US Rally Team: Maine adventure (long)

["Scott F. Williams" <sfwilliams@home.com>]

(yawn)

I'm back from the Maine Forest Rally, folks. Man, am I whupped! Nine hour
drives just take the starch outta ya. That's alright, though. We all had a
complete blast this weekend! I have *never* driven as well as I did this
weekend. Nor have I driven any faster.

My top speed on the second day of rallying was 85mph. Now, mind you that
this was on a skinny dirt/gravel road with big oilpan eating rocks in the
middle of it! It was completely awesome! My navigator/sister, Trisha, and I
were really cookin'!

Here's a little snapshot of what a just a few minutes in the car was like:
Our rally navigation computer kept sketching out intermittantly and we
couldn't tell where we were in the map book. So, for miles at a time, I had
to drive the road as I saw it rather than relying on her accurate
instructions. The roads early in the day had fast and level straightaways
linked into lots of crests, often with turns at the tops. The soil was
usually very chewed up at these spots and we discovered more than a few
rally cars stuffed hard into the trees and roadside scrub.

Thankfully, I have gotten a lot better at reading the road conditions,
treelines, shadows, mud patches, etc. So, we stayed out of trouble for the
majority of the morning.

At around 1pm, we begain the fifth out of eight special stages. The course
starter counted us down: "Five, four, three, two, one, GO!" I dropped the
clutch at about 4k rpms and launched the car down the road. Whaaaa papapa
WHAAAAAA!!! The engine was wailing and my tires struggled to keep grip on
the dirt. A lot of dust, by the way, made its way into the cabin. Our lungs
hurt after inhaling all that stuff, and nose blowing resulted in a hankies
full of mud. Gross, indeed! But, that's ProRally for you!

Trisha's voice crackled over the intercom system: "Flat over crest into
medium right over bridge. Don't cut! Rock on right!" That instruction means
to drive pedal to the metal over a crest in the road, possibly get airborne,
and then flick the car sideways to negotiate a 45deg right turn. Then stop
the sliding and neatly shoot over a one-car wide wooden bridge. Avoid the
boulder on the right side of the road.

I hit the crest about at 70mph and got about six inches of daylight under
the tires. The car landed lightly on the far side of the crest -very much
like a ski jump. I turned the wheel to the right and depressed the throttle
about half way. Left foot braking kicked the tail out a little. This pointed
us directly towards the bridge which was now about 150 feet (2 seconds)
ahead. Off the brake, double clutch to kick down a gear -brap brap! -and the
car straightens out...

WHUMP! The knobby rally tires hit the front edge of the bridge, the
suspension compresses, an then we're up on, and over it in an instant.
"Wishheww..." I don't dislike the bridges but if you hit them wrong, you'll
go off and into the creek below. I've seen two cars do this before and the
results weren't pretty at all. The drivers and navigators all came out with
just scratches, but both cars (Misubishi Galant and Suzuki Swift) were
complete right offs...

Anyway, the bridge becomes a just another blurred memory as the 16v motor
screams and snarls away. WHAAAA!!! Brapp-p-p-Waaaaaa-p-p-p! The tires hit
spray more dirt and my sister calls the next instruction: "In .3
miles -square right into square left". I'm feeling very confident in my
driving thus far and take the 90deg corner at about 45 mph. Again, I slide
the tail to the left, pointing the nose of the car towards the apex of the
turn. But, this time, fate deals us an evil hand. A broken down Toyota Supra
Twin Turbo is parked on the outside of the corner with it's rear end deep
down in a ditch and it's nose in the middle of the road. To get past it will
be like threading a needle.

Unfortunately, I swing the tail wide around the corner and it impacts on the
nose of the Toyota! The shiny-new Golf snap spins 180deg, the front end
finds the same ditch, and we end up lying neatly parallel to the road on the
driver's side door. Damn! I utter a long stream of nasty expletives and
pound the steering wheel in frustration. In a split second we went from one
extremely quick run to being rolled over like a big dead silver bug.

Trish and I unbuckle the six-point harnesses and climb out of the
passenger's side window just as the Toyota crew arive. The four of us then
lift and roll the car back onto it's wheels as cars zoom past us. I hop back
in the car and, amazingly, the car starts right up! Trish jumps in and
buckles up and we cautiously head down the road once again. We bent the rear
beam pretty badly, however, and the rear of the car wagged like a dog's
tail. Still, I could control her up to about 50mph and we decide to press on
regardless.

Our rally came to a complete end, however, about 14 miles later when the
engine began to misfire. Unbeknownst to us, our fuel tank took a direct hit
during the impact and dumped our remaining seven gallons of gas (and any
remaining hopes to continue) into the Maine country side. Oh well... We
pulled over as the engine died and watched the rest of the rally with a
bunch of spectators and other crashed out drivers.

All in all, I felt great about the whole experience. I learned a few
lessons, dominated my race class until the crash, and only wished that I
could get back out there and play some more. The next event is near
Montreal, Canada and after that, nearby (to me) in the Catskills, NY.

Well, that's all for now. I'll talk to y'all later...
--
Scott F. Williams
NJ Scirocco nut
Golf GTI 16v rallycar
Mazda 323 GTX turbo assault vehicle

Check out our rally team's website!
http://www.usrallyteam.com


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