from facebook, lets see if this works...

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

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

holy carp

And they cleaned up the scene and had the car removed before the 2nd pass of that road, as i never saw the car there. by this point i was re-re-seeded back to 7th.

(was seeded 7th, reseeded to 15th after the super special , then re-reseeded to 7th after running some gravel stages)

there was some gossip going around where cars were waiting to enter the timing control before the stage (repeat) that this stage might be canceled, but be prepared to run it. and to my pleasant surprise when i rolled up to the ATC the stage was a GO

WOW!!!

Well maybe they'll put some effort in co+driver Pat's Volvo 240, he has front suspension sorted already, so towers, rear coilovers, maybe a T5 and short final drive and they're ready!

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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.

This happened on the second running of the Grimes Creek pass. The 1st stage run after the Idaho City service.

After OTR brian was driving the car on the street and the engine chucked a bearing. Good timing but it was a scramble to get the car back together for Idaho. The car had been megasquirted for some time but in the engine rebuild/reassembly we fixed some issues and changed some things.

It was progress but it meant a new set of issues and trying to figure out tuning on the fly. The car barely ran when we loaded it on the trailer on Tues but Brian skipped the first day of recce and got some things sorted. The car then developed a very bad misfire during the Thurs night SSS. Again a late night and things seemed much better. Our focus and confidence was never there this event but on Saturday morning we were running good and ready to get on the gravel. One of the things that had been much improved over the rebuild was the brakes. (replaced leaky booster, new pads, bled.) About a mile into SS2 was a CR 30 L3. The better brakes over rotated the car and the deep silt pulled us over the edge on the inside corner. The Quaife diff in the car meant we were way stuck until the grace and glory of the Medcroft ratty came upon us and drug us out of the grasp of MPL. Again though, confidence killer.

Took us awhile to get back up to speed but after a few miles of running well we were feeling good and trading times with Blake and Joel in the AE86. Finished Fri. changed plugs in the overnight service and were ready to attack on Sat. Things were going great Sat morn. We were clicking together, the car was running better than it ever had been until right before service when the misfire came back again. We limped it to service and while in service we traced the misfire to poor plug wires. With no spares (doh!) we decided to push on and get back to the next service where our crew would have plug wires for the final stage. We never made it.

The car was way down on power and we were never in danger of going off line. About 2/3 of the way through the stage we went into a R5>L6 and the brake pedal went to the floor. We started smelling smoke and pulled to the shoulder to see what was up.

I got out of the car to see smoke and small flames coming from the rear wheel. I grab the extinguisher and dowsed the flames. Brian is now out of the car with me grabs the extinguisher and I set about triangles. this is all happening very fast and we still think things are in control. Time is very fuzzy but just as I get the 1st triangle out I am running back tripping over my feet as the ZX2 comes by. I am fumbling with my route book and can only get them a thumbs up. Soon after they go on it is apparent that we are SOL what do you do when your 2nd fire bottle is dead and you still have a fuel fire. Step back and watch. We think that a car went off between the ZX and the Escort meaning that with 2 minute windows we were standing watching for 4 minutes.

We did not follow exact procedure and sent the next car on scene to RC as we were very concerned about setting the forest on fire. the e-crews and fire dept showed up soon after and were great.

This was a very rare occurrence, I am sure that we could have done things better and we should use this to learn from the future, but all in all I think it was handled towards the best possible outcome.

I know this is long but it felt really good to get it out there.

See you all out there very soon always at MAxAttack and in a car much more sorted than either the FX or my tractor....Lurch we need to talk.

Pat Darrow...proud to be a part of the rally community

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Zap zap my ass...

Pat,

glad you guys are ok, car-b-ques do really light up fast, and then they are bad news.

Pat I just gave Al your number so he can give you guys my 240 turbo he gave me a while back.
Get it, prep it, and yeeeee Haaaaaaaw!

Latest goodies just for 240s: 11.75" x 1.25" brake kit.

Under SOME OEM 15" wheels

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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.