Mt. Hood 2012

Mt Hood Rally was a great run for us, Terry McDowell and I are hitting kinda of a new level of comfort at a much faster pace. We pushed hard on stage one, and with Shewchuk and Brown exiting the road, and Woodward suffering from some power loss, we hard a hard time dialing it back, and started shooting for stage time overalls from 2010.

We started the rally with a bad wheel bearing and hub (long story) and ended with a worse one, with wheel studs on both sides of the rear getting shaken out of the hub when we tried to get wheels off in service!! Mike Doroski, our crew chief and service team of ONE, was great all day in the nasty weather, THANKS MIKE!!

Highlights: The close encounter with the deer on first pass of Fir Mountain, coming out of a "left 4 up 100" and flying, bambi's big brother decided to have a go, and as I seriously braced for a deer in my lap, he made an amazing two hop jump that ended with a big ol deer ASS doing the best "Startsky and Hutch" slide over Terry's side of the hood!! He made it to live another day, and I swear he was the same one that tried it AGAIN on second pass, only this time it was just a mirror brush.

Gillhouley Stage, I mean, besides just the length and sheer "busyness" of Fir Mountain (I love that stage too), I LOVE the how technical and flowy that stage is, we had a couple good runs there, and again, a couple near rally enders (thought that I "knew" we were coming into spectator area that has a nice little straight into it, but we were not and came FAST into a "crest left 3" pretty much didn't listen to Terry as I pictured a very different section of road, whoops!!

17 Stage, that stage is AWESOME, long slides, a couple very close calls trying to squeeze more out of 3's, 4's and the long stretch of 5's and 6's at the start!!

Last pass of Fir Mountain had about an inch of snow/slush that was very questionable to whether it had grip or not, turned out it was just fine!!

Terry's bubble machine gun was a hit, never got a chance to pull it on stage (thried to wire it in and tape it to the wing, ha ha), but the workers loved it!!

Overall, we had a great time, found it interesting to be first on road, and the weather (every kind imaginable) was amazing!!

Thanks to all that made this a fun rally, volunteers were amazing to be up there in that weather, hope all other teams had as much fun as we did. . .

Hendo

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SUSPECT MOTOR SPORTS

#541 2004 Subaru Impreza Sti

FB: https://www.facebook.com/SUSPECT541

Quote
john vanlandingham
BANJO BOLT!!!!

How many times have I said NO BANJO BOLTS!!!!

They always come loose sooner or later.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I know, I need to figure out something for the rear but there is so little room there I think that is how the banjo ended up there in the first place. The shock is VERY close to where the line needs to go.

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John Reed
John Reed Racing
www.johnreedracing.com
johnreedracing@gmail.com

Oh yeah, and a buddy of mine came out to Fir Mountain to film with a new fancy Slo-Mo camera, I am sure he will post up some more, but take a look, pretty sweet:

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SUSPECT MOTOR SPORTS

#541 2004 Subaru Impreza Sti

FB: https://www.facebook.com/SUSPECT541



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2012 11:37AM by Hendo711.

Quote
John Reed

Quote
john vanlandingham
BANJO BOLT!!!!

How many times have I said NO BANJO BOLTS!!!!

They always come loose sooner or later.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I know, I need to figure out something for the rear but there is so little room there I think that is how the banjo ended up there in the first place. The shock is VERY close to where the line needs to go.

I gotta see it, post piccies, there's always a safe way.

---

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.

Dave, thanks for sweeping the roads for us and showing us the proper lines through the corners. But I wish you'd gone a little slower. By the time we got to them, some of your tire marks had been eroded away by rain, wind, animal tracks, hikers, log trucks, ice ages etc and so they were harder to spot.

Teething issues with the new ECU that was basically sponsored to me, that I put in the car last spring (with PLENTY of time to tune it up, right? Wrong) only to find the adapter plate problem that put the car on John Lane's lift till last Monday. 2 days to try to get the thing to run then head on down. Car would not start to go to parc expose. 20 sec road penalty that mattered not one bit, but finding that the fuel pump wires could get kicked out of place was just another stress test. Note to self, fix that. Then go out and run stages with 5 year old rags for tires and not much more power than a stock Miata; a good reference, cuz that's what we used as our recce car, and just be thankful it still runs. After experimenting, we went out on the last 3 stages after service with the ECU in open loop and that got us all the way up to maybe 160 hp, but with no intercom cuz a groundwire broke in my plug. Good thing Jasper is good at yelling! We thought we were done on the 2nd run through Fir Mountain. Turned out we picked up a puncture 4 miles in, instead of losing some other important greasy mechanical guts outta the car like usual. We had time to put the spare on, and oh golly 17 is a great stage. It and Gilhouley are right up there with Pico and Crane Creek.
Many thanks to all the volunteers and organizers, and everyone who was there partaking in this silly hobby. I think rally folk are the coolest in all of motorsport. Endless thanks to John Lane, without who'se help the car would be hopeless lawn art till the end of time. I should probably take the Mazda badges off and put "Lane" on there for all the work he's done to that damn thing. Now to work some bugs outta the system...

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2012 01:42PM by Jay.

We had a fun and relatively unremarkable weekend.

AWD is a terrible, awful evil that is only eclipsed by the vileness of a turbo and all its laggy wretchedness. There can be no debate with these truths.

NoNo, 34mm sodastraws are a terrible, awful evil!

---

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

Quote
Slowwpoke
We had a fun and relatively unremarkable weekend.

AWD is a terrible, awful evil that is only eclipsed by the vileness of a turbo and all its laggy wretchedness. There can be no debate with these truths.

I don't want to start a debate. . . but they are pretty freaking fun to drive in the wilds of the forest!!

---

SUSPECT MOTOR SPORTS

#541 2004 Subaru Impreza Sti

FB: https://www.facebook.com/SUSPECT541

Al and I had a great weekend. Laid back the whole time with our only focus on finishing. Terra was great enough to get a Sat off, not easy for her in the retail world, but I would still have our three month old Es on Fri. She was great on recce, falling asleep as soon as we got on any gravel road. It was also helpful to find that the notes Brian and I had written in 2010 were pretty damn good. So a little adjustment here and there on the first pass, then it was off to double mt for some grub and great beer. I traveled back to ptown for the night, had to get Es back to mom but sleeping in your own bed the night before a rally is really a great luxury. I got to tollbridge just a bit before 9:30 and al and I were nice and relaxed, ready for the day. Well maybe a bit too relaxed. I wasn't worried about the time at all. Then Pete Soper came by and told us they were looking for us over at exposé. Ok Pete we'll be right over. Got in the car and headed over. We checked in 12 min late and were subsequently given 2:00 of rd points. Apparently there were some Swedish squirrels there early that were annoyed they didn't get to partake in the awe and beauty that is Al's fine machine.

On to the stages. First running of 17 went well and our time was competitive. Gilhouley 1 went well, al wisely avoided a large rock in a r3, but we pushed wide and had to reverse out. Then on to fir. It was very nice to pass the spot we parked it at OTR and the notes felt good. We picked up a large suspension clunk though and upon inspection waiting at 17 we found we had ripped the captive nut from the chassis rail which retains the drivers side upper trailing link,losing the bolt and spacers. We zip tied it up in place, sourced a welder to use in service, and only lost 14 seconds to our previous time, with a half spin thrown in the mix. Back in service we simply reassembled the link with spare spacers and then welded the bolt to the chassis rail. Off for the last loop. We were doing really well until the final two corners of gilhouley. Pushed wide on a L3 and sunk in to soft gravel. We lost 6+ min, until I was able to get us dug/pushed out. It would have been more like 4 except for the comedy of errors that was me trying to get out of the car. The intercom wire had found its way through my defender, nothing like two people trying to untie knots, while worrying about triangles and ok signs. The upper link broke again so we continued to bleed time but we were able to limp the old girl through to the finish.

Thanks big time to Al, the dirty drifters, and Garth and all the trackside guys. Also to Ben Bradley, the Tabors, org, and all the other volunteers that came out in that crazy weather. It was especially nice to see regular competitors that had not entered but were still there supporting this great sport.

---

Zap zap my ass...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2012 01:17PM by slidewayswrx.

Quote
Hendo711

Quote
Slowwpoke
We had a fun and relatively unremarkable weekend.

AWD is a terrible, awful evil that is only eclipsed by the vileness of a turbo and all its laggy wretchedness. There can be no debate with these truths.

I don't want to start a debate. . . but they are pretty freaking fun to drive in the wilds of the forest!!

Having driven an AWD turbo 323, that we can all assume is pretty much identical in every way to your subaru ride, I can definitively say its not as good as RWD.

Quote
slidewayswrx
Al and I had a great weekend. Laid back the whole time with our only focus on finishing. Terra was great enough to get a Sat off, not easy for her in the retail world, but I would still have our three month old Es on Fri. She was great on recce, falling asleep as soon as we got on any gravel road. It was also helpful to find that the notes Brian and I had written in 2010 were pretty damn good. So a little adjustment here and there on the first pass, then it was off to double mt for some grub and great beer. I traveled back to ptown for the night, had to get Es back to mom but sleeping in your own bed the night before a rally is really a great luxury. I got to tollbridge just a bit before 9:30 and al and I were nice and relaxed, ready for the day. Well maybe a bit too relaxed. I wasn't worried about the time at all. Then Pete Soper came by and told us they were looking for us over at exposé. Ok Pete we'll be right over. Got in the car and headed over. We checked in 12 min late and were subsequently given 2:00 of rd points. Apparently there were some Swedish squirrels there early that were annoyed they didn't get to partake in the awe and beauty that is Al's fine machine.

On to the stages. First running of 17 went well and our time was competitive. Gilhouley 1 went well, al wisely avoided a large rock in r3, but we pushed wide and had to reverse out. Then on to fir. It was very nice to pass the spot we parked it at OTR and the notes felt good. We picked up a large suspension clunk though and upon inspection waiting at 17 we found we had ripped the captive nut from the drivers side upper trailing link and lost the bolt and spacers. We zip tied it up in place, sourced a welder to use in service, and only lost 14 seconds to our previous time, with a half spin thrown in the mix. Back in service we simply reassembled the link with spare spacers and then welded the bolt to the chassis rail. Off for the last loop. We doing really well until the final two corners of gilhouley. Pushed wide on a L3 and sunk in to soft gravel. We lost 6+ min, until I was able to get us dug/pushed out. It would have been more like 4 except for the comedy of errors that was me trying to get out off the car. The intercom wire had found its way through my defender, nothing like two people trying to untie knots, while worrying about triangles and ok signs. The upper link broke again so we continued to bleed time but we were able to limp the old girl through to the finish.

Thanks big time Al, the dirty drifters, Garth and all the trackside guys. Also to Ben Bradley, the Tabors, org, and all the other volunteers that came out in that crazy weather. It was especially nice to see regular competitors that had not entered but were still there supporting this great sport.

Thanks for sharing your previous notes with us, other than some minor tweaking they were awesome!!

---

John Reed
John Reed Racing
www.johnreedracing.com
johnreedracing@gmail.com

Reed, it was a great battle! Wish we could have seen it to the end!

That said it was a great weekend (aside from being sick now) and makes me motivated to get the Rx7 done! amazing what charles did with 90 hp.

---

First Rally: 2010 First RallyX: 2004 (a bunch)
Driver (0), Co-Driver (7)
Organizer (3), Volunteer (3)
Cars Built (2.5), Engines Blown (2) Cages Built (0) # of rotations (3.5)
Last Updated, Apr 9, 2023

Quote
John Reed

Quote
slidewayswrx
Al and I had a great weekend. Laid back the whole time with our only focus on finishing. Terra was great enough to get a Sat off, not easy for her in the retail world, but I would still have our three month old Es on Fri. She was great on recce, falling asleep as soon as we got on any gravel road. It was also helpful to find that the notes Brian and I had written in 2010 were pretty damn good. So a little adjustment here and there on the first pass, then it was off to double mt for some grub and great beer. I traveled back to ptown for the night, had to get Es back to mom but sleeping in your own bed the night before a rally is really a great luxury. I got to tollbridge just a bit before 9:30 and al and I were nice and relaxed, ready for the day. Well maybe a bit too relaxed. I wasn't worried about the time at all. Then Pete Soper came by and told us they were looking for us over at exposé. Ok Pete we'll be right over. Got in the car and headed over. We checked in 12 min late and were subsequently given 2:00 of rd points. Apparently there were some Swedish squirrels there early that were annoyed they didn't get to partake in the awe and beauty that is Al's fine machine.

On to the stages. First running of 17 went well and our time was competitive. Gilhouley 1 went well, al wisely avoided a large rock in r3, but we pushed wide and had to reverse out. Then on to fir. It was very nice to pass the spot we parked it at OTR and the notes felt good. We picked up a large suspension clunk though and upon inspection waiting at 17 we found we had ripped the captive nut from the drivers side upper trailing link and lost the bolt and spacers. We zip tied it up in place, sourced a welder to use in service, and only lost 14 seconds to our previous time, with a half spin thrown in the mix. Back in service we simply reassembled the link with spare spacers and then welded the bolt to the chassis rail. Off for the last loop. We doing really well until the final two corners of gilhouley. Pushed wide on a L3 and sunk in to soft gravel. We lost 6+ min, until I was able to get us dug/pushed out. It would have been more like 4 except for the comedy of errors that was me trying to get out off the car. The intercom wire had found its way through my defender, nothing like two people trying to untie knots, while worrying about triangles and ok signs. The upper link broke again so we continued to bleed time but we were able to limp the old girl through to the finish.

Thanks big time Al, the dirty drifters, Garth and all the trackside guys. Also to Ben Bradley, the Tabors, org, and all the other volunteers that came out in that crazy weather. It was especially nice to see regular competitors that had not entered but were still there supporting this great sport.

Thanks for sharing your previous notes with us, other than some minor tweaking they were awesome!!

No problem John. keep doing that well and I might think differently of it in the future

---

Zap zap my ass...

Quote
slidewayswrx
No problem John. keep doing that well and I might think differently of it in the future

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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John Reed
John Reed Racing
www.johnreedracing.com
johnreedracing@gmail.com

that were some dern good rallying...