Heard rumors Oregon Trails happened.

Or something..

Was kinda paying attention to historic first win by first NZer to ever win a round Haydon Paddon...Nail-biter last stage push by the Sacha Baron Cohen character Ogier (come on Hollywood make the name a little more like obvious message Ogre) was parried who answered with a widening of the gap to maybe 8 seconds.. Pretty citing..

So I guess something happened down there.

Was the weather nice?
Warwick Patterson looks like he didn't get the last second push to get his all newly built Escort ready..
Probably a better thing...really.
Ak Kun had some brake bleed questions on Turdboatpricks..and DNFed..

Related.

Is it just pointless to even wonder how folks did?

---

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.

Brakes on the volvo would not build pressure. Bled several bottles of fluid through, tried 3 different masters (1 brand new) and could not get the brakes to hold pressure. All symptoms point to bad master.

Must be air getting in (or cant get out) somewhere. We put a wrench on every connection. Baffling problem and super bummed for Al.

Jeff Seehorn's restrictor didn't pass after the rally. 34.04mm got dinged 1 place in class (10min)

The M3 looked like fun, the starlet looked like fun, Travis Nease lit his brakes on fire friday night. Still want to hear a complete story as to what happened to the photographer at PIR on friday.

I struggled with finding coolers for my beer all weekend.

Quote
aj_johnson
Brakes on the volvo would not build pressure. Bled several bottles of fluid through, tried 3 different masters (1 brand new) and could not get the brakes to hold pressure. All symptoms point to bad master.

Must be air getting in (or cant get out) somewhere. We put a wrench on every connection. Baffling problem and super bummed for Al.

Jeff Seehorn's restrictor didn't pass after the rally. 34.04mm got dinged 1 place in class (10min)

The M3 looked like fun, the starlet looked like fun, Travis Nease lit his brakes on fire friday night. Still want to hear a complete story as to what happened to the photographer at PIR on friday.

I struggled with finding coolers for my beer all weekend.

What's the incomplete story?

RA Press Crediatials problem and finally a photographer just punched the shit outta them?
Photographer leaked photographs of the nekkid wimmiz and drunken orgies in the VIP Lounge areas?

3 masters??? AJ think numbers...variables...3 different masters all act same---look for constants.. Procedures? Bleed technique? Still wonder if he got the ABS calipers with the single hose to them..The stock set up I find infuriatingly long and never happy..

---

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.

Orange and blue subaru crashed and took out a photog who had his back to the car is what I heard. Lights sirens and ambulance and a trip the ER.

He's got the no ABS system, A sometimes sticky drivers rear caliper. A suspected leaky distribution block. No obvious pissing visible leaks, bleed procedure done by the book, as well as variations thereof. Pedal never really builds pressure. Masters were bench bled and in car bled. Sorta kinda gets better during bleeding but never gets good, and then goes back to shit as soon as the power assist helps you push the pedal to the floor.

We used power bleeders as well as the two man method. We also used the power bleeder and two man method.

Finally gave up and went spectating. Here were some of the fun cars.

My first stage rally in 7 or 8 years and the first one for the car…lots of teething issues for both. The car kept wanting to retire but Dave and Greg kept it alive for most of the stages. Ultimately DNF’d as we chased electrical and charging issues combined with a failing fuel pump.

Lots of things were less than optimal, I guessed on tire pressures, didn’t touch the suspension clickers etc….just ran it as is and tried to knock the stage rust off so I’m happy with the results.

Lots of work to make Olympus …

Higgins beat Pastrana by 9.5 seconds, with stage times to within tenths of seconds through both days.

Top 2wd car was Millen's Rav4 with an automatic transmission (unless they've changed that out since Big White), who - along with Cameron Steeley, also beat any of the SP or NLO cars after penalties.
Millen was 13.4 seconds back going into the last stage, pulling out the win by 10.4 at the end of the event.

Seehorn would have finished 4th overall if he hadn't been docked one place in class for measuring 0.04mm oversized on his restrictor.

Tim O'Neil won the Saturday regional outright by ~50 seconds over an hour's rallying, in a Fiesta R2.

looks like a few tight battles!

---

First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19)
Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5)
WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4)
Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11)
Last Updated, May30, 2022

The Rally America rules say restrictors must be a minimum of 34.00mm dia? At what temperature? Just dump some ice water on it and tell them to measure again.

---

Runamuck Rally

Also, Lars had a close call in da Juke

smoosh

---

Runamuck Rally

Quote
Towona
Also, Lars had a close call in da Juke

smoosh

If there was anything like normally awake humans connected with Wawly Amewica there'd been some very hard scrutiny of materials and designs and execution of that cage--and of course open and serious public discussion, because that is a serious failure collapsing like that.

But, alas we know that is not the case so there will be no discussion of why this cage failed, the facade of caring about safety will be maintained, maybe even the crew not realise how lucky they were and everything not swept under the rug will be forgotten.

Same as always.

---

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.

The hit a tree hard and they lived. Seems like the cage worked.

---

Grant Hughes

Quote
NoCoast
The hit a tree hard and they lived. Seems like the cage worked.

Yeah whatever you say.

---

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.

Quote
NoCoast
The hit a tree hard and they lived. Seems like the cage worked.

He says on Facebook that none of the welds failed, deformation was all in the tubing. Sounds like was just a large load applied to the weakest spot. Would probably have been worse without the a-pillar reinforcement.

---

First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19)
Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5)
WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4)
Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11)
Last Updated, May30, 2022

With the laid back windshields on a lot of newer vehicles, the a-pillar bars are also laid back a lot. This obviously makes it weaker when the load is applied to the top of the windshield. I would have liked to have seen the a-pillar bar attach a few inches lower, making it more vertical and stronger, which would have been well within the rule for cage construction.
They had a nasty hit with multiple trees in a very fast section. Glad everyone came out okay on that one.

Quote
john vanlandingham
...
Related.

Is it just pointless to even wonder how folks did?

It's not pointless at all. RA does a terrible job with updates, even if you have facebook.
The massive lack of cell service made it nearly impossible to post updates (unless you have AT&T). By the time we made it back to the hotel and had wifi, all of us just wanted food and sleep.

OTR for the non-Al-Volvo, which I was co-driving for, went great. The new front suspension is amazing, hit every jump flat out and it worked great in rough stuff too. Now we need to spend some time on the rear suspension.

The new stages were pretty fun, a little fast for the ol' volvo at times. There was a lot of conversation and joking around going on while we motored down the autobahn stages. Badger Gulch and especially Oak Flat were some good fun though.

Saturday night we were making up serious time on the car ahead and caught them on the top of the hill (just before halfway)... then we ate their dust until the end. That was fun with serious exposure and NO visibility. The exhaust broke clean off cast iron manifold on that stage as well, which made for a loud Sunday.

All in all a great weekend. Now time to prep the car for Oly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2016 12:16PM by Robert Culbertson.

Quote
urr
My first stage rally in 7 or 8 years and the first one for the car…lots of teething issues for both. The car kept wanting to retire but Dave and Greg kept it alive for most of the stages. Ultimately DNF’d as we chased electrical and charging issues combined with a failing fuel pump.

Lots of things were less than optimal, I guessed on tire pressures, didn’t touch the suspension clickers etc….just ran it as is and tried to knock the stage rust off so I’m happy with the results.

Lots of work to make Olympus …

bugger, that little thing was scooting right along friday night. Was almost funny watching near the jump as it just refused to get any traction forward. Loved the dashboard.