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The last race of the CRS season is now over, three days of battling to the finish line. This year was going to be a tough one, some new roads for me to run, no stages notes, and a car that’s starting to show it’s signs of age. After replacing the clutch pressure plate for Prescott, the engine has a vibration, that I’m sure just sounds worse than it really is. And the dust, I just can’t seem to get the dust out of the car any more.
It was a busy few weeks before the race. Starting with good friends, Eric and Jen, getting married the weekend before the race. No problem, my car is generally ready well in advance. Except this time, I had a few little extras to do, new struts on the front end, wire in some fog lights, after all the trouble in Prescott, and fix the back-up lights; the car needs to be street legal. Then I get a call the Friday night before the wedding, my old co-driver, Piers, was driving in for the wedding from San Diego and his engine wasn’t making much oil pressure. Long story short, he would end up taking my daily car back to California, and if we had time before the race, we would track down his trouble, fix it, then drive it up to the race to switch cars. Saturday morning, several of us planned a testing session with our cars to make sure they were ready for the race. Ten miles out into the middle of no where, Mike Masano’s Toyota decided that the engine was going to start giving up. Monday night, we did 90% of the engine swapping for Mike’s car, with the engine out of his street car he bought a few years ago, just a low mileage, ’87 Corolla. Tuesday night, I got back to my car, replaced the struts and finished the little details. Wednesday night, we finally got back to fixing Piers’s Golf, replacing the oil pump, but the problem wasn’t the pump, but broken off baffles in his racing oil pan. We took the car for a test drive and a $50 dinner for Eric Olson and I, and then back home to pack up for the race. You would think that would be enough excitement for me, already feeling like I should have saved my entry fee, and spent it on next years budget. Thursday morning, my crew/truck driver Morgan calls me up from Tucson, his car was broken into; all of his luggage had been stolen out of the car. He had pack up ahead of time, ready to go. So, he made the decision to stay home and take care of his new trouble. Not a problem, we had my co-drivers girl friend to drive the truck to service and extra crew guys from another team to help out, as needed.
Finally, we made it up for the race, Thursday evening, just in time for tech inspection and catching up with all my race friends. Friday morning came a bit too early, but they always do. We headed out for the new stages, south of Kingman, AZ. The new roads were nice, very flowing and smooth, but a little faster than we usually run on. The last 1-1/2 miles of the second stage was like getting to drive on a roller coaster, straight, down hill, and smooth jumps, one after the other. We had the car in 4th gear, anywhere from 5000 to 6000 rpms, what a rush, drop down then shoot back up all those little hills. The next stage was flowing, but twistier, and more off camber turns at the tops of hills. That’s a clue, the car was very loose, and we had a few moments of getting somewhat out of control. Then just as we were getting to the end of the stage, we finally got caught out by gravity, and drove up over a burm, that just happened to have a big rock inside of it. The car had enough momentum to get back on the road and cross the finish line, but a bit bent up. The rock smashed the skid plate, and the core support behind it, with an end result of the passenger side wheel being back about 5/8” further. Oh well, that’s racing, the car finished out the night, with just occasional tire rubbing on that side.
Before Saturday could start, we had to make repairs over night, to try and pull the wheel forward where it belonged. Nothing like using the service truck and a tow strap to pull sheet metal around on a car. We pulled the core support mostly straight again, beat the inside of the fender well to get a little more clearance, ready for the next days racing. The next morning was going to be coming up fast. I got to bed about 12:45 after having a quick drink with Piers. He and his new driver had wrecked that day, taking them out of the race, so I thought it was the least I could.
Saturday morning, we had to leave by 7:30, to drive the cars nearly 100 miles out to the stages. Quick bite to eat, load up the car and head out for the Grand Canyon. This day started out less eventful, long stages, more high-speed roads, with a bit of technical, twisty sections. The days was rolling along great, car handled as well as ever, then came the early night, sun set was at 4:30-ish. With the new draw of driving lights on the alternator, it started acting up, whining and squealing. No problem, two stage left, except one of them was 19 plus miles long. We got about 2/3 through the first stage when all of a sudden; we come around a bend to see a deer in the road. I let off the gas, as it ran across, got back on the gas and a second deer jumps out, turns and ducts it’s head at the last second and hit the drivers side fender of the car. For 20 yards, it was tumbling along side us, even pooped on my hood, then disappeared as we sped off. No time to stop and see if it was alright, I’m racing, and what could I do for it if it was hurt. We got to the end of the stage, told the stage captain what had happened and also talked with the car that came up after us. The deer was nowhere to be seen, by racers and by the workers after the stage was clear. Tough animals, took a hit and kept on going, just like my car.
The last stage was a whole new adventure. 19 miles of thick, hanging dust, broken fog lights from the rock the day before and a failing alternator. A half-mile into the stage, the alternator stopped complaining, the dummy light stopped flickering, was it working as it should? The answer turned out to be no, it failed. No matter, the dust was the bigger problem, every corner, every dip in the road seemed to be zero visibility. Earlier in the day it took us 19.89 minutes to run in the opposite direction, this time through, it took us 26.42 minutes, very frustrating. But, we got to the end, the car was pulling to one side, did the steering get bent on one of the half dozen burms we bounced off of in the dust? Nope, turned out to be a flat tire, as we found out later. The lights were getting dimmer and we had a 17 mile drive back to pavement, to meet up with our crew to trailer back to Laughlin. About 6 miles from the end the engine finally died, no my energy from the battery. This was after driving by moon light for the last two miles. Sweep finally drove by and pulled us for another two miles before our crew showed up with the trailer. While they were getting turned around, we got the battery charged up off the sweep truck for five or ten minutes so we could drive it up onto the trailer, then back off once we got to the hotel. We were going to miss our in time, 10 seconds of time penalty for every minute late. We finally got back to Laughlin, unloaded the car about a ¼ mile away from the finish line, jump in and start blasting down the road, with out any light turned on. I had no idea how long the charge we got earlier could keep the car running. We came down a hill, made a right turn as the stoplight was turning yellow and pop, one of the axles came out of the tranny, rendering the car powerless once again. We coasted and pushed the car into the bottom of the parking lot. One of the works came down with an ATV, pulled the car to the top of the parking lot with our tow strap, and then 6 or 8 guys pushed the car over the finish line! What a day…
We had another evening of repairs ahead and a lot of celebrating with all the competitors and workers for another fine day of rallying. The car was easily fixed up for the next days Super Special, side-by-side short course racing. Popped the axle back into place, filled the tranny back up with oil and borrowed the fully charged battery out of my daily car to finish up the race. Then the party could get started for us. We were eventually chased off by the hotel security, for drinking and racing motorcycles around the parking lot. One of the competitors had brought a mini chopper, people were taking turns doing burn outs and racing it around the podium start/finish ramp. No problem, the festivities just moved inside, to the casino’s bar. Many hours later, I finally headed for my room, to get four hours of sleep before the next days activities.
Sunday is a fun, low pressure, spectator friendly, day in the dirt, or sand in this case. I was lined up with a Group 2, A3 VW Golf out of Colorado. The first two runs of the track, he beat me by .14 and .07 minutes, that’s 8.4 and 4.2 seconds. For the last race of the day, there was a coin toss, for lane choice. He lost the toss, I chose the inside lane, and unlike the other two runs, this time we would run two laps. I finally decided to change the tires, good choice; my old spares had a tread pattern much more suited to the sand. First lap, this time things were different, we came across the start/finish line side by side, it was a great battle. About 1/3 of the way into the last lap, I turned in too early and drove up over a small burm, and three safety cones, but stayed on the gas and got back were we belonged. This little off cost me several seconds, not good, but kept it going. Two turns later, the VW got too wide in his turn, drove onto his burm, but didn’t have as good as luck as I had just had. He was stuck and not coming off too quickly. Nice, I went shooting past him, took my aggressive driving down a notch and finished the race in 3.91 minutes. He unfortunately never got off the burm and was given a boggy time of six minutes.
This race was full of ups and downs, fun and frustrations. Each day was a separate club event, scored individually. In my class, Open2wd, we finish Friday 10th of 13, Saturday 7th of 8 and Sunday tied for 3rd of 8. The total number of cars in the class are only those who made it to the end of each day. A big thanks goes out to Tim, my co-driver, Angela for driving the service truck around and washing the windows and our glasses at every service and to Eric Olson, Mike Moyer, Arthur and David for helping out, working on keeping the car going. I also need to thank Tokico, for having struts that took the pounding and kept the car handling perfectly even after I tried to break it.
Jon Rood, Car# 306 Ford Festiva-RS Evo II, car# 38 at Ramada
It was a busy few weeks before the race. Starting with good friends, Eric and Jen, getting married the weekend before the race. No problem, my car is generally ready well in advance. Except this time, I had a few little extras to do, new struts on the front end, wire in some fog lights, after all the trouble in Prescott, and fix the back-up lights; the car needs to be street legal. Then I get a call the Friday night before the wedding, my old co-driver, Piers, was driving in for the wedding from San Diego and his engine wasn’t making much oil pressure. Long story short, he would end up taking my daily car back to California, and if we had time before the race, we would track down his trouble, fix it, then drive it up to the race to switch cars. Saturday morning, several of us planned a testing session with our cars to make sure they were ready for the race. Ten miles out into the middle of no where, Mike Masano’s Toyota decided that the engine was going to start giving up. Monday night, we did 90% of the engine swapping for Mike’s car, with the engine out of his street car he bought a few years ago, just a low mileage, ’87 Corolla. Tuesday night, I got back to my car, replaced the struts and finished the little details. Wednesday night, we finally got back to fixing Piers’s Golf, replacing the oil pump, but the problem wasn’t the pump, but broken off baffles in his racing oil pan. We took the car for a test drive and a $50 dinner for Eric Olson and I, and then back home to pack up for the race. You would think that would be enough excitement for me, already feeling like I should have saved my entry fee, and spent it on next years budget. Thursday morning, my crew/truck driver Morgan calls me up from Tucson, his car was broken into; all of his luggage had been stolen out of the car. He had pack up ahead of time, ready to go. So, he made the decision to stay home and take care of his new trouble. Not a problem, we had my co-drivers girl friend to drive the truck to service and extra crew guys from another team to help out, as needed.
Finally, we made it up for the race, Thursday evening, just in time for tech inspection and catching up with all my race friends. Friday morning came a bit too early, but they always do. We headed out for the new stages, south of Kingman, AZ. The new roads were nice, very flowing and smooth, but a little faster than we usually run on. The last 1-1/2 miles of the second stage was like getting to drive on a roller coaster, straight, down hill, and smooth jumps, one after the other. We had the car in 4th gear, anywhere from 5000 to 6000 rpms, what a rush, drop down then shoot back up all those little hills. The next stage was flowing, but twistier, and more off camber turns at the tops of hills. That’s a clue, the car was very loose, and we had a few moments of getting somewhat out of control. Then just as we were getting to the end of the stage, we finally got caught out by gravity, and drove up over a burm, that just happened to have a big rock inside of it. The car had enough momentum to get back on the road and cross the finish line, but a bit bent up. The rock smashed the skid plate, and the core support behind it, with an end result of the passenger side wheel being back about 5/8” further. Oh well, that’s racing, the car finished out the night, with just occasional tire rubbing on that side.
Before Saturday could start, we had to make repairs over night, to try and pull the wheel forward where it belonged. Nothing like using the service truck and a tow strap to pull sheet metal around on a car. We pulled the core support mostly straight again, beat the inside of the fender well to get a little more clearance, ready for the next days racing. The next morning was going to be coming up fast. I got to bed about 12:45 after having a quick drink with Piers. He and his new driver had wrecked that day, taking them out of the race, so I thought it was the least I could.
Saturday morning, we had to leave by 7:30, to drive the cars nearly 100 miles out to the stages. Quick bite to eat, load up the car and head out for the Grand Canyon. This day started out less eventful, long stages, more high-speed roads, with a bit of technical, twisty sections. The days was rolling along great, car handled as well as ever, then came the early night, sun set was at 4:30-ish. With the new draw of driving lights on the alternator, it started acting up, whining and squealing. No problem, two stage left, except one of them was 19 plus miles long. We got about 2/3 through the first stage when all of a sudden; we come around a bend to see a deer in the road. I let off the gas, as it ran across, got back on the gas and a second deer jumps out, turns and ducts it’s head at the last second and hit the drivers side fender of the car. For 20 yards, it was tumbling along side us, even pooped on my hood, then disappeared as we sped off. No time to stop and see if it was alright, I’m racing, and what could I do for it if it was hurt. We got to the end of the stage, told the stage captain what had happened and also talked with the car that came up after us. The deer was nowhere to be seen, by racers and by the workers after the stage was clear. Tough animals, took a hit and kept on going, just like my car.
The last stage was a whole new adventure. 19 miles of thick, hanging dust, broken fog lights from the rock the day before and a failing alternator. A half-mile into the stage, the alternator stopped complaining, the dummy light stopped flickering, was it working as it should? The answer turned out to be no, it failed. No matter, the dust was the bigger problem, every corner, every dip in the road seemed to be zero visibility. Earlier in the day it took us 19.89 minutes to run in the opposite direction, this time through, it took us 26.42 minutes, very frustrating. But, we got to the end, the car was pulling to one side, did the steering get bent on one of the half dozen burms we bounced off of in the dust? Nope, turned out to be a flat tire, as we found out later. The lights were getting dimmer and we had a 17 mile drive back to pavement, to meet up with our crew to trailer back to Laughlin. About 6 miles from the end the engine finally died, no my energy from the battery. This was after driving by moon light for the last two miles. Sweep finally drove by and pulled us for another two miles before our crew showed up with the trailer. While they were getting turned around, we got the battery charged up off the sweep truck for five or ten minutes so we could drive it up onto the trailer, then back off once we got to the hotel. We were going to miss our in time, 10 seconds of time penalty for every minute late. We finally got back to Laughlin, unloaded the car about a ¼ mile away from the finish line, jump in and start blasting down the road, with out any light turned on. I had no idea how long the charge we got earlier could keep the car running. We came down a hill, made a right turn as the stoplight was turning yellow and pop, one of the axles came out of the tranny, rendering the car powerless once again. We coasted and pushed the car into the bottom of the parking lot. One of the works came down with an ATV, pulled the car to the top of the parking lot with our tow strap, and then 6 or 8 guys pushed the car over the finish line! What a day…
We had another evening of repairs ahead and a lot of celebrating with all the competitors and workers for another fine day of rallying. The car was easily fixed up for the next days Super Special, side-by-side short course racing. Popped the axle back into place, filled the tranny back up with oil and borrowed the fully charged battery out of my daily car to finish up the race. Then the party could get started for us. We were eventually chased off by the hotel security, for drinking and racing motorcycles around the parking lot. One of the competitors had brought a mini chopper, people were taking turns doing burn outs and racing it around the podium start/finish ramp. No problem, the festivities just moved inside, to the casino’s bar. Many hours later, I finally headed for my room, to get four hours of sleep before the next days activities.
Sunday is a fun, low pressure, spectator friendly, day in the dirt, or sand in this case. I was lined up with a Group 2, A3 VW Golf out of Colorado. The first two runs of the track, he beat me by .14 and .07 minutes, that’s 8.4 and 4.2 seconds. For the last race of the day, there was a coin toss, for lane choice. He lost the toss, I chose the inside lane, and unlike the other two runs, this time we would run two laps. I finally decided to change the tires, good choice; my old spares had a tread pattern much more suited to the sand. First lap, this time things were different, we came across the start/finish line side by side, it was a great battle. About 1/3 of the way into the last lap, I turned in too early and drove up over a small burm, and three safety cones, but stayed on the gas and got back were we belonged. This little off cost me several seconds, not good, but kept it going. Two turns later, the VW got too wide in his turn, drove onto his burm, but didn’t have as good as luck as I had just had. He was stuck and not coming off too quickly. Nice, I went shooting past him, took my aggressive driving down a notch and finished the race in 3.91 minutes. He unfortunately never got off the burm and was given a boggy time of six minutes.
This race was full of ups and downs, fun and frustrations. Each day was a separate club event, scored individually. In my class, Open2wd, we finish Friday 10th of 13, Saturday 7th of 8 and Sunday tied for 3rd of 8. The total number of cars in the class are only those who made it to the end of each day. A big thanks goes out to Tim, my co-driver, Angela for driving the service truck around and washing the windows and our glasses at every service and to Eric Olson, Mike Moyer, Arthur and David for helping out, working on keeping the car going. I also need to thank Tokico, for having struts that took the pounding and kept the car handling perfectly even after I tried to break it.
Jon Rood, Car# 306 Ford Festiva-RS Evo II, car# 38 at Ramada
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