Is it even worth it?

I am still hanging on to my Galant. It's been five years and it's still more stripped street car than rally car project. Budget is coming into place and I've got $3000 worth of cage and reinforcement planned for spring. (FINALLY.)

But I'm doubting myself.

I don't really care that I'm going to just have the means to enter one event a year (Prescott, of course) and I don't care that I'm not interested in building a $20,000 open class car so I might stand a slim chance of winning that one event.

So why am I bothering to build a rally car?

Wouldn't it make more sense if I were to throw in a simple harness bar, a set of JVAB suspenders, some lights, skid protection and just beat on the car out in the desert when nobody's looking?

Isn't that damaging to the sport?

If I get this thing ready in time for Prescott this year, I'll be running used tires on stock wheels, stock struts and springs, stock brakes, a couple of $50 KC daylighters, no tripmeter, $250 Cobra seat and rented HANS.

Is it worth it?

---

Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2009 12:56PM by DR1665.

Will you have fun? if yes, then worth it. Go play in the desert, just have a get out plan. I was thinking of strapping my CT70 into the back of my car for "testing" days, so I can get home....

Ehhhh...I've concluded the disposable income level with two kids just isn't there to justify it.

Rally is for those w/o kids and mortgages. Now where's that bottle of Jameson...time to close down the practice road! j/k

---

Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

DR1665 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am still hanging on to my Galant. It's been
> five years and it's still more stripped street car
> than rally car project. Budget is coming into
> place and I've got $3000 worth of cage and
> reinforcement planned for spring. (FINALLY.)
>
> But I'm doubting myself.
>
> I don't really care that I'm going to just have
> the means to enter one event a year (Prescott, of
> course) and I don't care that I'm not interested
> in building a $20,000 open class car so I might
> stand a slim chance of winning that one event.
>
> So why am I bothering to build a rally car?
>
> Wouldn't it make more sense if I were to throw in
> a simple harness bar, a set of JVAB suspenders,
> some lights, skid protection and just beat on the
> car out in the desert when nobody's looking?
>
> Isn't that damaging to the sport?
>
> If I get this thing ready in time for Prescott
> this year, I'll be running used tires on stock
> wheels, stock struts and springs, stock brakes, a
> couple of $50 KC daylighters, no tripmeter, $250
> Cobra seat and rented HANS.
>
> Is it worth it?
>
> Brian DR1665 | Phoenix, AZ
> 92 GVR4 - daily | 91 GVR4 - endless rally project
>
>
>
> Edited 1 times. Last edit at Nov 27, 2009 by
> DR1665.


you and Alex Rademacher can fight it out. I say go for it....the desert isn't nearly as fun as stage rally.

---

Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/

Rally is a BLAST but is expensive.

You will spend less dough driving a car with less drivewheels until you figure out how to drive it.....

Then you will spend to stay competitive and keep it alive.

Is blasting through the desert fun? You bet! Don't get hurt doing it.

A car that is perfect will never turn a wheel unless you have unlimited time and dough to put into it.

---

JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

Thanks for the support, gents.

Whenever I find myself wondering why I'm doing this, a voice inside starts screaming "YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING."

So now I'm taking advantage of an 80* Phoenix Friday off work to rip out the last of the interior. Feels pretty good. As Confucius said, "It does not matter how slow you go, so long as you do not stop."



Just came upon an idea of someone I might approach about pulling a Burns-Heidepriem team with me. (Take turns driving/co-driving at each event.) Ain't Twitter great?

---

Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

The first few times are incredible, get out there and do it. I was still having a lot of fun some 17 years later but the goals had shifted a bit. When you read about some of us older folks bitching about cost or such remember that we have lots of good memories to sustain our rally addiction - since you do not have those yet you need to get your ass in gear and build the car and go.

---

In the long run reality always wins.

Consider my ass in gear, sir.

I've spent the afternoon pulling the dash and center console out of 195. Nothing like getting your hands dirty to re-inspire you.

---

Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

oh the glory of knowing that everything surrounding the event is set up for YOU!! to go bats hit crazy and drive as fast as you fucking feel like on a road you've never seen, without traffic, stupid neighbors, or a getting stuck or knocked unconscious on or off the side of the road in the middle of the night . . .

for me, the first event was a surprise.
the second I still couldn't believe it.
now, if there isn't some kind of organized event, i have trouble bothering to get into the woods.
15 events later i'm even more prepared to throw my car off the side of the road, just to go a little faster. or, to try and knock over a scantily clad mannequin next to a huge ditch because it would be funner. http://specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38758

Do that event.

---

"I put the hurt on dirt" - adam crane
http://CraneRallyCrew.com
corolla gt-s "Patches"
Op: S.S.

Except for very few things in life, nothing is WORTH it. Do or do not do, there is no try.

---

Gone fishing

Listen to him you will

A character building experience this sounds like.

Dirty my hands will be and empty my pockets.

---

Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

wrong part of the season to ask...

it's worth it:

if you like to ALWAYS work on your car
if you like being retardedly poor
if you like not spending anytime with anyone other than people helping you prep
if you like the constantly shifting rules, regulations, and various other changes
if you like troubleshooting all the little crap that keeps a car from running properly
if you you like occasionally/constantly being treated like a retard online or at events
if you like spending exorbitant amounts of money on entry fees/towing only to dnf/crash early
if you like the weird looks people give you when you tell them what your hobby is and how much it costs and how much you get back/win

ugh.... i sound bitter.


here's a speech i wrote for class about a year ago (i had a wrc highlight video playing while reading it). get me drunk at a rally and you'll here the same thing basically, but with more slurs, profanity, and smiles.


This is inspiring.
This is inspiration bordering on obsession.
There is one thing that motivates me more than anything. More than money, fame, nice personal belongings, love, or sex. It’s the reason I work the jobs I do, am getting this education, am eventually getting a good job, live in poverty, have the friends I have, and spend nearly all my free time and money doing.
Racing.
More specific rally.
Now for those of you that don’t know or don’t sit near me in class, rally is where you take a normal twisty road, usually dirt, and close it to the public. Then at one spot put a start line and the other spot put a finish line. Between those two spots you take an average street car with some safety and speed modifications and go like hell while being timed and the co-driver, the person sitting next to you, reads a description of what the road will do.
I’ve always wanted to be 3 things, an artist, an engineer, and a race car driver.
For racing, I had contemplated go-carts, but they were too small and I would need a truck to transport it and I only had a car. I contemplated a baja truck, but that was way too expensive and I would again have to buy a truck. But then, one day back in 2003 when I had first moved out here I was sitting around with some friends watching tv and the World Rally Championship came on. I was hooked. That was what I wanted to do. A normal car, all wheel drive, sideways in the dirt.
I went home and started doing minimal research and found out that Subaru made an awd car. Within days I had convinced my parents to loan me some money to buy one since my current car was “unreliable” and with the idea that eventually I wanted to race the Subaru. After much scheming my parents agreed to loan me the money and a week later I had a Subaru. 3 days later I was at a rallycross which is taking an everyday car and just driving around a bunch of cones in a field. No safety modifications are necessary since you can’t get hurt, but it was still racing.
Within 6 months the interior was stripped out of the car, a skid plate was on, and racing seats were in. 3 months later the roll cage went in and 3 months after that I was at my first race with my sister as my co-driver.
It took me 1 year, $7000, an enormous amount of sacrifice, and dozens upon dozens of hours upon hours of prep time but I was finally there. I can still remember the whole race. The nerves at the starting line, trying to calm yourself down. As the timer ticks down to 3, you rev the engine, and at zero you drop the clutch, get thrown back into your seat as the tires spin and struggle for grip. The sights, the smells, the sounds, the pure thrill of it.
Since then I’ve done probably about 12 or more races and it’s the same every time. The anxiety, stress, planning, sacrifice, doubt, blood, sweat, and tears; it all evaporates to nothing when you take off from that line. Nothing I’ve found is so pure because at that moment nothing matters but what you are doing. Nothing but the place where you are or the corner that you’re on. It’s you versus the clock and yourself. How hard will you push, how many chances can you take, and how much faster can you go before it all goes wrong. And it will. There’s a saying in rally, “there are those that have crashed, and those that will”
But that doesn’t matter either because between that start and that finish, you can be free. All you feel is the understeer in your hands, the oversteer in your butt, and the car becomes nothing more than an extension of you. The codriver’s voice and the sound of the car merge into a harmony in your ear. A zen-like feeling overcomes you, everything becomes sharper, more focused, and in slow motion. The co-driver’s life in your hands, and yours in theirs.
99.9% of the year, this is what you see, just me average, ordinary, college student. But that tiny fraction of the time that I race is what I live for.
And that’s why I race for that feeling.
To slip beyond the bounds of who and what I am.
I race……
To be free.

---

-Mark
www.nocoastmotorsports.net

DR1665 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A character building experience this sounds like.
>
> Dirty my hands will be and empty my pockets.
>


Are you channeling Yoda now, or what?

Nice, Mark! I like it!

We got hooked on rally in the same year, 2003; that's when I seriously started following it, anyway. Of course, I didn't do a rallycross until '05, but after that first event, I decided I wanted to run stage rally. After that, it was just a matter of time, and learning the ways of regulations. I'm a patient guy, and had to be, because I finally bought my car 2 years later, and didn't actually race it 'til '08.
Every time I think about how much rally costs...I shut the thought out, I guess. Time and money. Towing costs are the ones that really bug me, though. But it's such a great experience every time I run an event that it keeps me coming back. Of course, watching rally all the time just adds fuel to that.

---

Ben Hetland
1973 Volvo 142 project car (with some cone-smashing on dirt in it's future, however)

"No. Rally Racing is a back alley sport filled with jackals, headhunters and thugs!"
-Pops Racer (Speed Racer movie)

www.utahrallygroup.com