drag on that side would start the truck rotating. Once I had the rotation I wanted, I let the truck come out of the bank and drift toward the outside edge of the exit (more traction at the edges) then power-on and bounce off the outside exit bank and we're down the straightaway. Thrilling when I got it right! Probably looked like I'd had a few too many beers for breakfast to the spectators though (and occasionally to the Cautious Co-Driver)!

We only had one problem during Sno. It kind of irked me. We were coming into the MTC at the end of the event. It was jammed with cars and we were sitting on the main highway through town waiting to go in. Our minute came up and we couldn't get near the officials, so I waved to an official, who waved back, then I dropped Kaari off to hand in our score book, and drove to our service spot. About a minute later Kaari comes running up saying "they need to see the truck" to score us. So I drive over there, but they won't give us the time we drove in and now we are a minute late. I didn't know at the time that we were in the lead with a lot of time to spare over our next closest competitor I knew we had a good race going and did not want to blow it on a dumb technical error, so I was not happy.

Service was pretty uneventful. As night fell, I ripped the map light off the roll bar (it was duct tapped on) and taped it to the dash so I could see the odometer. (Co-Driver's note: he also had to trouble-shoot the non-working light, and fix it with a Leatherman's tool and some duct tape during an unexpected delay before the first full-dark stage. I was impressed! (My only accomplishments during this delay were running the half-mile or so from our car to the check-in and getting there in time, and managing to pee in the woods without getting my driver's suit wet.)) This set-up was actually easier to see than running during the day. Now I only needed a brief glance to read mileage. This resulted in much higher speeds than during the day because I could be much more confident as to when instructions were coming up.

The truck handled perfectly. Confident in drifts, able to initiate corners on ice, adequate forward traction. Balanced braking that didn't upset handling.

Kaari was a little scared a few times. She did great and called a nearly perfect race. Only boo boo was calling "side road straight" when it should have been a "side road right". I got it hauled down before we blew through the bank, we probably lost 5-10 seconds, no big deal. I made way more driving errors than she made navigational ones. I don't think Kaari was quite prepared for how fast we'd be moving (75 MPH on ice, sideways,between trees). Just wait till the gravel races when we may top 100 MPH between the trees. (Co-driver note: when I asked one experienced driver what people usually wear besides their driver's suits and he said "Depends," I now have a different interpretation of that…).

We ran Drift completely clean with no transit points, penalties, stucks etc.

We took home first place trophies in Production Class at both club rallies beating second place by a pretty wide margin. It looks like we were 16:36 ahead of second place at Sno ClubRally and 9:02 ahead at Drift ClubRally.

We had very encouraging overall finishes of 12th and 8th respectively in Sno and Drift Clubrallies, especially considering we're in Production.

If we had entered the Sno*Drift ProRally (two ClubRallies combined), we would have been 19th Overall 33:17 behind Paul Choinere and 2nd place in Production Class 12:15 behind Scott Carlborn's 92 Jeep Commanche.

Concluding thoughts:

Having no computer may have actually helped us. It forced me to drive by sight. If I was counting on having Kaari read me exact instruction locations, I would have driven harder and perhaps made some bigger mistakes. On the other hand, I think I could have shaved a lot of time off my stages with a computer because I looked down at my odo (and let off the throttle) at least 30 times per stage. I also had to slow well in advance of all the "over crest" instructions because I had no idea where they were. That had to cost us a lot of time. Oh well, something to look forward to for next time.

In hindsight, a lot of things went well for us.

-The extreme icy conditions negated any HP advantage the PGT Open and G5 cars had on us. High HP may have even been a hindrance since it may have been tough to manage. We seemed to have about the right amount. Enough to accel as hard as the ice would allow but not so much that it was hard to control.

-The auto trans worked well for us allowing smooth acceleration, and allowing easy left foot braking.

-4wd was a big plus at this event where traction was almost nil.

-The used $20 Blizzaks worked well and were predictable at their limits. Those tires were probably the best investment we made in the truck.

Future:

We need to get the Computer working and figure out how to get our contingency winnings. I'm afraid to jinx our truck by changing anything! We should probably change the jack mount so we can get to it quickly.

After finishing so well, we're definitely doing the SCCA Central Division Rally series. I think I'm now a SEED 3 driver. Not sure if I deserve it, but it'll be really nice to have an earlier starting position on the soft roads of Headwaters and Ojibwe.

I think we're eligible to apply for a Pro license. We need to decide if that's something we should do.

We're very interested to see if we can also do well on gravel. The HP advantage will be back for the G5 and Open cars. The lighter production cars should have a cornering braking and suspension advantage on us and they'll have traction this time…

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