'93 Impreza Rally Car

Congrats on the finish at your first rally!

As a spectator out in the woods, we all really appreciated your commitment to the horn!  Even with a little whoops at the spectator point on 3! 

Hopefully the good photographers got some decent snaps of your car.  In the meantime, here's some terrible ones I took!

In reply to rallyxPOS13 :

Thanks! We were more than happy to make it to the end

Nothing like  bringing up the rear of the pack with a few mistakes and a lot of horn to keep the spectators entertained. Julia has thoroughly enjoyed having a foot button

Thanks for the pictures! We're happy to see all of them, professionally taken or not

Long overdue update will start with a STPR recap:

TLDR: Did it better than Bristol, actually got there on time, and did a proper 2 pass recce. Also finished, which is still goal #1.

Wednesday:
Left a few hours later than we originally wanted around noon
Towing up was uneventful with one stop to double check trailer tires and tie downs
Dropped off Julia to pick up the recce rental. Then took the car to the fairgrounds to drop it off the trailer and register for the event while Julia ran a few errands and did food prep for the next couple days. Hung out at the fairgrounds until registration opened and had a generally good time watching the Beetle tow van get stuck in a flat grass field (I can't find pictures of this but will add them if I do). He eventually unhooked and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ rescued the trailer while making comments about previous grief for having a 4x4 tow rig.
After registration everyone headed back to what Julia and I referred to as Chaos House on account of the many many people (5 teams worth +extras) who were planning on being there over the week. Thankfully it was pretty tame and sleep was had by most as far as we could tell.

Thursday:
Julia and I make our first attempt at 2 pass recce which happens to include many pretty roads

Our new crew Lilly and Spiro did great getting the car through tech with only an annoying note in the logbook about our door stickers being applied backwards. Which felt similar to the horn note at Bristol, such that scrutineering was looking for something dumb and door stickers fit the bill.

Woke up many hours earlier than usual and were intentionally the second people on a new stage as of this year which was starts as a 1.1 mile hillclimb on a wet, muddy, grassy road. Starting second, before the road was torn up by everyone else is exactly what we wanted. A warning bulletin had come out previously recommending 4x4 or riding along with someone who had it. Which we did not, or so we thought and were later informed that hybrid corollas have the hybrid motor attached to the rear diff. And promptly made light of the situation thinking we had just made it up in a FWD corolla with meh all seasons. Granted, we barely made it up and that was the only stage we did a single pass of recce on.
The next several teams did not have as easy a time, with people pushing cars up the hill and reportedly conditions did not improve for the rest of the day.
The rest of Thursday was numbingly slow as we rewrote or removed at least half of of the Jemba notes for every stage to make them digestible to my noob driver ears, and to make them readable at speed without channeling an inner rap god. We did agree that these were better than Bristol Jemba for consistency, with only a few corners feeling tighter at speed than noted in the book.

Most of the way through the day there was a shakedown stage that we did elect to try. With the car on different suspension and tires than previously I really wanted to see how it felt at higher than rallyx speeds. Lilly and Spiro were kind enough to bring us the car, our safety equipment, and then hang out for an hour while we did 2 shakedown runs and then took everything back to service so we could complete the last stage of recce.

Last stage of recce was the infamous Waste Management stage and had its own time slot due to the facility being a working dump.
By the time we got back from dropping off the rental one town over it was after 2130 and we were absolutely beat. And we had now learned that recce is exhausting, but over the next 2 days proved itself to be entirely worth it.

Friday:
Friday was 2 loops of the same stages. Started 23 on the road out of 28 cars.
Race Day #1

Transit out to the first stage:

First stage, Asaph, was super loose even though we were 23 on the road. Best way I can describe it: driving on marbles, placed on top of a rock, where the rock is shaped like an upside down bowl.
Asaph was also our first big moment in the car, where I (mis)heard:
    distance into jump into straight road
but reality was:
    distance into jump into LEFT TURN straight road
and so new pants were almost needed as we came floating over a crest into a surprise left turn but thankfully we were pretty slow and didn't put ourselves in any real danger
aaaaand we reviewed the video footage and it turns out the result of being scared was taking the turn at the proper speed

I was not expecting the binary grip of swept vs not-swept lines to start the day and it had me very cautious through the first mile or 2 of the second stage as well. The second stage of the day was fast, well faster than anything at Bristol. It also turned out to be one of our better stages with notes and confidence building. Getting to the point of trusting a note telling me to stay flat out at ~90mph over a crest through a slight turn was a huge milestone for us and really set us up well for the rest of the rally. We also caught and passed another car on stage which was an additional confidence boost to start the rally.
Stage 3 was shorter than the others (~3.5miles).
Stage 4 was the infamously rough waste management (WM), though not quite as brutal as previous years, was still very rough in sections. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ had described WM as mostly rallycross with trees on the apex and boy was he correct. We actually ran competitive times on WM and didn't recreate the nose dive from page 1 of this thread, but we did do a small jump.

Mostly happy with how the stage went aside from nose diving the car off a kicker, we went to leave time control and it just shuts off. So we did the thing and pushed the car out the control and reseated the battery cable that popped off the terminal and tightened the mounting bracket which had also come loose.

Rolled into service and only needed to give the car a look over and refill water. Overall, a way better first loop than we hoped for and the rest of the day continued to be smooth sailing at an increasing pace.

Got back to the house and learned that we had, in fact, been going much quicker than we thought and were re-seeded up to 11th on the road from 23.

Saturday:
Saturday was 2 loops of the same stages (different than Friday). Started 11 on the road out of 28 cars.
Our first parc expose!

It was a very neat experience and also a bit surreal when people asked us to sign stuff.
People enjoyed the cats as always and we enjoyed hanging out for a few hours. The first stage of the day was the on everyone was worried about due to the 1.1 mile mud hill climb at the start of the stage. The hill climb turned out to be best part. The rest of the stage was super slick, but also very rough with many dips that would lunch the front end if you went into them too fast. This experience on stock suspension is best described as the car getting into a slap fight with the ground.  We re-cracked our exhaust header and squished the bottom of FR fender but otherwise appeared to escape without real damage. We passed 2 broken cars on this stage alone, one with a broken control arm and another with a broken trans. With ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ also out of the running from their transmission discovering a near gear lever position, that put us at 8th on the road and we stayed there for the remainder of the rally.

Oh, and we got dickered while waiting around for a delay at the start of the hill.

The stage after the hell hill was mostly smooth and fast with an extremely rough uphill section that basically crawled up and it still hurt. Otherwise it was okay, we were off our groove a little on this one and didn't really find it until the next stage.
Third stage in the loop had the same second half as a Friday stage and it happened to be the one we really clicked with. Mostly a medium to fast stage with only a select few tight spots made it easy to flow with the notes and keep track of everything. Despite the stock suspension, the car felt good at 80+ and there was a lot of it. The finish for this was the end of a 0.5kilometer straight that we crossed at ~110mph after letting off b/c I looked down and got scared again.
Service went pretty smooth, quick check over of the car, refill waters, snacks, and we were backout for the second loop.
Second half of the day went as planned, with more speed found over the morning runs while keeping it conservative to finish.

Rounding out the day was the awards ceremony where a lot of our friends won multiple sets of hardware which was fun to watch. See pictures on ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ brz thread.

And to our surprise, we won the novice award!

There was a champagne spray for just us and was super cool and we don't know if we'll ever get the chance again so we drenched each other. And then found out just how sticky and smelly it really is.

It wasn't at all expected though we wondered if there was something up when Phil Barnes asked us to stick around through the awards. Phil happened to be at the first stage we recce'd on Thursday, mentioned that he was always looking out for novice teams and was a big supporter of them. He also checked in everytime he saw us throughout the event which was appreciated.

Finished out the night getting dinner with most of the group, as well as my parents and two of my friends that had come up to spectate. Then went back to the house to celebrate the Downeys anniversary and hang out.

A big thank you to the Nonacks who gave us a very nice drinkable trophy for the fact that we had now done a rally the right way. Ie. not showing up 19 hours, full 2 pass recce, finishing the rally. The full experience.

We couldn't have done it without our crew, the friends that have patiently answered our very many questions among other support, and my parents who still let us borrow their truck.

In total, a very successful event given the goals we set for ourselves and it was a ton of fun to boot.

Congrats again!  I had no idea they were going to do the novice award but I really appreciate that they did, getting started in rally is incredibly difficult and anyone who can pull it off should be recognized.  It was good to see you guys do so well, and I know Kramer loved seeing his old car flying out there too.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Thanks!
Seeing Kramer at parc was pretty cool. He was definitely stoked to see it out at his home rally and as a bonus, his kids loved the cats livery.

Trying to get back into the ~monthly cadence, so here goes:

Just after STPR, I took the car over to a friends to see what our fighting weight was. Rally tires, full spare, tools, junk in the trunk, and 3/4 tank of fuel.

2880 with a pretty cross weight, we'll take it but that's a far cry from <2600 with an empty car in street trim (and less fuel), so I'll be brainstorming ways to either lose or move weight center.

Had some basic reprep after that and found out why our passenger fender was suddendly so floppy. The portion of car it had been attached to was tearing off the car and took one yank to fully remove. Leaving us with this:

A quick comparison of the drivers side....

From below:

The distance the leading box section has moved is mildly concerning, but this car has lead a rouuugh life and I don't think it's gotten worse in the last 2 rallys, despite the fender finally trying to remove itself.

I recently acquired a rolling parts car with no roof and no front clip and may play with the idea of reskinning the front box and the floors. But with no welder and even less skill, that remains unlikely.

Julia fixed the fender and learned how to fab a small bracket along the way

Followed shortly by the sloppiest mudfest of a rallycross we've ever been to. As a once in 3 years mud event, it was entertaining for what it was but we'll likely never do another. The car had/has mud in every nook and cranny, the underbody plastic alone was holding easily 50+ lbs even after a trip to the pay-n-spray.

The radiator and fans are even caked with mud on both sides. I now fully understand the general dislike of mud rallycross events.

Needless to say, not worth it IF it hadn't been the last event of the region AND I wasn't going into it tied for first for the entire season. From an event standpoint we both did well and got a 2-3 finish, putting me in second overall for the year.

Time for the last bit cleaning and we now have new GC AGXs to install. Replacing the possibly already dead GR2s that went on brand new for STPR. At least one is already leaking, we'll find out if any are bent when they come off, but nothing so drastic i can see it while on the car.

We have one last rallycross at Summit this weekend which should be fun as we catch up after missing the last one. Also a trackcross in December on all 3 Summit courses, so it'll be fun to see how the car does on pavement.

bump

that's awesome man, keep up the great driving.  

who is doing the dicking?! I got one already but its rally's current greatest mystery...

sno*drift was a great time, happy to not sweep you :) 

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I haven't forgotten about the thread, just slow getting pictures moved over

In reply to camopaint0707 :

thanks!

In reply to fidelity101 :

hahaha we're not sure but we picked up a dicker at STPR last year
glad to not have been swept, pictures of large marge breathing heavy are good motivation to keep it tidy 

fidelity101 said:

who is doing the dicking?! I got one already but its rally's current greatest mystery...

A few years ago while I was on a road trip to San Diego with a bunch of other mechanics we had the mystery of the Pink Dick Bandit. Someone was taking a pink paint pen and schlonging peoples tool boxes. We could not get a pink paint pen and it was starting to be hilariously strange. They would just appear. Finally one of my buddies goes "Hey, heh heh." and shows me the pink pen. I kept the PDB secret the rest of the trip. It was awesome.

Very cool GC8 car you two. It was a dream of mine when I owned one. 

In reply to preach :

Thanks! The car is a ton of fun

It's been a fast 3 months since SnoDrift... and I need to make the update before I forget more things and also before SouthernOhioForestRally in June.

TLDR: This rally was incredible (despite the lack of snow). Saturday’s stages, event organization, our friends, and insane spectator turnout made it super fun. All 3 teams in our house podium’d and were top 10 regional!

Irish44j was an absolute savior and not only offered to crew, but also towed up with the best setup Sequoia on the rally circuit. The trip up to the great brown north was uneventful and took ~12 hours with stops for fuel, food, and the recce car pick up. Arrived late-ish to the house we were sharing with Any Percent and War Weasel.

Recce was smooth enough, most of the stages are located close to each other. Meaning 2 pass recce was doable in one day, though we saved bonfire alley for Friday morning to keep Thursday reasonable.

Friday morning was relaxed, with parc expose not happening until later in the day.

Following parc were 2 loops of 3 stages. These were hands down our least favorite stages of the event. We were very glad to be in an awd car and not a brz/e30/etc. Most of the stages were loose, wet, sand that sucked horsepower out of the air itself and was filled with baseball sized rocks to boot. It was like riding an old wooden rollercoaster that shakes back and forth between rails but also doesn’t want you to go faster. We bent Every. Single. Wheel. And felt like we were going to get stuck leaving every finish control.

But we finished the 2 loops and Josh and the house crew gave the car a once over at service in between loops. It was also our first time running night stages and we finally had a reason to use the light bar! Everything worked well but we’ll need more lumens in the future, especially on the sides.

The best spectator ever, offered the use of his heated pressure washer and massive shop to Santiago/Any Percent (and we were forwarded the invite, gratefully accepting).

The ride back from the super shop we couldn’t go faster than ~45mph without fearing the car would shake itself to death. Upon returning to the house we discovered the other reason a lot of teams run wheel scrapers and all 4 corners were full of sand that turned into almost concrete.

Saturday morning there was a little snow during parc which really set the mood with a super involved community and one of the busier parc exposes we’ve attended.

Saturday’s stages were an absolute blast. Only a few spots with deeper sand but the majority of the roads were gravel with some slick spots and snow through one of the wooded areas. Overall, the roads held a ton of speed and we were slowly pushing ourselves with more trust in the notes and the car. We found a balance that worked pretty quickly and after the first couple stages were happy with the pace. Left time on the table but also glad we didn’t push through a handful of trickier spots.

Roads aside, volunteer and spectator turnout at this rally was unlike anything we’ve witnessed. Bonfire alley was peak, but there were bonfires and parties throughout spectator points. The foot horn got a LOT of use.

To round out what had to be one of our favorite rally days, we got to watch friends get awards, and get awards with friends! Super proud of our friends and ourselves.

Mega thankful to Josh for being our crew chief, and having hot chocolate at service. Also grateful to larger house crew team for supporting us.

RustBu

 

 

 

 

 

after several days of cold, gravel, salt, and working on cars, I think my hands looked worse than the wheels lol