"In order to finish first, first you have to finish".
No-one is entirely sure where the saying came from. It has been credited to US racer Rick Mears but goes back further than that, probably to the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio. But wherever it originated there's no doubt it came from motor racing.
You may well have the fastest car on the track but if it crashes or breaks down then you're not going to finish, let alone be top of the podium, and a podium finish could be very special here at the new look Headwaters Rally. Because as I turned up at registration I was told that all class winners and second place finishers would get a champagne spraying celebration! In that case, who wouldn't want to come first or second?
Dan, my wife Lorrie and I had headed up on the Friday morning to take part in the afternoon recce to check the roads out. There had been quite a bit of confusion earlier when the course notes were released by the organizers. Several lines of instructions were missing. I had been doing some video recce with the notes and at one point the two didn't agree with each other. I checked with Susi (who has sort of been my co-driving mentor) to see if I wasn't imagining things. She agreed. Then as I went on I found other sections that were awry. So one evening we sat down and reviewed stage tapes and notes to come up with correct instructions, which then found their way to the other competitors.
These are popular rally roads and had been used for the Ojibwe Forest National Rally several times before so they were known to many of the competitors, even Dan who remarked as we passed one point while reviewing stage two.
"I remember this spot! I crashed the Blue Mazda down there!" This made for a special instruction in the notes to SLOW DOWN. He was not keen for a repeat performance.
We made two passes over each stage. The first pass was a slower one, to make sure that the notes we had were OK and then a second pass at a quicker speed getting a feel for the surface and reviewing the notes to see if the extra speed necessitated any further changes. After two passes we were feeling pretty good and retired for the night to await the next days adventures.
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| The 958 had a surprise in store for us all on Saturday morning. |
It was going to be a long day as the first car out was 2pm. So we had a lot of time to kill while other competitors went out on a morning recce session, and when I leisurely strolled over to the 958 I was greeted by Dan with the words.
"We have a problem. Watch this." He sat on the front wing of the car.
It didn't move.
At all.
The springs were rock solid. No give in them, not one inch. Pretty much the exact opposite to what you'd want in a stage rally car.
"I'll be honest with you." He said. "We'll go out there and try it. But if I don't like the way it handles, we will probably call it a day. I don't want to break the car or end up in another ditch."
Dan is the boss so it was fine by me, although I really wanted to get out there and rally. I didn't want to end up in a ditch either.
The car passed the tech inspection with no problems and I went to the second of my compulsory novice briefings before we got the car ready for the Parc expose.
Two p.m. arrived and the cars headed out towards the forests.
It was a hot day, a very hot day. Both of us had been hydrating all through the morning and we were quite comfortable in the car cruising to the start with the car windows open. Even finding time to return the (not so) cheery wave from a resident near the start of stage one who clearly was not very happy to have a stream of noisy rally cars racing near his back yard.
However, once we strapped ourselves in with crash helmets on and the windows shut, the car was very hot indeed, in fact at once point I noticed I'd sweated so much I'd sweat all the way through my race suit. It is basically like wearing an oven mitt.
We were off! Left 5 - 50, Right 5 - 50, Left 5 very long, 70 line to Left 5... The turns were coming thick and fast, this was nothing like Nemadji where speeds had been lowered by the conditions. I kept up with reading the notes pretty well, once or twice I lost place, but that might have more to do with being bounced around due to the cars stiff suspension than anything else. In situations where I get lost Dan is always helping by calling what he sees on the road in front of him and that can help me get back on track. Good communication between driver and co-driver is key.
Then as we rounded a Right 3 we witnessed the first of the cars that had left the road. When I say witnessed, what we saw was some tyre tracks heading in a straight line out of the curve and a car sized gap in the undergrowth. The crew were showing their "OK" signs and we sped on our way. There were some important corners to get right on this first stage. One was a downhill very tight right-hander as we turned onto Steamboat trail, well known to OFR competitors. Dan was adamant on getting this right, being such a popular place, and with wife Susi recording the action, no slip ups were allowed. So of course, I flubbed the call and we went in a little hot, putting the back end out of line a bit. Hopefully it looked good to the crowd. Second time through, we nailed it.
Apart from us being bounced around rather severely because of our stiff suspension things passed off relatively smoothly and our second passes through the stages were quite a bit faster than the first. As we had started 14th on the road, the course was getting quite soft and torn up in the corners by the time we got there. So there was a lot of sideways slipping and sliding in and out of ruts in the curves, with Dan working hard to correct things. However, the forest roads were taking their toll on the competitors and by the start of stage 4 we were running 8th on the road. Not that that made the corners any easier there were still plenty of big rocks and stones to hit, and we hit many. With our super stiff, bone jarring suspension I don't know how the car survived.
After three stages I asked Dan how he felt about the cars' handling.
"Not happy but we'll stick with it". Was the reply. We had seen several cars off the road, but never at any point had I felt like we would leave the road. The car made it through stage 2 and 4 which contained the infamous curve that Dan had crashed on before and we made it back to service for a clean up and make sure everything was fine.
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| Back at service |
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| We bought back a lot of forest dirt with us. |
Service was long, 90 minutes. Which was, in my opinion, too long. Having come back all fired up from the stages, I think we were starting to come down a bit and I was starting to feel a little tired as we headed out again.
Four more stages to the finish to get another rally under my belt. Even if I carry on co-driving for another 10 years I doubt I'll experience conditions quite like these. The rally area had not received any rain in a week or so. Conditions were dry and as you see from the service park photo very dusty. Earlier in the day there had been a slight breeze that had helped to blow the dust away between cars. But in the service gap the breeze had dropped. The dust was hanging in the air, making visibility tough, couple this with driving into the sunset on stages 5 and 7 and things there were next to impossible. I lived in Lincolnshire, England until I was 38. I saw many a thick North Sea fog on the coast roads around my home. Visibility was as bad as that. Bouncing around on the road following my notes became difficult too. I felt like I was making a real pigs ear of things. On top of that our car hit one bump so hard as I was calling a turn that I almost broke a tooth! The minute gap between cars was not enough so by the time we arrived at stage 7 the gap between cars had been widened to two. This was better but still not perfect, as in some really sheltered areas the dust still hung around. On top of that a mist was creeping in around the trees too. The mist was white, the dust clouds tan, so it was easy to tell the difference.
Stage 8. The last stage. 11 miles from our second completed rally together. No heroics. We were off again. It was twilight and getting dark in among the trees, I struggled to read my notes and I switched the reading light on. The very same light that gets in the way of reading the notes it's supposed to be illuminating. Add to that the continual severe bouncing and hammering from the stiff suspension and I don't know how we made it through there. We went into many a sharp turn hot but Dan's driving skills got us through to the end in one piece. It was a relief when we saw the final finish board. "Saw" is a relative term as the dust was so thick around the finish line all I was aware of was a dull red blur as we zipped past it. I focused on the flashing lights of the car at the control point. That was the only concrete clue we had for the end of the stage.
Then it was back to the casino and the final MTC.
"I think we came fourth." Dan opined as we headed back. "Maybe third, realistically fourth. I'll be happy with fourth"
I wasn't so sure. I quietly thought to myself that we'd done better. I quoted the sporting cliche back at him. Our principal rivals in class G2 are Al Dantes and Brandon Snyder, Dave Grenwis and Drew Burkholder in VW's and the Mitsubishi of Mike Ericsson and Jacob Good. Ericsson and Good had succumbed to mechanical problems on the way to stage one. Dave and Drew had mechanical issues and we saw them on the roadside during stage three. Al had been driving like a man possessed and was way, way faster than our Mazda but he'd had problems too. So secretly I was hoping for second, perhaps even first. But as we had ended up as the first two wheel drive car on the road we had no idea what was happening behind us, and it was a long wait for the other G2 cars to get back for the results to be finalized.
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| Back at MTC waiting for results |
It was a very long wait.
Al and Brandon rolled in. On three wheels. They had hit a rock and got a flat about six miles from the end of the final stage and due to an oversight of epic proportions had left the tool to undo the wheel nuts in service. So they'd done 6 stage miles and 12 transit miles on three wheels and a rim that got ever smaller and smaller. I'd wager that if final MTC had been another mile away they might not have made it. There is a saying in rally. "Press on Regardless", you carry on to the finish no matter what the problems. This will go down as one of the great examples of this.
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| Not much left of the wheel when car 50 reached MTC. |
Eventually the results were announced. Co-chair of the event Nicky Nelson said the words I hoped I'd hear.
"First in class G2. Car 958!"
We had done it. Not by much but we had come first in class.
"Second. Car 50." A huge cheer went up. Al and Brandon came second despite finishing on three wheels!
Let that sink in for a moment.
First in class was a car that was incorrectly set up for the event and due to that was a minute off the pace in most stages.
Second in class was a car that "pressed on regardless" and finished on three wheels.
<insert that tired old sporting cliche here>
The champagne spraying celebration was savored by all involved. Champagne spraying is synonymous with big money motor sport and the fact that some of us at the lower levels got to do this provided a memory for me that will live for a long time.
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| Trophy and Champagne. |
But the great tales of the weekend don't end there.
Our good friends Kenn Parps and Emily Burton-Weinman had driven "Renner" their Saturn up to Walker to rally it, instead of trailering it up there.
"If we crash in the rally we'll deal with it then." Emily had told me a couple of weeks previously. I was hoping I'd be writing about a lost aspect of motorsport. Driving your car to a race, racing it, and then driving it home.
Alas, that was not to be, for they rolled their car on stage 8. The final stage. I was gutted for them but glad that they were OK.
How would they get their battered car home?
In a great gesture of true rally spirit, Nick Roberts offered space on his trailer to get the car home. Nick, as most of you know, runs in events across North America in the Rally America and Rally Canada championships. That one of the big names of rally world can help out one of the ordinary guys speaks volumes for the spirit of rally and the camaraderie in the sport. It makes you proud to be associated with everyone.
This event had everything. A win for us, great displays of the rally ethic "press on regardless" and the great community spirit of rally. So huge thanks go out to the Organizers, co-chair persons Nicky Nelson and Erica Messler. Rallymaster Greg Messler for choosing some great roads. Considering it was their first attempt at organizing a stage rally they'd done a good job.
The huge crew of volunteers (including my wife) who spent a whole day in a very hot and dusty forest so that a group of us could have some fun.
Our crew, headed by Andy Gawboy with Dans father Tim and Grandfather Norm, Susi and Paul for cheering us on. We couldn't have done it without you all.
To our fellow competitors for keeping it fun, and to Northern Lights Casino in Walker, MN for being rally HQ.
But I think an even bigger thanks needs to go to Scott Putnam of
Subaru.net who sponsored the event. It was his generous support that allowed the event to go on. From the permits to run on the roads to the champagne for the winners to spray over everyone. All of that made for a memorable event. Thanks to Scott and everyone involved. I hope to see you all again next year.
