LSPR

So, no 2014 LSPR discussion yet? I'll start it off.

The event was wet, muddy, cold, and challenging. Lots of offs. Fall colors were great. Pasties should be made across the US.

Need pictures!

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johnhuebbe
Pasties should be made across the US.

http://www.thepastyrepublic.com/
Though they are a bit over priced.

I can't believe you didn't post this!
http://instagram.com/p/uUAmkmpuYw

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Grant Hughes

Yeah that was a great video. Just out of frame is when Matt stuffed the car in a ditch. But we did back out quickly and didn't lose too much time.

This was by far the tuffest rally I have ran yet! After wrecking so many times I have a hard time committing to a 500 ! R3 slippy o/c .

We had a small off. fans pushed us out. Finished stage then seen water temp was pegged. I let it cool a bit filled it with water and it was empty half way threw the next stage. Found a hole in upper rad hose. fixed it in service but must of wrecked a head. I said screw it and ran the rest of the rally overheating. I told Jeremy I dont think we will make it much longer. Ran 4 stages and long transits with guages pegged. Pretty sure there isnt much left reusing out of this engine! We did finish! Slow but we finished! Time for a car refresh and get ready for Sno drift.

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First rally 2013
Rally car type AWD subaru
Total rallies as driver 6
Total rally cars built 2
Total rally cars caged 3
Total rally cars repaired from offs 4
Total years racing exp other then rally 19 yrs
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Check out 31motor sales on ebay for used Subaru parts

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Reamer
I said screw it and ran the rest of the rally

Good man. Rally on sir!

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Runamuck Rally

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johnhuebbe
So, no 2014 LSPR discussion yet? I'll start it off.

The event was wet, muddy, cold, and challenging. Lots of offs. Fall colors were great. Pasties should be made across the US.

Yes! My wife is a yooper so we get pasties on a regular basis. Homemade and store bought, yum!

This was our first run with the "new" car. Everything faired pretty well... The car wasn't running until Tuesday night. A mystery ignition switch failure was preventing it from starting but a properly placed zip tie got her staring like a top. Intercom stopped working before stage 1 so Drew got to scream the notes for the first run through the gravel pit. Turns out it was janky inline fuse that was easily fixed for SS2. Similar to Jeff, we sprung a leak in our radiator on stage 1. The car was steaming and pegging the temp gauge for stage 2 so we added some water (but not enough) before the 50 mile transit to service. The temps came down a bit but we had a steam stack coming out of the car the whole way. Plugged the hole and added almost 2 gallons of water at service and didn't have to deal with that issue the rest of the weekend (It's a vw it'll be fine). All the lights were horribly out of alignment for the first couple night stages; that sucked but they got fixed at service. Some timing slip-ups (2 minutes) on Friday but with the conditions the way they were, we knew we had to dial it back because just finishing was going to be a challenge. It always seems to rain on Friday of LSPR and this was no exception.

The roads were unpredictable on Friday, some stages were smooth gravel others were mud runs. Hard to commit with all the variation and changing conditions between stages. Saturday's stages were tricky and tight. Lots of big rocks to take you out and many water crossings. The weather got much better on Saturday and running without the defrost on max was a treat. We finished both days and were happy with our results considering the car had been completely rebuilt 6 months prior. I'm looking forward to pushing it harder at the next event.

Classic LSPR (POR).

photo by Stan Spruce

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Dave Grenwis - DG Rally - www.dgrally.com

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It always seems to rain on Friday of LSPR and this was no exception.

Except for when it SNOWS 7-8"......

And ACK!!!!! so much standing water!

Lake Superior '95 remains a favorite event....quite the challenge.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

And I finally turned up some 14mm x 15mm sleeves, and bought Subie top mounts for my Jetta. They ended up being the only things I didn't break in my front end.

Absolute slime fest on Friday, and some fun, wet, rocky fun on Saturday. We hit a ton of bedrock and rebuilt 3 corners of the car throughout the weekend.

Mr. Dave (above) saved the day with a balljoint, sawzall, and tie rod changing tool. We missed 4 stages Friday, and one on Saturday, but still completed the last 3 stages of the event and drove it across the finish line.

Now to rebuild...again. POR friends.

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Owner, Driver, Head Mechanic, and Janitor at Tower City Race Team, headquartered near L'Anse. Michigan.
Driver / CoDriver in Rally America, NASARallySport, ARA, AMS, UPMDA, Champ Off Road

https://www.facebook.com/TowerCityRaceTeam/
https://www.instagram.com/towercityraceteam/

Easily the hardest race I've ever ran to finish.

Pushed hard right out the gate to try and take advantage of Pritchard being gone for a year. Set a good time on the super specials and SS3. On SS4 was pushing hard in the sloppy stuff, and a R5>4 slippy caught me. Slammed into a berm at about 45-50mph, bent the control arm, and made any sort of left hand turn very sketchy for the last 3 miles of the stage. Pulled out of control, found a post on transit and rigged up a tow rope to the control arm. Slammed the car in reverse a few times and got it straightened out enough to finish off the last two stages of the loop.

Control arm was replaced in service, and noticed the bead of the tire was quite packed, still held air so ran with it. On the second loop ran great on Teepee Tower, only 3 seconds behind Pritchard on a 14 mile stage. Far Point proved to bite me again as I started losing brakes halfway through the stage. Pedal got firmer and firmer until I pulled out of the control and pulled over to look around the car. Once I let the handbrake go (hydraulic) I realized that the ratchet to substitute it as a parking brake flipped up and hooked the brake into a lightly locked position. I had noticed the car slowing down but had attributed it to the enormous amounts of muck on the roads. Once I released the handbrake my brakes fell to the floor. No fluid was missing so deducted that the fluid had boiled. Nice long 40 minute transit on highway let the fluid cool down enough so I at least had some brakes for the last two stages. Ran at a conservative pace since I knew chances of winning day 1 were pretty much dashed at that point, and wanted to make it to day 2.

Got the car back home, back at the house at 1am. Lost the keys. Very frustrated, ended up borrowing the wiring harness my friend had made for starting the car without a key from my old OL car. 2am and have the car in the garage. Pulled the rear brakes to find the pads absolutely crushed and worn down to the metal. Mushroomed the right rear inner pad so much that we had to pull the caliper off to remove it. Pads that I had brought that I was told would fit (my Lotus front brake pads) ended up not fitting in the Group N 2-pot rear calipers. Checked a bunch of auto parts that supposedly had some. Decided to call it a night at 3:30am.

Mark (crew chief) woke up early to try and hit the parts stores. Came back with some pads that were the same as my Lotus ones. No dice. Called and texted a few people, found Chuck surdyke had a pair of stock pads for his 2 pots that we could borrow. Mark booked it to his hotel, got them, made it back, put the pads in, and we loaded the car on the trailer. Was 9:15am at this point. Parc Expose required check in at 10am. Made it to L'Anse, fueled up the rally car, aired up the tire, and made it to Parc Expose at 9:59, pulling into the control right when the town clock switched over to 10am.

Got a frantic text from Mark wondering if I had paid for the fuel at the gas station.... whoops.

Started out Day 2 with enjoyable stages. Stage 11 felt good. Stage 12 felt like I was killing it, until I slid a bit wide and tagged a berm. Started to feel popping in the wheel, which told me the lugs were getting loose. Backed way off while noticing the steering wheel was also feeling loose. Thought it was the 17mm nut. Made it to the control, and found the 6 screws for fastening the Sparco wheel to the hub were all finger tight! Several about to fall out. Another mile or two of stages and I am convinced the wheel would have just about fallen out of my hand. Got out of the control, got the breaker bar out of the trunk, tightened up the lug nuts (which had indeed gotten loose) while John rummaged around for a tool to tighten up the wheel. Hurried to the next control and didn't lose any time. Barely.

Stage 13 was Herman. All felt good until we hit the huge water splash (crossing?) and felt the engine cutting power. Felt like some water got on the intake, so just brushed it off and ran at half throttle for a bit until it dried itself out. Then with the last mile or two of the stage, any boost at all caused the car to cut out. Pulled into the control, and made it out. Ran through the symptoms in my head, and realized the boost gauge was showing 0 when cruising, no vacuum or boost. I had the boost gauge Tee'ed into the manifold pressure sensor line, along with another tee that used to go to the charcoal canister that I capped off when I removed it. Pulled into the next control with only a few minutes to spare before checking in. Opened the hood and found the nipple had blown off. Some rearranging of vacuum lines and was able to completely remove the tee from the system. Car fired right up and had full boost. Acted like nothing ever happened. Stage 14 felt good, feeling wary at this point because of all the issues.

Enter stage 15, was going hard on this stage to make up for lost time on Stage 13 when I lost boost. About halfway through the stage the pedal started feeling soft, uh oh... brake must be boiling again! Checked the handbrake, nope, that's fine. Weird. Will just back off a bit. Another mile or so and it's getting noticeably softer. Last mile of the stage and my foot is to the floor trying to slow down this car. Feels like I have about 5% brakes left. Last part of the stage is pretty fast and flowing, with some 3's thrown in. I tried to maintain speed while not trying to get myself in too much trouble. Made it to the end of the stage, pulled over to find no brake fluid left, and my right rear wheel is covered in fluid. Turns out the caliper seal that had seen tremendous heat the night prior finally let go. Nice long transit to the Kenton refuel... Well, let's just get there and see what happens.

Made it to refuel, found a pair of vice grips and some brake fluid. Clamped off the line and bled the brakes a bit. Brakes felt great. Made it to the next control with just a minute or two before we pulled in (100 minute long transit too!). Finished off the stage, only starting to push near the end as I did not trust the brakes at all at first. Made it to MTC and finished off the rally.

Traded stories, and admired the national guys spraying champagne. Went to go load the car on the trailer, and whenever I tried to back up after lining the car up on the ramps, something was jamming it. No care anymore about trying to fix it. Rolled up onto the trailer and started budgeting in my head a new transmission. Wasn't until the car was brought back home it was discovered that a caliper bolt had backed out and whenever the car went into reverse, the rear caliper would jam between the wheel and the rotor. Odd.

So yea, that's my LSPR. Was very happy with my pace whenever I was running confidently. Only a sec/mile off the pace of Pritchard and a few national open class cars. Looking forward to the Show-Me Rally and really pushing hard at 100AW!

Congrats!

I've had the steering wheel mostly come off on stage. sucks pretty bad, i Ended up just grabbing the hub and using that to steer.

wow you had to fight off a LOT of problems. kudos for the POR attitude!!

you rock

This year LSPR marked my 10 year anniversary competing. Didn't last long, though. Rod bearing went on the transit after the first two stages. Other than that it was a very well put together car and service by TRF was awesome. Bummer for my buddy that was driving though, as it was his first event.

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Carl S
This year LSPR marked my 10 year anniversary competing. Didn't last long, though. Rod bearing went on the transit after the first two stages. Other than that it was a very well put together car and service by TRF was awesome. Bummer for my buddy that was driving though, as it was his first event.

Mine too! You probably didn't think you'd start in the back of the field again 10 years later did ya? Bummer you guys didn't make it further, I was wondering what happened.

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Dave Grenwis - DG Rally - www.dgrally.com

Starting at the back is better than not starting at all!
From a quick look at the entry lists, it looks like you, me, the Huukis, Ole Holter, and Pritchard are the only people on both the 2004 and 2014 entry lists. Kind of crazy that there's been that much turnover in competitors in 10 years.
Edit: I still remember the first stage of LSPR 2004 where I caught you! I was all like, "psh, I got this rally thing in the bag!"
Another Edit: Add Putnam, Natalie Richard, and the Krolikowskis to both lists, too. But still, out of 242 competitors between the two entry lists only 10 names are the same.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2014 10:05PM by Carl S.