ACP wins 2wd at OT

Grant, I agree. However, I don't know if you've run tahola or smith creek, but they are actually pretty entertaining. There are some ridiculous straights on tahola, but some decently tight stuff as well. But on several of the Oregon trail stages my car's severe lack of power was infuriating.

The version of Taholah you've seen, Grant, isn't the version of Taholah that's been part of DooWops for the last N years. It's only half of it and then it makes a right turn and goes to the stupid-fast stuff that's part of the cut-across to get back to Hwy 101 near Crane Creek. The version that we all know and love keeps going past that turn and runs along the ridge some more and loops down and back around to the start.

As for OTR, this is another +1 for the Vernonia/Tillamook roads. Actually, make that about a +100. That used to be my favorite event, bar none. Now it's, um, well, "meh".

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NoCoast

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12xalt
Tillamook and Vernonia were the best. Of course, then you get drivers who aren't from here whining about how they can't go as fast because the roads are too tight, twisty and technical. Then you also get all those drivers crashing out on on Saturday because they refuse to slow down and conform to the style of road their running.

Of course, it's too bad we no longer can use the old Olympus roads of old either.

Plus 5000!!! When I dream about rallying it's on either Oregon Trail 2006 roads around Vernonia or the Ojibwe roads.
Merrillee. They aren't crashing because they refuse to slow down. They are crashing because they don't know how to drive a rally car and have always done well thanks to fancy diffs, large budgets for power, and a general lack of talent in the whole field. Point and press the pedal. The other pedal you either stand on most of the rally and talk about how your a bad ass LFBer or you press really early for a few seconds too long than back on the go pedal.
Wow. This is going to be one of those days...

I think we were saying the same thing, I was just being nicer about it

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Slowwpoke
Grant, I agree. However, I don't know if you've run tahola or smith creek, but they are actually pretty entertaining. There are some ridiculous straights on tahola, but some decently tight stuff as well. But on several of the Oregon trail stages my car's severe lack of power was infuriating.

The first half of Wreck Creek is retarded in my opinion though I love the last half. And I think Tahola and Smith Creek are too fast too.

Last year's Oregon stage with the tarmac was dumb as well.

And while we're on stages that are too fast, I haven't seen them but I hear STPR is too fast too.

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phlat65
good for them. That car cannot be that light either. He is such a good guy too. Met him for the first time while they were tugging our car back on the trail. As you did Gene, he gave me word of encouragement that mean a lot.

He's a way cool guy! I've met him in passing a few times before Olympus, but for some reason I think he'll remember me after that event.

Great to see them running so well. Hope they come to NEFR so we can film some more of them!

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Mark

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Slowwpoke
Grant, I agree. However, I don't know if you've run tahola or smith creek, but they are actually pretty entertaining. There are some ridiculous straights on tahola, but some decently tight stuff as well. But on several of the Oregon trail stages my car's severe lack of power was infuriating.

The first half of Wreck Creek is retarded in my opinion though I love the last half. And I think Tahola and Smith Creek are too fast too.

Last year's Oregon stage with the tarmac was dumb as well.

And while we're on stages that are too fast, I haven't seen them but I hear STPR is too fast too.

Do they run wreck creek in more than one direction? I worked it last year, though I only worked a little ways into it and I recall it being uphill and pretty damn tight and twisty. So, imo, that's not retarded. Maybe if it was run the other direction there was some dull stuff that I didn't see...

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Mark
He's a way cool guy! I've met him in passing a few times before Olympus, but for some reason I think he'll remember me after that event.

Great to see them running so well. Hope they come to NEFR so we can film some more of them!

He covered the Max Attack video crews tab at the irish tavern on Thursday night. It had to be approaching $200 or more. We all had food and many of you have seen the way we drink and drop us down to sea level and all bets are off.
I did go out of my way to make sure and get him all his out of car video as quickly as possible once we got back to Denver to say thanks and try to make any Scion video a little more exciting than their Oregon Trail video was last year.

Grant is absolutely right about his unpopular points and I agree with him.

It burns my hide that Idaho has so few entries yet the stages they will run this year are great(twisty-different from what was run in Max Attack back in 2009). I have been to a few rallies and have been watching on-board video from rallies that I have not attended, and the conclusion I come to is what Grant pointed out.

It seems that we want milles and miles of stages instead of wanting stages full of turns and turns. I just hope that other rallyists will also start asking for twisty, (relatively) smooth events. The "coefficient" idea is so out of date and yet controls the type of events we get. My point is that rallies should be rated on "degrees turned per mile" and not "stage miles".

I am probably going to tow from SoCal to "Lanark Highlands" next year, and run through more turns in one day than I will see in 4 days of typical rallying. I am probably not exaggerating much.

George

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gkd

I am probably going to tow from SoCal to "Lanark Highlands" next year, and run through more turns in one day than I will see in 4 days of typical rallying. I am probably not exaggerating much.

George

Let me say that, having run against you with John Black at Desert Storm last year and seen firsthand what you can do with that Civic, you would have a blast and do REALLY well at Lanark, George. And I'm betting you could find someone to leave the car with in Ontario and come back for Black Bear, Galway-Cavendish, and Tall Pines.

---

-Brian

Man, I have to say what an amazing difference this conversation is than prior to Doo Wops when I ever ever so gently asked Tracy Manspeaker---who had just posted here or on SS.com "we're working on the route" or words to that effect---and i asked---relaying a message from my driver --"has anybody looked at any of the smaller skinnier roads that go off of like Smith Creek or Brooklyn?"

Somehow, some decided that was flipping shit on the Organisers...
And I was buried in e-shit.


what-evar...
I think one reason is that people, many, especially those who choose easy cars, those long parade of blue Subies for example maybe, can blast along and go FAST when there's just a few corners, and then they can brag about how fast "they" are, but the huge advantage would diminish greatly if the roads were narrower, and twistier---dare I say, more challenging from a driving point of view, rather than relatively easy job with enough hp and grip---except when you die.

Look at some of the Tall Pines roads, and they look like loads of fun.

But, according to those that know, the roads we have are what we can get.

But like the 10 years it took to get an honest answer about studs for Slow-drip, ( I had asked for 10 years and got bullshit "party line" what answers, never a WHY---until Mike Bodnar finally answered the question "Has anybody ever even asked if we could use studs?"---and he answered they'd never asked) maybe we should sharpen the question: I wonder if anybody has even asked about the skinner, maybe not so perfect roads.... if we could use them.

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gkd
Grant is absolutely right about his unpopular points and I agree with him.

It burns my hide that Idaho has so few entries yet the stages they will run this year are great(twisty-different from what was run in Max Attack back in 2009). I have been to a few rallies and have been watching on-board video from rallies that I have not attended, and the conclusion I come to is what Grant pointed out.

It seems that we want milles and miles of stages instead of wanting stages full of turns and turns. I just hope that other rallyists will also start asking for twisty, (relatively) smooth events. The "coefficient" idea is so out of date and yet controls the type of events we get. My point is that rallies should be rated on "degrees turned per mile" and not "stage miles".

I am probably going to tow from SoCal to "Lanark Highlands" next year, and run through more turns in one day than I will see in 4 days of typical rallying. I am probably not exaggerating much.

George

Everyone in the NW wants the super twisty fun stages. We don't want some of the ones we have now. Problem is, we aren't allowed to use the roads anymore that made our rallies in the past so amazing.

I agree with you that twisty roads are better than gravel freeways, I just don't think combining two separate and distinct events and adding more days and hundreds and hundreds of transit miles is the answer. It's a travesty we keep losing all the good roads. It's too bad you weren't around back during the Capitol Forest years, Grant. Best rally roads in the country, by far, and enough of them that you could run 2 or 3 events a year out of there and never use the same stages twice. Ahh, the good old days...

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hoche
The version of Taholah you've seen, Grant, isn't the version of Taholah that's been part of DooWops for the last N years. It's only half of it and then it makes a right turn and goes to the stupid-fast stuff that's part of the cut-across to get back to Hwy 101 near Crane Creek. The version that we all know and love keeps going past that turn and runs along the ridge some more and loops down and back around to the start.

As Hoche noted, the eastern end of the current Taholah stage is there to get you to the Crane Creek, which most people say is a great stage. Unfortunately, the snow gods seem to like to keep it to themselves.

The old looping version of Taholah was OK.

Another good stage that we didn't get to at Olympus this year is Pico.

As far as JVL's implication that the organizer just haven't asked about other roads, it is incorrect. They have asked. Unfortunately, the current roads and the current land ownership does not neatly align well for running a rally on those roads.

alan

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gkd
I am probably going to tow from SoCal to "Lanark Highlands" next year, and run through more turns in one day than I will see in 4 days of typical rallying. I am probably not exaggerating much.

The 2008 Idaho roads were brilliant. I think the event suffered from trying to become bigger and more of an event the 'local' community could support. For a relatively local event I couldn't justify taking what would become a full week off work to run essentially a WRC schedule. Events need to become what the market needs, not necessarily what the organizer wants.

Before towing to SoOnt you might want to have a look at events like Mountain Trials, Pacific Forest Rally and Big White in BC. While MT and PFR do have some 'super highway' sections they also typically have a good selection of challenging stages. Not as 'jumpy' as the Lanark or Pines roads but your back will appreciate that about the events. The entire Western Canada Rally Championship offers some good events and good roads as a whole and a few great roads. (All two pass recce without organizer supplied notes - works well for us and has for 7 years, not sure it that works for you. Not sure if the OPRC events are moving that direction or not.)

Then again, people do tend to think their local roads are some of the best around and their local drivers are some of the fastest around so take what I say with a grain of salt. :-)

I remember running a couple of great events on Vancouver Island and those roads were lost. Memory failng..Koksilah Forest or some such on the mainland? I think they had 2 roads. Two stages in, turn around, two stages out. I won that event. Then it disappeared. Things were pretty bleak in Canada back in those days.


I think a rotating national calendar would be workable. OT one year, Olympus the next. Could be done with Colorado and the other canceled RA events. OT is too time consuming and spread out. Olympus is more compact but Taholah is less than optimal. Pomeroy and Idaho too far away, plus Forespring always thinks the WRC is wanting to observe one of his events. Jens was thinking too big at Idaho also. Baby steps are needed over there.

All in all I think rally will go the way of quilting bees pretty soon, for a variety of reasons. Enjoy it while you can.