Going Off

Tell your best stories.

I'll start,

At doo wops this year, we had just finished the first stage. My co-driver was busy loosening up the belts and pulling the helmet while we started the transit. I figure, hey I'll turn the recorder off to save the tape time. I had to look back to check if the light had turned off. As I look back my co-driver yells out LEFT. I turn to look and we are headed off road and there is a huge ditch about 40 yards in front of us. Only thing I can do is slam on the brakes....we stopped JUST before the ditch, but some speccies had to pull us out due to the thick mud. Tell 'em THANKS Derek!

My only issue with the whole incident was that I was actually successful in turning the video recorder off.

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-Tom
DemonRallyTeam | Fine Tuning | CTS Turbo & RP Turbos | RalleyTuned | JRM | Meister Autowerks
Spitfire EFI | Product Apparel | JVAB Imports | NLS | AP Tuning | USRT

Add us on Facebook | Next Event: 2013 Olympus Rally June 22-23 Olympia, WA

Aw shit that woulda sucked BIGTIME. In the ditch on a transit! Well, this wasn't on a rally, but so far it's my one and only roll, in a Hornet enduro race. For them poor iggerant masses what don't know about Hornet racing, go to http://www.evergreenspeedway.net/artman/publish/article_44.shtml, read the construction rules and when you're done laughing come on back...So I'm "racing" our '82 Toyletta Commoda station wagon, doing well and passing lotsa junk in the corners at least (cuz most o' them boys don't much know how to drive), when some feller took advantage of me being all sideways entering the hairpin and punted me but good in the rear qtr panel, sending me upnover and back on the wheels. Got it into the pits and John Lane the wizard took a look and said "we gotta take the bend outta that steering arm" and he borrowed a torch and got the arm nice and redhot and I witnessed the damndest wheel alignment job I ever hope to see--"OK get the steering wheel tight, while I push on the LF wheel...OK, does that look straight? Great, put some packing tape on the windshield and let's roll!" It's a hell of a thing, racing and crashing and beating the snot out of a car, and not giving the tiniest mouseshit cuz ya only have about 200 bucks in it! I haven't laughed so hard since Dave Clark saved us from a dead clutch at the doo wop log sortyard rallysprint in '03 by loading up the windshield washer bottle with soda pop and running the hose into the bellhousing to carbon up the friction plate and get some more grip...when it started to slip I'd just hit the washer and it'd spray more soda in there, and I could get a few more RPM in 'fore it slipped again. I'm real glad I paid someone else to do that next clutch job, heh heh heh...John did your employee quit after doing that one?

And I don't even wanna talk about what Mr. Lane and I did to that Toyletta, and a poor defenseless near-dead Subaru, on my backyard racetrack. Cars as logging equipment... it ain't pretty.

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Jay Woodward
Snohomish, WA
'90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
Chronologically, 46...

Jay Wrote:
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>read the
> construction rules and when you're done laughing
> come on back...

Hmmn, no 4 cylinder Ford Fairmonts? At least they have some fashion standards

Cheers, Ted

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Pure mathematics is the enemy of every truly creative man -- Sir Alec

Getting ready for 100 Acre Woods in 2004. Weekend before take the car out into the mountains to go to a local rallycross ice race to get my annual inspection from the local scrutineer. Decide to put on gravels because it's been pretty warm and I want to make sure they don't rub too bad. Get out on one of our favorite roads and the car feels awesome. Except we're in a canyon with a creek and there are surprise huge ice patches. So I'm taking it stupid easy because there is no grip with the gravels on pure ice. Come around a slow corner and the car will not turn. Slowest off ever. I'm ready to drop like 10 feet into the creek when the car abruptly stops. Boom. Smoke start pouring out. I've impailed the front on a random steel pole. Standing in front of the car, the bumper is about at my chest and only one rear wheel is still on ground. Punctured oil cooler and shorted out alternator burning out a significant amount of the wiring harness. Remove the bumper, tie the car up with a seatbelt to an Impreza and pull it out. Tech inspector comes and does the inspection on the side of the road. Tow it home Monday. Tommy and Mike Kilpatrick come over and redo all the wiring for me. Leave Wednesday for 100AW. Come around a corner 2 miles into the second stage and a car is wrecked into tree. Two options. Hard brake and out into trees, or t-bone them and kill the codriver. We find the biggest stump around dead center to the bumper. Kills the radiator fan and we overheat trying to drive back to service a few hours (and missed stages) later. Tow the car back to Salem. Stay up to 5 fixing car. Get up at 7 to retech. Drive slowly with intermittent overheating, and a constant misfire, through all 60-70 stage miles and make it to the finish dead last. It was a great weekend.

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Grant Hughes

My first rally off: Tahola stage,last stage of day 1 doo wop 03, downhill sweep right. Low sun angle, went from dry to muddy, and just to make the off a deadcinch certainty, when it started to go wide I *lifted*.... so into the scenery we went. The LF caught something, a stump likely, and we rotated through 180 while also going vertical onto the front bumper. I remember trying to lean back in my seat so as to try to make it fall back on the wheels instead of the roof; it musta worked. Debeaded a tire and highcentered so sweep pulled us out and we finished the stage just this side of getting timebarred. Portapower was our friend and we went on to get 4th overall on day 2. Another great weekend! Then on Oregon Trail last year we made utter fools of oursleves on the spectator stages and eventually totalled the car on a tree on the emerald forest stage. Did a clean drive at doo wops this year but had many mech. issues, issues that prolly won't get fixed in time for OT this year but we'll be ready for olympus. Where it'll be yet another great weekend.

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Jay Woodward
Snohomish, WA
'90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
Chronologically, 46...

My first rally off;

Rally Tar Pits 1.300.000 BC we are in a GrZ Flintstone Special, last stage Brontosaurus jumps in front of us we end up in a dormant tar pit, with the impact the pit belches and throws us back on the road.

Naaaaah I'm not that old.

82 Bursa is the first one worth mentioning. In a Fiat 131 with a noob driver who not only doesn't listen to notes but gets confused when I read 2-3 at a time. A 50 straight up hill, you can see the hairpin right coming, we are already slow, the altitude and the bone stock engine doesn't let us go fast anyways, the driver (I don't even remember his name) is in a trance. I am yelling HAIRPIN RIGHT !!! He manages to go straight instead and the car is balancing on it's belly a foot more we would endo down the hill and they would burry us in matchboxes. I smacked him on the leg so hard I couldn't use my left hand for a week. If we were not 80 miles from civilization I would walk out. Sweep yanks us back on the road and we continue. Driving to the finish in that car was more boring than watching the paint dry. We didn't speak to each ther other than right-left-stop-wait-go. I haven't talked to him since. Fucker almost killed me.

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Cheers
M.Samli
Phoenix AZ
Gaylant VR4
EVO III GSR (Stolen)


Rallies are no place for traitors

Hm. Such a selection to choose from. Do you want the "I'm A Moron" story, or the "I'm An Even Bigger Moron" story?

"The Time I Punted Mustafa" story is also pretty good.

Oh, and this wasn't really an off, but there's "The Time I Stopped At The End Of Crane Creek Because I Thought The Old Rusty Hulk In The Ditch Was a Competitor" story....but you saw that first hand.

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Self-righteous douche canoe

see, now that was a good one though....

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-Tom
DemonRallyTeam | Fine Tuning | CTS Turbo & RP Turbos | RalleyTuned | JRM | Meister Autowerks
Spitfire EFI | Product Apparel | JVAB Imports | NLS | AP Tuning | USRT

Add us on Facebook | Next Event: 2013 Olympus Rally June 22-23 Olympia, WA

Wild Waste about 2001 or 2002 in new to me Golf Evo1. I had boguht the car 3 weeks prior to the rally for like $2500. I had stayed up to 5 am Fri morning bolting all the bits to the car to make it a much better rally car, DMS, VW Motorsports gearbox, motor mounts, quick rack, belts, ODO, mounting tires, intercom... Built the whole thing between 3pm Thurs and 5am Fri, except the cage that was in the car when I bought it.

So Sat comes I am a bit less tired. Having an OK run other than Co-Driver being scared and barfing often. Drive what you can see! Finish a stage as soon as I am by the red finsih board I lift and start to slow down, bad call on my part, off we go, all I can see is pine branches hitting the window for like ever as we go down a fairly steep hill.

As earlier in the day we had lost the radiator fan I am worried about over heating so I turn off the car and hike up to the road. Now we are on a Transit so no big deal but we are going to need to get a tug out soon or run out of tranist time... time passes... more time passes finally I think hey I did not try reverse! Get in the car and aim it back to the road put it in gear and no problem drives right out!

Another time I drove the Golf Evo2 into a ditch at the turnaround for smith creek after braking a drive shaft on the stage, so with one wheel drive I was good and stuck, had to get a Subie to pull me out. I did this infront of like you know the whole rally worth of drivers and co drivers sititng at the turnaround, brilliant!

I think in the second rally of Golf Evo 1 wife says "stright over crest into 90 right" I hear "Straight over Crest" Hey I can get air, yippy OK floor it, oh is she still talking, no problem I have years of married paractice tuning that shit out... Some spectators gave us a push out, now we say 90 right after crest and that works much better.

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In the long run reality always wins.

hoche Wrote:
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>
> "The Time I Punted Mustafa" story is also pretty
> good.
>

Bitch !

You know I still have your pic in my phone. Hehehehehe.

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Cheers
M.Samli
Phoenix AZ
Gaylant VR4
EVO III GSR (Stolen)


Rallies are no place for traitors