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Welcome to CK Rally!
9/19/2005 - Back from Wild West!
Well, after a summer off CKRALLY made it back out to play in the woods again! Ian, Glen, Anne and I headed down friday after a frantic week finalizing the car for racing. We re-vamped a bunch of little details that all in all made the car a much more solid package.
The aftermath of the engine fire necessitated me rebuilding the majority of the wiring harness so I pulled the dash and removed everything I didn't need (A/C stuff, stereo stuff, etc) which allowed me to thin out the mess quite a bit. All in all I only had about 20 wires to splice in. My MAF sensor was pretty melted too so I replaced it as well. We also re-plumbed the fuel lines with some AN -6 braid lines through the interior. So with the exception of the factory plumbing from the tank to the fuel pump, the rest of the fuel system is protected by braid steel mesh around the lines.
Next, with the help of some fabrication by Cascade Autosport, we replaced the factory brake setup and reinforced the pedal assembly to keep everything solid. This helps with the increased pedal pressure that the loss of the booster mandated. The new setup uses two Tilton master cylinders (one front, one rear) and a balance bar with a cable adjuster in the cockpit. This allows me to dial in slight changes to brake bias from the driver's seat.
Last, but definately not least we finally started running alloy wheels in the form of Compomotive TH2 wheels, 15x6.5, 5x100 ET50. These were an awesome addition as the car was so much more predictable. They soaked up plenty of bumps and small hits that had been plaguing my soft steel wheels with flats earlier in the season. This in combination with a return to the Michelin L82 tires (my favorites!) really helped out and played a big part in keeping us competitive.
The weekend started in typical form with us finishing the painting about 10 hours before tech. We decided to try and imitate the Citroen Xsara paint scheme (a white roof faded through yellow and orange into a red base color). We got the white finished Thursday around 2 AM and the red finished Friday at 3 AM. By that time we were tired enough to say "screw the fading, it can happen after the rally!". Glen and Ian were total troopers, helping me with all the last minute stuff.
Despite some paperwork malfunctions, we made it Friday, got registered and teched and had a full night's sleep (for once!) the day before competition started. Saturday morning we headed out to the stages with a basically un-tested car. I told Ian that we'd have to take it slow until I was able to feel out all the changes and factor it in to my driving. About halfway through the first stage I was adjusted! Talk about some of the best changes I've EVER made. The brakes were simply amazing. I was committing further than ever before and felt like I was hardly pushing the envelope. The wheels and tires gave me an amazing level of confidence in the car and we were pushing at a pretty good clip.
After the really fast but unstable guys both DNF'd (Derek lost his engine and Nat Stow lost his head gasket and had a near miss with an EXTREMELY fast off) we found ourselves in an amazingly close battle with Chip Miller and his Honda for the G2 class lead. Going into the last stage we were within seconds of eachother, with Chip on top by a narrow margin. SS7 was a re-run of SS4 which favored me, as I had bested Chip by 40 seconds the first time through. He was a narrow margin faster on the other stages which put us soooo close!
Unfotunately, luck was not on my side! With about a mile to go (after successfully running 11 miles in the dust and dark) we went wide (barely 2 feet off the road!) on a left and clipped a stump with the right front of the car. This sucked completely as it smashed my fender, radiator support, and bumper, and bent the tie rod and control arm. The radiator support pinched the main alternator/battery wire causing a total system short and stopping us dead in the water. We hauled out the triangles and the OK sign and waited for sweep. With the help of the sweep team (a gentle tug back onto the road) we were able to complete the stage, albeit in a very non-competitive 49 minutes.
Overall the damage wasn't too bad, but it was sufficiently bad to prevent us from running sunday's stages. Glen went to spectate, Anne went home, and Ian took me over to pick up the truck and trailer so I could fetch my broken race car. I hung out for the finish party and visited with all my rally buddies before the final treck home.
All in all it was a great weekend, despite the lack-luster finish and another crash. Our class leading stage times were very inspiring and I was so renewed by getting back in the car after the better part of 5 months with no rallying! The changes we made to the car were all positive and it resulted in an entirely new level of capability.
Ian has some work conflicts that will determine what our next rally is, but look for us at either Pacific Forest Rally or the Mt. Hood Rally. Thanks for visiting and please feel free to contact me with any question!
I archived the front page again: Archive 5
email Chris
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