Shooting Star Rally 2005

Park Expose: Very very hot (95-100 degrees). Trouble right away in the hotel parking lot, motor wouldn't run smoothly at low RPM. Figured I just overfilled the fuel cell (fuel can siphon into the carb since the filler tube is higher than the carb). Another bad sign was that the Video camera's power inverter kept tripping its circuit breaker.

Stage 1: Poor visibility (dusty) made speeds very slow and frustrating (knowing first car on the road would be building a huge lead in the clean air). The engine was running poorly and getting too hot. Despite the problems, we managed a decent time, good enough for 4th overall. At the finish control, the motor completely vapor locked (due to heat caused by no air flow under hood when not moving). It would not re-fire. Luckily the finish was on a downhill, so we coasted out of the control zone. I forgot to turn the ingintion off while coasting. This would normally be no problem, but with a carb so hot it boils fuel, the floats can't control the frothy gas/liquid ix, and the fuel pump porceeded to fill the motor with fuel. Starter cranking resulted in 5' tall flames visible in the rear view mirror coming from the tail pipes and melted tail light wiring (exhaust full of fuel and cats hot). The motor was so full of fuel it hydro-locked agains the starter after a few cranks. Ryan hopped out with fire extinguisher (his initiation into Bluck co-driving). Turns out Ryan needed three hands, one to hold OK sign, one for the fire extinguisher, and one for the hood (windy day). I took the air cleaner off, could hear fuel boiling in carb, and see the engine full of liquid fuel to the point of running out the top of the venturis. There had to be a gallon in the intake and carb alone. I lowered float levels in vain hopes of keeping more of the boiling fuel inside the bowls and drained the hot fuel out of the carb. Cool fresh fuel and a couple minutes wait brought the bowl temps below boiling. I almost killed the battery cranking to clear the motor and restart (led to later problems?), but it finally got running. Now Ryan needed three feet to go with his three hands (two to stand on and one for the gas pedal, while I worked under the hood gettting it ready to go. Ryan kept the truck running (only ran wide open) while I put the air cleaner back together. That whole ordeal must have sounded real interesting from the control. We made it to ATC 2 with no road points.

Stage 2: 2 min dusts windows added by organizers made visibility more reasonable. Computer quit reading the probe. Engine now barely running. Ryan did really well reading tulips very accurately w/o odo. Repeat of Stage one's control die-re-start process, except w/o the cat fire this time and this control required us to push.

Stage 3: Same as Stage 2.

Sevice 1 We pushed from MTC control into our service spot, (wouldn't restart again). We had used over 20 gallons of gas to go 24 stage miles! I moved fuel lines forward in engine compartment to get them away from engine and into the radiator fan's air flow, and put water spray system back on. When the truck was cool, drove to gas pump, but still running bad! Rats! That means more problems than simple vapor lock. Tore carb farther apart and found debris in needle/seat assembly. Tried our spare computer, but it didn't read the probe either. We left the service with a good running truck and hoped to have fun finally being able to run a normal pace for the rest of the event.

Stage 4: Now motor won't run beyond 1/8 throttle (I still haven't figured that one out)! Oh well, a slow rally is still more fun than no rally. Voltage also was now going down and accessories started going out. Oh well, I guess we were destined to run this rally wide open (this time to maximize alternator output). At 11 volts, we lost the rally lights. Most of stage 4 was on just the two dim misaligned factory headlights.

After the transit to Stage 5, we were down to 9 volts, no longer had enough to fire the ignition. The motor quit just as we were about to pull into 5. Again, we thought we were done.

Stage 5: Since I run an auto trans and thus can't push start, I always have jumper cables. Hanka/Hanka jump charged us for about 30 sec then started us and we kept RPM high and used no accessories on 5 (Ryan read tulips with flashlight). Somehow the alternator put out enough to get us to service.

Service 2: Removed rally lights (better cooling, and couldn't use them anyway). Charged battery from service truck during the entire service. When it was time to go, Ryan walked the time card in by hand, I jump started the truck, crew pulled the jumper cables and we were off with a fully charged battery to the last stage.

Stage 6: Pure survival mode, careful not to allow RPM under 3000 in case it was the battery that was bad. One mile from the finish, we had a really tough decision to make. We came upon Ted and Karl showing the OK, but with only minor damage to the LF corner. I wasn't worried about our score, since we were probably running dead last, but if we stopped and the motor slowed down for even a second, we might DNF. I also wasn't sure I could tow them gently enough to be safe using only high RPM. Vapor lock and overheating would almost certainly return during towing also. But it was Ted and Karl, so I had to stop! Ryan seemed a little unsure of the prudence of this idea. After a few failed-tow-strap attempts to get started, we got going and dragged them past the finish, dropped them off, then headed back to town.

Transit home: I had trouble staying awake (after 2:00 AM and very stressful day). Ryan was amused by my slap-myself-in-the-face stay-awake tactic. The final bonus was getting pulled over by a state trooper within sight of the finish control for illegal windshield decal (required by sanctioning body) and loud exhaust. Luckily, we just got a warning, and made it into the finish control with 2 minutes to spare.

Good news: CV joints held up for the first time in four rallies. My fairly new co-drivered did a good job dealing with the adversity. We got lots of problems identified before Ojibwe, and still managed to finish.