Well, the only thing that really comes to mind when I try to describe our experience at Pines is WOW! This was my first Tall Pines as a driver, in the past I’ve done everything from Chief Safety Officer to car 000, 00, and 0 and codriving, but I’ve never been a driver at speed until now. What an experience!

As this was just our second event together on these sides of the car, John and I set our primary goal ahead of time to finish. We also wanted to have loads of fun, and of course to do that you have to go fast We had a balancing act to do, and I think we did a pretty good job, though we still got bitten later in the event and sadly weren’t able to finish. Next time!

I’m going to use the next couple posts to document our rally. I’ve decided to leave in some of the post-stage chatter between John and I if it was interesting and not totally full of expletives (which the video is in general, so consider yourselves forewarned, sorry!) as I always find it fascinating to hear what others are talking about after stages. In our case, it was often John coaching my driving, which I find extremely helpful.

Start Ramp

Going up the ramp in front of that crowd is pretty humbling, especially to hear them cheer you off. I had to get it on video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UXYoifcelU

Stage 1 – Upper Old Hastings 1

Our first stage of Pines! Woohoo! No major dramas, getting comfortable with the car, tires, finding a rhythm again. I was still pretty bad at listening to John, who did a great job with the notes, unless I threw him off!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEDqeadNefo

Stage 2 – Upper Old Hastings 2

After a service where we didn’t do much other than check over the car, we came back and ran Upper Hastings a second time. More of the same, no drama other than finding Leo’s triangle and losing a pile of time at 3:10 and having to catch the car after lifting for Burton’s triangle at 4:30.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkOySGRXppA

Stage 3 – The Peanut

Ahh, the peanut! Finally I got to drive it in anger, and I only messed up a couple times! My first major mistake was taking the big jump early in the stage (at 0:38) a little too big. I was flat for so long leading into it, and the video doesn’t nearly do it justice, but it was huge! My next mistake was being too fast into the left onto the narrow section, locking up the brakes and stalling the car. It took me a while to get it started again, highly annoying! Near the finish of the stage I thought there was something wrong with the rear end of the car as it felt somewhat wobbly, but I think it had just been the soft ruts pulling the car around because a thorough check didn’t find anything wrong. Getting our “this car survived the Peanut sticker at the end was a nice bonus!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQXuUpyRf4A

Well done guys & great video to boot!!

Haha, Ryan, I was at the Tait Farm area and took some pics while you make your wide right turn. Too bad I was not those guys who ran away when you turn to those corner... the closet car get to that corner was driven by Pat Richard, there was a sign that at the apex corner but Pat just hit over it and its so close to all those guys/gals who get near to that corner.. I mean really close!!
Let me know if you would like to have your photos, I could send over to you by e-mail
BTW, you do have a great run!!

Ben

Stage 7 – Iron Bridge Spectator Stage 2

Our third pass over this fast piece of road. We had one very scary moment where the car bottomed on the uphill at the end of the long straight on Landon Rd, which caused the car to skip sideways a little. Normally not a huge deal, except when it happens at 180km/h, then it’s a very huge deal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je_NXdCXqko

Stage 8 – Egan Creek

The long Egan Creek stage would sadly be the demise of our rally. Our plan all along was to take things relatively easy in the rough stuff (without slowing to a crawl the whole time anyway) and I think we did that successfully. One of the water splashes in Birch Lake Rd caused the motor to ingest a little water and it stumbled a little, but overall things were good. We reached the very fast section at the end of the stage and thought we were in the clear, when a “Stay R/Cr” bit us horrlbly (7:58 in part 2). Buried in that crest, right on the line it seems, was a very nasty rock that we hit square on with the right front at roughly 160km/h. Apparently a bunch of competitors hit it during recce and did damage to wheels and tires, though we missed it and indeed never saw it, and didn’t change the note. Hitting that rock amazingly didn’t flat the tire, but it blew and bent the hotbits strut. The steering wheel was immediately about 10 degrees left to keep straight, but because the road was smooth it didn’t seem too horrible. At the finish of the stage I got out and checked and noticed there was about 1” less ride height on that side, because the shock shaft no doubt was jammed due to the bent strut body. We limped on to the next stage, pondering our options.

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EF0guR52rI

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHBrCPfOWPE


Stage 9 – Lower Old Hastings

Having driven the transit down to Lower Hastings, the car didn’t feel too horrible, so I wasn’t entirely sure how bad the damage was. I talked to Martin and told him we had done some damage, but didn’t expect he’d catch us. I was wrong on that one. Sorry Martin for holding you up for a while! You can hear every little bump banging, and the buzz noise is the right-front tire bouncing and causing everything in the car to rattle. It really did feel horrible to drive, and I didn’t dare jump it on any of the huge jumps in that stage. All the banging also rearranged all the lights, making them all but useless. When Martin caught us, I could see better by his lights than by ours!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=febEZGfRoBM

Stage 10 – Middle Old Hastings

Having limped the last stage, I knew we could limp this one, and then we’d only have the Golton rallycross stage until service. Martin caught us in under 5 minutes which says something about how slow I was going, but the banging over the previous stage and this one had managed to totally rearrange our lights again and I was worried about bending something structural.

(Link coming, Youtube is being dumb tonight for some reason)


End of the story

For the transit up the highway the car continued to pound over every little bump and dip in the highway, and having an Evo sitting on my bumper the whole time didn’t help (if you wanna go faster, just pass me!). John and I spent the drive discussing options. I knew we could limp through Golton no problem, but back at service our only spare suspension option is old stock stuff that almost certainly wouldn’t survive a second, rougher pass through Egan Creek and could quite possibly have been dangerous, causing a severe off if something failed. We possibly could have borrowed someone’s spare suspension, but I’m on such a tight budget I would have a hard time affording to replace someone’s gear if I broke it. The reality of the situation is that we’d be driving in an extremely slow, conservative manner if we were to continue and likely not enjoying ourselves. Given we’re out there to have fun, and the fun had stopped with a bang, there wasn’t much point in pressing on. We stopped at the optional refuel and spoke to our crew, who concurred, and at that point I grudgingly walked our card inside to the organizing crew and withdrew us from the rest of the rally.

Anyway, we had a great time while it lasted, wish it’d lasted longer, but we’ll be back to challenge again. Anyone want to sponsor me with some suspension?

Hey Chris, thanks, we'll keep that in mind for the future. Reminds me, i've got a set of your brake pads in my trunk. We were worried ours were starting to get thin and didn't know if you'd be around last service so we borrowed a set just in case, though obviously we didn't need them. I was kicking myself afterwards, but I should have offered to tow you back to service, but I figured at the time you must not have had a spare turbo.

Thanks

Ryan

Painful to watch.  The disappointment can be heard in both of you.  Tough ending for sure but there's always next time.
Ma