Thanks Show-Me Rally

4th gear off on SS2.



All okay, except for a broken ankle!

Ouch. Well that's a bummer but glad to hear they're OK.

Yes, a big thank you to everyone who made this rally happen in such a short amount of time!

Good job by the locals finishing on the top. I do think familiarity is a contributing factor (with driving skill as well of course).

Two local Subaru's blew engines (one a several thousand dollar "race" engine swapped in before rally), had some co-driver swapping going on, and what happened to Micah's VW this time?


My long ramble/story:
After Perryville last year, which was quite an adventure with cooking battery and fumes which I'm sure are going to take years off of my life, down on cylinders bc of loose wires on later pre service stages, driving half a stage on a disintegrating tire and then bare alloy, and driving along/taking out a barbed wire fence with side and top of car on another stage, the Contour was in pretty rough shape.
I had no time/energy/money to get it together to race this year with moving shop (with a house out back ).
Long time rally driver James Haas whose 2.5 swapped mx3 is no longer rallyable because I guess "there can only be one" (mx3) made a proposition to fix and drive my car to which I agreed.
Lots of work on his end trying to get the suspension right (ended up with junkyard Bilsteins and H&R lowering springs I had laying around), his nicer but oversize tires on my medium offset Saab wheels tucked in rolled fenders, electrical repairs, and new windsheild later the car was as good as it was going to get.

After my former co-driver backing out on him, I got stuck in the passenger seat. It wasn't the plan and I never co-drove, hated the idea and afraid of penalties, no rally computer, no time with moving, Blah blah. Thanks Gawboy for all the help and sorry for hounding. Just couldn't believe it was so simple; thought there'd be more to it but still not quite familiar with all facets. I really wasn't at all much help as co-driver; not really able to keep up with roads and tulips with no rally computer. I consider myself semi "measurementally" and sense of direction challenged anyway.

Anyway
Might have gotten a little lost on way to stage 2 and turning around we lost forward power/ability to move which Haas correctly assessed ( well actually just "called it" as a broken axle as I found out in a bit. He waved down some Missouri S&T/Rolla guys in a truck who were kind enough to tug us to service.

I'm one to over-prepare but Haas said no time to fix anything suspension wise etc if something would go wrong so keep spares basically to barely anything. But I happened to bring a random spare axle!

I didn't know if it was a driver's or passenger's side. No Contour axles in stock at Autozone and pass/driver sides different. So I pulled it all apart to see what could be done. Toothed abs rings different, boot different with 3 big lobes vs just round cup, and then when trying to cram it in, tripod bearings (even though they looked the same size) where spherical and couldn't jam it into the cup. I ended up having to swap tripod bearings. A big thank you to adjacent crews (mx3 and evo) for electric impact, snap ring pliers, extra gloves, brake cleaner, paper towels,etc. There was also a guy taking tons of photos of the swap going down possibly making me look like a hero.

So after service we got back on stage (5) reseeded last. I think approx. 10mi long and passed two cars on stage! Unfortunately cameras were not turned on/running.

Of course we did loose time catching up and having to pass. Also got a nice big rock chip right above driver's line of sight on new glass from passing.
But pulling up to line behind mx3 after transit and seeing their reaction when realizing what happened was priceless.

Stages 6 and 7 were the same. We lost downshifting to 3rd gear and then bascially at all which cost us a lot of time. Additionally to that I did not feel like we really got the flow and speed we could have even though driver was just getting warmed up and familiar with car.

Even with all that, some surprisingly good stage times. Bummed we didn't get to run the full rally but it was fun.

Hope I didn't bore anyone with all this rambling.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2014 10:41PM by gripen.