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Welcome to CK Rally!
May 23rd 2006 -- Olympus Rally
Ah... so where to start!
First I must say it's been a long time since we've had a succesful rally and it's nice to be back out there without coming home anticipating hundreds of hours of work! :) Olympus was a fabulous event for us.
Before I get into further detail, a few key people need thanks.
- The Wagon Shop -- These guys make our racing effort so much easier! Without their support, coming to Olympus would have been a lot more difficult! Thank you Carl and Joe!
- Bob & Sandi -- Thanks so much for letting us crash again this year. It's always a pleasure to stay with you as your hospitality is legendary! I've not eaten so much in a while. :)
- Our crew chief Glen -- He comes to nearly every rally, without fail. It's been getting harder and harder to get crew for each event. Glen always comes through when we need him to! We couldn't do it without him.
For once, our weekend started well with no last minute rush to get everything done. The car was pretty much ready to go since our aborted attempt at running the Doowops had us sitting in good shape (after we fixed the broken valve spring that prevented us from starting that rally). Thursday night we drove to Shelton to stay with our gracious hosts.
Friday was Recce, which is GREAT! One pass is tough to do much with, but it was still fantastic to get a chance to pre-run. The provided notes from Pat were a bit different that the usual style I drive with (Jemba notes and my own notes we generally make in a style describing the corners rather than dictating a pace through them), so we had a chance to get acquainted with them during Recce. Ian's 2.5RS did double duty getting the co-driver here plus acting as a great recce car. Tech and Registration went quickly and smoothly. Kudos to the organizers!
Saturday the fun began at the Capitol building in Olympia, which was a great back-drop for the start of this classic rally. The last running of the Olympus was in 1988. In those days it was a round of the World Rally Championship, which hasn't been hosted anywhere in the United States since. Saturday was about as trouble-free as it could have been, with the hardest thing required of us in service was changing tires.
Some memorable moments from Saturday for us were the ORV super special stage which was really fun (nothing like a big dirt area with no looming consequences to really throw your car around in)! Later we had a slow spin on a downhill section of the Skookum stage. A little too hot into a corner plus a little too much brake application and around we went! It was a solid finish, albeit a ways off the pace.
Sunday was a lot better as we were swapping stage times with Chip Miller's Honda, and only a few seconds a stage behind Jim Thompson's golf. Jim consistently is faster than us, but unfortunately for him he DNF'd on stage 3, which was the brutal Nahwatzel stage (19 miles this year!). After passing Jim's broken car we were in a fight with Chip for the class win. After Saturday, with a chance to shake off the rust behind me, we were a lot more competitive time wise. A trouble-free first set of stages followed by a quick tire rotation in service and we headed out for the final leg of the event. We knew we were in good shape, but it wouldn't be a walk to the end. Chip and his Honda is always quick, and he is super reliable. Because he is so trouble free, even a slight mistake could cost us the class winning position. We extended our lead slightly over stages 14 and 15 despite a near miss with a deer on stage 15.
Unfortunately, that momentary mistake came on stage 16. Going into Stage 16 we had a 55 second lead on the Honda. Throughout the day, we had been developing an exaust leak somewhere near the catalytic convert, which was no problem other than noise. However on the last stage, the leak was bad enough that hot exaust gases were blowing into the floor pan. This was causing the factory's tar sheet sound deadening material to start to melt, which eventually started smoking. We started to smell the burning tar, without knowing it was the cause. Eventually when we started to see smoke, we decided it was time to stop and make sure we weren't on fire. After a quick inspection of the engine bay and in-car wiring, we decided the car was fine and continued to finish. All in all the stop was devistating to our lead as it cost us nearly 3 minutes.
So with that on the last stage and an uneventful transit back to the final MTC, our olympus rally ended. We ended up 2nd in Group 2 both days. All in all it was one of the most fabulous rally weekends we have had in quite some time. From the competitor side of the event: it was superbly organized -- one of the smoothest running rallies I've participated in. The roads were fanastic as usual (The Green Diamond/Simpson roads are always some of my favorites of the season). The awards banquet is the best of the season -- quite good food for a hungry rallyist at the end of a long weekend.
To all involved in putting it on, THANK YOU!
I archived the front page again: Archive 6
email Chris
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