About this site

My name is Ian Holmes. A few years ago I discovered the branch of motor sport known as road rally. Along with my wife, Lorrie, we road rally our 2014 Ford Focus in regular road rallies and my 1976 MGB in classic road rallies. In 2015 I took over the co-drivers seat for local rally driver Dan Little. This blog describes my adventures in all forms of rallying.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Let the countdown begin!

We have a rally!
Registration has opened for the Headwaters Regional Rally out of Walker, Minnesota, and I'm really looking forward to getting back in the co-drivers seat. Entries are coming in quite quickly at the moment. The very reasonable entry fee, coupled with the chance to be in a drawing for a free entry in one of the regional events up at the Ojibwe Forest National Rally in August has probably contributed to that. There we are, number 8 on the list so far. The field for this event is not capped so there's no telling how many cars could be there at the start line on May 21st.

There we are. Entered.

I'm excited to see familiar names in the field so far and some interesting cars too. Robert LaFavor's Ford Mustang that I saw (and heard) at when volunteering at Ojibwe last year, and the Ford Festiva of Kyle and Zach Williams, that I enjoyed seeing at 100 Acre Wood last weekend. So some interesting cars to see.
Robert La Favor's Ford Mustang at Ojibwe 2015
Williams and Willams Ford Festiva at 100 Acre Wood 2016
Our preparations will have to begin in earnest. I need to get familiar with the rally computer I'm planning on using. The ASE Rally Com. It's an App for iPad, that if used properly should take care of everything time keeping wise on the big day. 
Rally Computer. It mostly means nothing to me (and displays nothing) right now
Learning a bit more about the car would be a good thing too. I was watching an in car video from 100 Acre Wood earlier and during it the car in question blew a fuel pump fuse. The crew pulled over and quickly changed the offending fuse and were on their way in under 2 minutes. Right now, I don't know where the fuses are ("Spare fuses are in the toolbox in the hatch area" - Dan) and I don't know where the fusebox is in front though. Tyre changing I'm sure I could do without too much instruction, but I'm sure there are other things I could learn just in case anything goes awry mid-stage. 
In the meantime there are the sups to review to keep me going.
We have rally documentation!
See you out there!

Thursday, March 24, 2016

The Ozark Mountain Daredevils (Rally in the 100 Acre Wood day 2)

When we came out of our hotel on Saturday morning to head out we were greeted with the sight of ice on our car, so we had to spend 5 minutes chipping it off before hitting the road to Salem. The start point for day 2 of the Rally.
What a sight greeted us in Salem! All the remaining cars were lined up on both sides of the main street, with hundreds of people checking them out, talking to drivers, getting autographs etc;. Rally certainly isn't as big in America as in Europe but there are certainly plenty of die hard fans that turn up to events, couple this with all the locals coming out to see what then fuss was all about and you got quite the crowd of people.
Our first port of call was the Rally Superstore stall to get some souvenirs. Bruce and Beryl, Ken and Emily were doing a brisk trade supplying the fans with their momentos of the event. The lines were so long at the stall on Friday that I messaged Ken that night to see if he still had an event T-shirt in my size. He did, and put one aside for me. The Rally superstore crew do a great job at the events enriching the fan experience by supplying T-shirts, hats and stickers to show your loyalty to your favourite car/driver. If you missed out on getting gear for this event check the website they might still have some stuff.
Suitably swagged up, we headed out to our first spectator point for the day on stage 10, and what a stunning location it was! The cars swept downhill around a right hand curve into view, along a short straight before taking a hairpin left, heading up a steep slope, and cresting a rise around another right hand curve. (R3< 50 L2 50 R4/Cr perhaps?) This combination would test even the finest WRC drivers.
The approach to our viewpoint on stage 10.
Arriving early, we could take position inside the hairpin bend. An awesome location! I had visions of snapping away with camera as the cars came into view and then chasing over to the other side of the curve to catch them as they headed away uphill from the hairpin. Sadly, this was not to be for reasons that will become clear shortly. But I felt the pictures I got were pretty darned good.
Travis Patrana was first into view
A couple of minutes later, running third, Nick Roberts
Giving 110% as always, The very lucky Piotr Fetela
Along came Piotr Fetela pushing to the limit as always, you can tell just by watching him. The victor at Sno-Drift Rally was trying hard to add a second victory of the season to his record. A few miles down the road he was to be involved in a crash, the video of which went viral, but if you haven't seen it, here it is. A horrific crash that both he and his co-driver Dominik Joswiak walked away from. With car wreckage strewn across the course and emergency crews called there was no choice but to close the stage.
At our location we had no idea what was going on until a marshall walked into the road with a bullhorn telling us that due to an incident further down the road the stage was closed and there would be no more racing today.
This was serious. No more rally? At all?
Puzzled voices amongst the crowd wanted more information.
The voice came across load and clear. The Rally for the day was cancelled.
I was immediately very concerned. For the entire event to be cancelled something very, very serious indeed must have happened. Either to a car or even worse, the spectators.
There was an air of disquiet growing amongst the crowd. People had trekked out into the Missouri forests to have their enjoyment cut short after 10 cars, they were disappointed to say the least. But the message from the marshall seemed clear enough and was repeated several times. Lorrie and I's thoughts were down the stage as to what could have happened to cause this. People began to drift away. Mild confusion started to reign, those on the inside of the curve crossed the road to leave. But the stage was still hot! Potentially a car could have come around the corner at speed to find people in the road. The danger level was still high.
Then someone else took over the bullhorn.
The event was not closed. Just the stage cancelled. That was a relief. At least it meant that no-one had died further down the road. We could carry on with our plans for the day. Slowly, one by one, the cars came by, drivers without crash helmets on, we waved to them, they waved back, there were a few serious faces among them as if their thoughts were also a few miles down the road too.
Once the matter had been explained to the crowd a few of the dissenting voices apologized to the marshall who caused the confusion, and she graciously accepted.
With that we headed onto our next location. Stage 13.
A few days before we headed down to Missouri, Dan had told me of his plan to surprise his wife Susi and Paul by coming down to support them and help out if needed. In fact he ended up working on the car almost as soon as he got down there the night before as they tried to fix the Audi's fried engine computer.
"We should meet up on Saturday and watch some stages together." He'd said.
A great plan I thought. But have you ever tried to arrange to meet up with someone when you're in an area of zero cellphone coverage? It's rather difficult to say the least, and it was more by luck than judgement that we ran into Dan, and his friends Andy and Jim as they walked past us on stage 13.
Here was another good location downhill into a very tight, right angled left-hander.
Spectator viewpoint Stage 13. Whiskey Throttle rally are setting up to spin as they exit the curve.
The crowds were larger here than at any other location. Spectator cars were parked in a couple of fields as well as on one side of the approach road for about 2 miles. Yes, Rally is not as big a spectator sport in the USA as in Europe but the fans still come out in their droves to watch. Cars parked alongside the road to a spectator point for two miles was a common sight. You certainly have to be fit to walk all these distances to watch the action. It was great to see so many people out there and with everyone sharing the same interest it was easy to strike up conversations among the fans.
Travis Pastrana approaches the curve
Matthew and Lauren Conte
After this stage had finished we headed off to the next, and our last stop of the event. Stage 15. This was totally different to any other point we'd been to, this was a straightforward speed section the cars would whizz past us pretty much flat out. A great opportunity for me to try to try put over the speed of the cars in my pictures... Or not.
Laughlin O'Sullivan at speed.
Seamus Burke and Martin Brady
Troy and Jeremy Miller 
We all waited for our favourite car of the event, the Porsche of Feinstein and Mayo to pass us for the final time before calling it a day and heading back to Rolla to get something to eat. We were getting very hungry.
"Wait!" I hear you saying. "Why didn't you go to the end? See the prize giving."
That's a personal preference thing. It's not a situation like the Ojibwe Forest Rally where the final stage is in the town and the victory ceremony is minutes after the last car has run. After they had left us the cars still had two stages to run. We didn't feel the need to go to the end point to wait around for the finishers to get there, watch the prize giving and get showered with champagne. It's only the big boys that get to shower you all with champagne anyway. There are many different classes to be awarded prizes. If Paul and Susi had placed in their class we would for sure have gone back to watch and cheer. But they were waiting in the bar at Randy's Roadkill in Rolla. So we all headed back there.
Randy's Roadkill BBQ and Grill
If you ever head down to the Rally, be sure to put Randy's Roadkill BBQ and Grill near Rolla on your list of places to eat. The food is great, the owner Randy is an absolute character, and he does know about Rallying. Rally crews would be most welcome there. Susi even sourced a free meal by agreeing to put some Randy's Roadkill stickers on the Audi. Perhaps I should have told him that it was my birthday the next day and I'd have got a free meal too.
All in all then, it was a fantastic way to spend a weekend. The planning and trekking about the countryside to the different locations was a lot of fun. The action was great, and all the people were friendly.
We'd had so much fun over the weekend that the results were almost the least important thing. But if you want to know:
1st  Travis Pastrana and Christian Edstrom (Subaru)
2nd David Higgins and Craig Drew (Subaru)
3rd. Laughlin O'Sullivan and Scott Putnam (Subaru)
In closing then, a big thank you goes out to all the organizers and volunteers who worked hard to make the event such fun to attend. I look forward to coming back next year, and who knows it might even be in the co-drivers seat of the #958 Mazda.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

The Ozark Forest Daredevils (Rally in the 100 Acre Wood day 1)

The Rally America Championship arrived in Salem, MO on March 18th and 19th, and so did we. My wife and I made the long trek down from Minnesota to the Ozarks to watch the action at the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood, round two of the national championship.
I was looking forward to going down and just watching an event. If you are a regular reader of this blog you'll know that at my first Rally I volunteered, my second Rally I was in the co-drivers seat. So this time I'd be able to move around the scenic Ozark forest and watch the action in many different locations and (hopefully) get plenty of good pictures, indulging my passion of photography.
We arrived at our hotel on Thursday afternoon to find competitors cars in the car park being worked on, We knew we were in the right place.
Danny Norkus working on his car before going out to tech inspection
We spent much of the evening working on a plan to see as much action over the 17 stages as we possibly could. The handy dandy guide put out by the organizers helpfully listed all the spectator viewing points with maps and advisory routes to get to them. The way I saw it, there were two possible courses of action to us, as on both days of the event, the cars used each stage twice. So we could head to one stage and camp out there for the day, or we could move about and see action at different locations. We chose to move about, that would be more fun and allow us to see more of this great countryside.
Our first stop on Saturday morning was Parc Expose in Steelville to see all 67 cars before they headed out. It gave me a chance to meet up with a some of my friends there, Susi Little and Paul Johansen I see quite regularly when I'm over with Dan Little working on his car, as both cars share the same garage. But Ryan Dunham I hadn't seen since Nemadji.  The rally community is very close knit and you very quickly build up friendships. I got the chance to chat with them and wish them luck.
Entrants had come from all points of the USA. Cars were there from Washington DC and Washington state, Minnesota and Texas, so all the extremities of the country were represented.
With that we headed out to our first location, quite naturally on Stage 1. We thought it a good idea to get there in plenty of time so we could get our pick of prime spots, with a view unobstructed by trees.  It was a good job that we gave ourselves plenty of time for the roads to the spectator point were quite the journey itself. Wonderful hilly roads both black top and dirt. The dirt ones were an extra experience. We crossed causeways and forded streams in places. Brilliant! It's a good job the water level was low in places otherwise some of the roads might have been impassable, indeed there were road signs alerting us to that fact. When we arrived we found that the spectator point was on a nice hairpin bend in the forest and our early arrival meant we found space for ourselves on the inside of the corner, exactly where I wanted.
Spectator location A. Stage 1. Cars approach from the left and then head towards us
Time passed quickly as we waited for the cars to arrive. It was a pleasant day, not cold at all. I figured that our viewpoint gave us the chance of see cars really sliding around the corner, putting their back ends out as well as the chance to see a few overshoot this sharp corner. Also, knowing Rallying as a sport of attrition I knew that a viewpoint early in the first stage might be our only chance to see all of the cars taking part. I was right on all accounts. For on the second stage came the first of many heavy crashes that put several cars out delaying things several times. Still, that was all to come as we watched the competitors slide around this corner.
Nick Roberts using as much of the corner as he can
Others, like Rasaiah and Hoffman, ran out of corner
We were enthralled by the skills of Travis Pastrana, David Higgins, Nick Roberts et al., as they drifted around the corner and powered past us, and entertained by the fun and games of other competitors like car 360 (above) who slid off the road and tried to get back on course with two flat tyres. The co-driver even got locked out of the car at one point. They lost about 4 minutes before they limped on their way.
Once the stage was over it was time to head to our next location. Along with almost everyone else. As we walked away I thanked a few of the Marshals for working, I know how important their efforts are to the running of the event.
The delay with car 360 and an original delayed start due to a school bus needing to use a short section of the stage meant that things were running behind schedule already. So instead of going to stage four, a special "Super Stage" in a park, we changed plans and headed to stage five. As it turned out we needn't have worried as the first of the many incidents had happened on stage two, a car had wrecked, closing the stage. So as it turns out we might have been able to make it to stage four but stage five was a pretty sweet location. I got some very neat pictures and chatted with some great rally fans, comparing cameras and shots in the minutes lull between passing cars.
Spectator location, Stage five.
The photo above doesn't quite do the location justice. The downhill section, seemed much steeper as the cars approached, speeding past us, and then up another steep hill as they encountered a L4> R3/Cr (probably) to go out of our sight. Delays meant that the cars were well over an hour late getting to us, but it was certainly worth it.
David Higgins, up close. Very Close
The Porsche of Feinstein and Mayo passes us and heads up the hill.
The enforced lateness of proceedings meant another rethink of our plans for the day, our plan had been to go on to stage eight, but it would have been dark by then and with the sun going down things were starting to get chilly, so we thought we'd go back to stage six (stage one repeated) as we'd had a lot of fun there and seen quite a bit of action. But this time we didn't get located on the inside of the curve sadly.
Darkness descended quickly when we arrived and it even started to rain. The attrition of the event had cut the number of cars still on course from 67 to 40 some at the start of the stage. But still the action didn't disappoint. At one point four cars in a row missed the curve and headed straight on.
Nick Roberts takes the curve with ease 
Darkness is falling as Gekiere and Tuten round the corner in the dark.
At every spectator point we were always watching for the people we knew. Paul and Susi in the Audi and Ryan in the Suzuki Swift. When the Audi, hadn't passed us on six by the time Ryan had gone by we were a tad concerned, there had been many stories of crashes through the day. We later found out that the roads had shook their car about so much some wires had come loose and grounded on the engine management computer, frying it. No computer, no car. We were disappointed for them that's for sure.
With the last car past us it was time to head back to the hotel for the day. It had been a fun day with great roads, great scenery, good people and some excellent Rally action. We were primed for an early start on Saturday morning for more of the same.
All that is for another post.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Ceci N'est pas une pipe

(The allusion to Rene Magrittes painting "The treachery of images" should become clear later.)
I don't like trap rallies. I think I made that fairly clear last year.  So, why on earth were were going out on another one?
It is a road rally and we have done precious few lately. The last one, a couple of weeks ago had an ignominious ending, and we were both keen to get out on the road again.
The Weather forecast for the day was to be glorious. It would have been a glorious day any time of year, but for March, it was outstanding. Bright sunshine and 70 degrees. A perfect day for a drive. So we decided to go rallying no matter what the format. It was just too bad that the MGB was tucked away in the corner of our garage, otherwise I would have been tempted to get it out to begin convertible driving for the year.
I also had a new App to use, following the demise of favourite RallyTracks App. RallyTripTimer is really made for stage rally, but does have a Recce mode that is basically an easy to read twin tripmeter which was what I needed for this event. I also had it bluetoothed to my Garmin GLO GPS receiver for greater accuracy.
My set up. Garmin and iPhone running RallyTripMeter app.
Knowing that this was a course following rally with the potential for traps we got to registration in plenty of time to study the instructions. This did pay off, I noticed a couple of locations that could cause problems as I studied the route. So we thought we were well prepared as we headed out ready for an enjoyable afternoon driving.
Despite my dislike of the format this event had some instructions I'd not encountered before and was looking forward to working through. The instruction to execute a pause at a point middle of a control zone. Pause 20 and .20 were a couple that were specified. We aren't entirely sure how to handle these. It's like a formula 1 tyre change. It might only take 2 seconds to change the tyres but slowing down to stop and speeding up again means you loose 30+ seconds. So a 12 second pause on a road rally also nets you a greater time loss, and if you haven't got up to speed already in the control zone... Well, for us, lets just say it was just plain guesswork, even more so when there were several pauses in a control zone. Of course the effect can be minimized by braking harder into and accelerating away from the pause, which is what I expect the more experienced drivers do. That did make me wonder about one pause location that ended up being outside one persons house. I wonder what they might have thought if they'd seen all the cars stopping outside their house for 12 seconds before speeding away.
So, to Rene Magrittes pipe, or to be more accurate. A bridge, or what is not a bridge. On a trap rally you can only be 100% sure a bridge is actually a bridge if it has a sign on it telling you it's a bridge. Case in point, on one control zone the instruction was to "Pause 20 at each curve arrow after Bridge". We drove along the road and encountered a sturdy concrete built bridge over a stream.
"Great" I thought, and I started looking for curve arrows. 
But wait! This wasn't the bridge.
It didn't have a sign telling you it was a bridge. Further up the road was a glorified culvert that had a sign "Narrow Bridge" on it, so this was the "bridge" to start counting from. The confusion was added to when at the start of the control zone we were given amended instructions (that we had to sign to indicate that we'd read and understood), that were supposed to make it clearer which bridge to start counting from. 
Sneaky.
Such is the stuff that trap rallies are made of.
We also had the infamous "blackjack" trap again. Luckily, I was alerted to it from our previous experiences. I saw four right turns in a row on the route instructions, that would mean we drove around a big square somewhere. So I was primed to expect something in that vicinity, and sure enough, there it was. As we approached a side road T, we saw the control marker.
Like a moth drawn towards a light Lorrie started to turn the steering wheel to the left. 
"NO!" I shouted. "Not yet! We've still got to pause at that bridge and drive a few miles more before we get back here." We paused at the bridge and headed out to do a few more miles before returning to that point and turning left into the control. Quite a few cars behind us didn't. 
We were actually progressing really well. Ten of the eleven legs completed and we hadn't posted a maximum.
Yet.
There are certain rules of trap rallies that the novice needs to know. The most important one is that you can't enact two instructions at the same time. The new instruction over-rides the previous one. Which makes perfect logical sense when you read it. But this also means a seemingly innocuous instruction like a pause cancels out an important instruction like which road to stay on. 
The instructions for the start of the final control zone read.
BCZ at stop. Turn left onto G. 
Pause 20 at stop. 
The Instruction 'ONTO" means you follow G until you are told to turn off if.
The "Pause 20" instruction at the next stop sign overrides that previous instruction. So even though the road G went left at the stop sign we should have ignored that and gone straight on. You don't stop and Pause 20 before turing left and carrying on on G as we did.
When we have encountered a pause instruction at a Stop on other rally formats, the pause was there to even things out for the field if you were crossing a busy road. Making everyone wait the same amount of time. That was how I based my decision.  This incorrect choice netted us a maximum score on that leg that might well have cost us first place in class.
I'm still a novice at this trap rally malarkey and with my dislike of the format anyway, I should have written that rule in big letters on a post it note, highlighted it and stuck it on the car dashboard where I could see it. 
Our consolation was that many crews fell foul of this trap. Witness all the scores in the hundreds on the final leg. What gets lost in this though, is an appreciation of the skills of our Rallymaster Clarence Westberg, who was able to devise a set of instructions that despite people making that mistake would still result in you getting to the control, albeit having done maybe three or four extra miles. With that we made our way to the Bar in El Paso.
El Paso, Wisconsin. It does't quite have the same ring to it as El Paso Texas. But it was a good place to meet up with everyone to have a chat, compare experiences, complain about the traps, and have the prize giving. The food was some of the best we've had in a middle of nowhere bar at the end of a rally.
A big thanks goes out to Clarence Westberg for putting this event on with only 2 weeks notice with his crew of wife Kate, daughter Liz, and Kerry and Katherine Freund working the controls. The event couldn't have been run without them.
On reflection, we did much, much better than I thought we would, but I still don't like trap rallies.
Final scores



Tuesday, March 8, 2016

I have an itch that can't be scratched.*

It seems so long ago, way back in December when I took part in my first stage rally in the co-drivers seat. It was a successful outing too, finishing third in class in worse than dicy conditions. I still look at that trophy with more pride than any other medals I've won for anything else.
Dan and I. Third in Class, first time out. Might be the proudest I've ever felt.
Then of course there was the coming down after the high of successful competition. I was warned about the Rally Hangover. The coming down from the adrenaline high of competition. 
"Yeah, right" I thought to myself.
But no. It's real, very real. If anything, I thought it might be similar to the feeling I'd felt after completing a successful run in a play on the Amateur stage, coming down after all the good newspaper reviews  and resounding rounds of applause from the audience. No. It was worse. A lot worse. I probably needed these.
(Not really a cure for Rally Hangover.)
Now a few more months have elapsed, I still look at that trophy and glow with pride, but the hangover has gone, replaced by the itch for competition. I'm chomping at the bit to be out there calling pace notes. I went out and bought myself a race suit. Put that down as one of the things I thought I'd never say. 
"I've bought myself a race suit".
No. I'm not a QuickFit fitter. The white stripe on their suits was vertical.
Then there's the friendship and camaraderie with my fellow competitors. I didn't know what to expect that first time. I thought the drivers might be a wild bunch of adrenaline junkies and the co-drivers might all be studious types stood in a seperate corner discussing Satre and Proust where I might have been able to talk about Senna and Prost. I was totally wrong on that one. I now interact with these people nearly every day wether it be sharing things on Facebook, or being invited to events as varied as motor race viewing parties or gourmet food and beer evenings. They are a great bunch of people. 
So, I've renewed my RallyAmerica license, and I'm ready to go. To the Headwaters Rally, I've paid the entry fee. 
It's in May. The end of May.
May is still long way away. 
I've been studying videos of other co-drivers to see how they do what they do, even listening in to them in foreign languages, hoping to pick up pointers. Dan and I have sat down and analysed our performance  and worked on how to call things in future. Things are looking good. I reckon we'll do better than third in class sometime this year. (I know, pride comes before a fall and all that.)
I'm sure that having made this brash prediction, many of my fellow competitiors won't let me forget it. 
*a reference to the Saturday Night Live "More Cowbell" sketch. Something I truly hate

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Taking Note

I was skimming through the pages of the WRC website yesterday checking up on the progress of Rally Mexiko (their spelling not mine) and I came across this.
"Leading FIA World Rally Championship drivers have welcomed the inclusion of the 80KM (50 miles) Guanajuato stage at this years Rally Mexico.-
-The headline-grabbing gravel stage is the longest to be included in a WRC event for 30 years and contains 194 junctions as it meanders through the mountains to the north and east of host city Léon.
-it is anticipated to take around 50 minutes to get from the start to the finish. World champion co-driver Julien Ingrassia has 106 pages of hand-written pacenotes for this stage alone."
I had to sit there and let that sink in a little. 
Perhaps you should too.

Now I know I'm still a novice at this co-driving business, but that is a mind boggling amount. 
My first experience co-driving the notes ran for 2 1/2 pages of about 8 stage miles, and it took quite a bit of concentration to follow the notes for that short length of time. Now I know it's the co-drivers job, but to concentrate on your notes for the best part of an hour must be quite energy sapping. Not to mention the logistics of holding a 106 page book in your hands, turning the pages what amounts to every 30 seconds. What happens if as you turn a page, the car hits a bump knocks the book from your hands and you loose your page? 
Let's try and imagine what this is going to be like. Go and find a 100 page book, sit down on a dining room chair (tying yourself down to it tightly so you can barely move is optional as we're straying in 50 shades of Grey territory then) and try and read it out loud while someone is bouncing that chair up and down and from side to side. Score extra points if you also run your lawnmower to simulate engine noise and have a heater on high to recreate the Mexican heat.
So, much respect to every single co-driver out there on this marathon stage on Sunday morning. When the in-car footage becomes available on WRC+ I'll be spending several hours of my day watching carefully. I follow quite a few rally drivers and co-drivers on Twitter and Facebook and I'm for sure going to be checking them all to see if they post any pictures of this tome.