Jim & Kaari's Rally Diary

Chapter 5

Headwaters 2001; Our Third ClubRally 

WELCOME TO "DEM DAT DID"

***Click here for an in-car video clip of our Headwaters 2001 roll-and-continue.mpg (WARNING! adult language used!) This clip is about 11 MB and about 1 minute in length. ****

There is a saying that there are two kinds of rally drivers-those that did roll, and those that will roll. When we started rallying I told husband/driver Jim that the first time he put the truck on its roof with me in it there would be only one kind of co-driver-a new one. When I made that statement, though, I expected to have a lot of time before I had to act on it.

Our first rally, Sno*Drift, went flawlessly. We had a great time, we didn't crash or get stuck or get sick or break anything-and we even won! Our computer didn't work, but that really wasn't a problem. "Cool," we thought, "this rallying stuff is fun."

Onward to Headwaters. We had a computer, we had new rally tires, we had a good attitude. The mighty S-10 was all shined up and ready for action. Or, well, most of it was shiny. After comparing our rusty steed to the other glossy vehicles, I suggested that our team name might be "Rusty Piece of Crap Racing." By the end of the night, "Smashed and Dented Rusty Piece of Crap Racing" would become more appropriate.

As a rookie navvie and a confirmed speed wimp, I was a little concerned about the difference between racing on ice and racing on gravel. Higher speeds, rougher surface, no nice frozen snowbanks to keep you from rolling down embankments… Still, Jim is an engineer and thus a very cautious, analytical person. I figured we'd be fine…

The first stage was indeed an eye-opener. Man, were we moving! More than once I thanked the Rally Gods for persuading Jim to get a worn-out 12-year-old pickup rather than something faster-I know he had his foot to the floor on all the straights and I was just glad the truck didn't have any more to give! I really liked having the computer; it made it much easier to give directions, and it gave me something to play with rather than looking out the windshield and wondering when we were going to die.

We got pretty good times on the first two stages, and went into the Osage service first in our class by a slim margin. Our service crew-my sister Kristen and brother-in-law Tom-were happy to wash our windows and then wander around and check out the other cars. We spent our time talking to other teams, including Paul Peters and his navvie--our cage-builder--Bob Anderson, who, after a crewless Ojibwe last year, showed up at Headwaters with a full service truck complete with welder, spotlights, and God knows what else.

"Ya know," Jim said to Paul and Bob's crew, "I'm tempted to break something just so you guys have something to fix."

Then, the third stage. We started out fast-faster than the other stages, it seemed to me. There was a lot of sliding and fishtailing, but Jim seemed to have it pretty much under control and I was starting to get this Co-driver-with-a-real-computer thing down.

"Fifty-eight to finish. No more instructions, forty to finish. Thirty to finish…"

And then a sweeping left turn, a sideways slide in the rear, the front of the truck snapped back to the right and climbed a small grader berm-and over we went.

"*&%^$#"!!" Jim uttered an extremely unprintable epithet. My comments were more along the lines of "AAAAAAAA!" We rolled onto Jim's side of the truck, then onto the roof. At this point my window shattered and fell in, and I had time to think "Good, I'll climb out through there when we stop moving." Then we rolled onto my side and, with a mighty WHUMP, flopped back onto the tires.

The engine was still running.

"Hold on!" Jim yelled, and off we went. But something seemed wrong (other, of course, than the fact that we had just rolled and yet I was still in the truck!)

"Jim, we're going the wrong way!" I yelled.

"Are we?"

"Yes!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Well…yes."

And Jim, like all good drivers (and husbands!) listened to the navvie and turned the truck around.

In five seconds we drove through some dust. Ours? Someone else's? We continued on-and saw Eric Seppanen's Sentra coming right at us. (My sincerest and most humble apologies, Eric!)

"Damn, now we ARE going the wrong way!" With a spray of gravel Jim reversed the truck, turned around , and set off again.

The FTC was manned by a dad and two little girls. No one said anything as we rolled our crushed vehicle to a stop and handed them the scorebook. I scooped a handful of safety glass out of my lap and dropped it on the road. The little girls' eyes grew wide.

"Oops," I said, as we retrieved our book from the finish crew and headed onward.

Now, being rookies and all, we didn't quite know what to do. We had a smashed truck, a cracked windshield, and no side windows, but we were fine and the truck was running normally. We decided to continue on until someone told us we had to stop.

At the next ATC, they were awaiting our arrival. Sweep, they said, had reported "evidence of a roll and continue." Yes, we said, that would be us. The question was, would they allow us to continue to continue?

After several back-and-forth radio conversations, a close inspection of our windshield ("no, there aren't any holes…"), and, no doubt, a surreptitious inspection of our sanity ("no, they don't LOOK crazy…"), we were told we could apply some duct tape and be on our way. We produced a roll of color-coordinated white tape, and J.B. Niday graciously offered to do the honors.

"There," he said, patting one twelve-inch strip carefully into place, "you're all set."

When we arrived at service, our crew-now augmented by friends Jason and Christie-were properly horrified.

"We heard about a rollover on the scanner," my sister said, "but we never imagined…"

As the rain-bearing storm clouds and the camera-bearing spectator crowds gathered, our crew swung into action.

"How many brats do you want? You want beans, too? We got some carrots…" Kristen and Christie aren't much for mechanical stuff, but they were determined to get their team fed.

Well, I've been told that the best way to avoid motion sickness is to keep your stomach full. I haven't had a problem yet, but prevention is critical so while the men wrenched on the truck I dutifully did my Co-driver best to avoid future hurling-into-helmet episodes. Tom was given the task of crafting window nets out of duct tape, and he pursued it with a vengeance. Three rolls of tape later, the window nets were stronger than the roll cage and all I had was one inch-high slot to stick the scorebook through. Jim and Tom (and Bob's service crew, and several other gracious people who wandered by to take pictures and were roped into helping or lending tools) then turned their attention to making metal tabs to rivet to the cab to hold the windshield in. We kept Jason busy sweeping up glass and running to Pamida for more duct tape.

Two and a half hours, one rainshower, five tech inspections, and four hundred pictures later, we were ready to roll (hopefully not literally!)

Now, strangely enough, I found myself getting back into the truck with only one thing on my mind-finishing the race so we could get third-place points. Despite my earlier assertion that one roll would be my limit, I didn't flinch even when a tech guy suggested that we tape a knife to the floor so if we rolled again (!) and landed on the only functioning door, we could cut off the tape nets and escape. Either Jim's Rally Fever is contagious, or I shook a few brain cells loose when we got upside down.

The first stage after service went well, due in part, no doubt, to my reviving my Sno*Drift chant of "Honey, slow down, Hon-NEEE, SLOW DOWN!" I did notice a bit of brain fade, however, manifested by the occasional "right-no-I-mean-left" direction. Unbeknownst to either of us, Jim was apparently suffering from the same malady.

Midway through the next stage, with one more to go before service, driver brain fade took over. I had been calling a ninety right; Jim had been hearing a sweep right. We arrived at the turn, the road ninetied, Jim swept, and we were "off" again, this time down an embankment, across an expanse of tree furrows and saplings, and partway up the hill on the other side. It was pitch dark, bouncy as hell, more than a little scary, and, to quote an old Julie Brown song "There's no ride like this at Disneyland, Baby!"

This time, I had time for two thoughts:

1. "AGAIN?!? SO SOON?!"

2. "My, we're a LONG way from the road!"

We finally rolled to a stop somewhere in the next county. Jim and I looked at each other, and I said quietly, "I think we're done now."

"Why?" said Jim. "The truck still runs. Go put the triangles out and I'll get us out of here."

"OK," I said, "but where's the road?"

I had to watch for the next rally car to go by before I could locate the road-forty yards away and thirty feet up. As I bushwhacked my way up through the dark with triangle, flashlight, and route book, I could hear Jim bashing a new road through the brush. Man, that truck is TOUGH!

Three rally cars later, Jim yelled to me to come back. I collected my triangle and trotted back down the road, arriving at the S-10 just as sweep pulled up. The first guy out of his truck looked at me, then looked at the signs of our passage through the brush.

"So how many times did you roll it this time?"

"None," I answered with dignity, "we just drove off the road a little."

The sweep guys were gracious enough not to snicker. Then, since we were hung up on a very large lump of dirt and had somehow lost the ability to put the truck into reverse to get off of it, they were gracious enough to pull us back onto the road. I did what any conscientious co-driver would do at this point-I took pictures.

Back in the truck, we crept along to the next FTC. There, we were met with disbelieving looks ("they did it AGAIN?") and the information that, since we had gone off twice, Medical would be checking us out at the next ATC. On the way there, I figured out that we had now probably accumulated less than 10 MPL minutes. Hey, if we kept it on the road we could still finish!

At the ATC for Stage 8, Medical was waiting for us. As we stood outside the truck, helmets off as requested, the medical guy shone his flashlight on Jim. After a thoughtful pause he turned the light on me. I smiled nicely and tried to look sane.

"They look fine to me," he said, and with a heartfelt "Thanks" we were off again.

After limping our way through Stage 8 we arrived at the Akeley service to find that Jason and Christie had gone home (they were later to comment that they had a wonderful time, and Jason mentioned to a friend that he knew where he could probably get an S-10 with roll cage real cheap…). However, our friends Greg and Kurt had finally gotten done dirt biking in the woods and were ready to wrench. While they and the rest of our crew removed a shattered shock, reinflated one tire, changed another, and generally marveled at the damage, I searched in vain for a bathroom.

At the end of service time, Jim reluctantly opened the hood to check the fluid levels-he was afraid it wouldn't shut again (now I know why he has "install hood pins" on his To Do list). Sure enough, time was up and the hood wouldn't close. Brother-in-law "I Need a Bigger Hammer" Tom finally got tired of pounding on it and simply climbed up on the hood and jumped on it. Ah well, so much for the only straight piece of sheet metal on the truck-but it did close, and off we went again.

At the first ATC, a new problem asserted itself. I'm very claustrophobic, and the duct tape net was really starting to close in on me. I couldn't see at all out the side (good thing my door was the one that would open, or I never would have gotten back into the truck). If we had the lights on I was fine, but when we waited in the dark at the ATC I started to get a little panicky, and more than a little queasy from watching the taillights of the cars in front of us bobbing about. I finally kept the claustrophobia at bay by occupying myself by ripping the knife from its duct tape holder on the floor and quietly sawing bigger holes in the net every time we stopped. By the end of the race my net was looking quite moth-eaten, but at least I managed to avoid hurling myself, screaming, from the truck at every ATC.

Even with our broken truck bits and less-than-finely-tuned brains, we managed to limp through the last two stages with time to spare-we even beat Bogey time on Stage 9 by four hundredths of a second. As we rolled back through Park Rapids to the finish, we got a round of applause from two people walking across the road to the post-race party. The finish crew seemed quite happy to see us; no doubt they'd been worried we'd go off again and keep them waiting out there 'til the sandwiches were all gone.

Later, in the motel, Beryl Ann approached me with a pile of Incident Reports.

"I only need two," I said.

"Keep the rest for later," she replied.

Ouch.

At the awards ceremony, I knew what was coming when Brad Odegard held up the huge bridge bolt and announced that he was now going to present the award to the "Biggest Screw Up" in the event.

Oh well, it's nice to win something.

And no, I don't think Jim will have to look for a new co-driver. I know we were pretty lucky, and there are a lot more ugly ways to go off than what we experienced. Still, we made the transition from "those that will" to "those that have" and survived with Rally Fever intact.

Or, as Overall winner Mark Utecht put it after the event, "Welcome to 'Dem Dat Did!'"

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