You may ask yourself why I would make a 3 hour drive at 9 o'clock at night only to make it to a gravel lot filled with RV's, car trailers, the fading sounds of engines revving and power tools well into the night.You may also ask why I chose to sleep in my car at midnight somewhere on the outskirts of Shelton Washington only to wake up at 7am staring down the headlights of a car I didn't even own, let alone race.
I do it because I am part of a special breed of race fan. I am a rally fan. We are a bunch of crazy people who meet in the middle of nowhere, stand in the middle of the forest, staring down a gravel road all day for one, maybe 2 chances to see one corner of a 26 mile long "lap" be shred to bits by race cars every couple of minutes. Rain or shine.
I feel that you don't really get to know the true feel of rally until you've seen what the competitors and service crews are willing to do for each other to get a fellow competitor back on the stage. When you come into rally, whether it be your first or your hundredth race, you are family to them. They would give you any part they can offer you without asking for a thing at that moment. Of course there will be a conversation later about getting it back or strike a deal haha.
The Olympus rally has a proud history. In 1986, it was the last race to ever be graced with the Group B rally cars. They were extremely fast and extremely dangerous but also considered the golden era of rally. They were banned shortly after and never touched a stage in the World Rally Championship again.
It's always a joy to see people getting into rally for the first time, not sure what to expect and filled with anxious drive. With help from friends and the rally community we managed to keep the brother's car running and it was up to them to keep it on the road.
Day one had minor problems in the beginning, a flat, some loose parts here and there. By the end, it was apparent that they were going to learn just what to expect in rally... They came in for the last service of the day, with a busted axle boot. This nut,
would be the thing to put them in awe as to what people are willing to do... For those who aren't familiar with service, every car that comes in to be fixed and looked over only has a set amount of time they are allowed to be there before they have to drive back to the stage (which is another word for "lap" even though it's really a closed off dirt road). You have anywhere from 20-60 minutes to get the car fixed and back out. It feels more like 5 minutes if something is broken. This nut, took 3 breaker bars 2 of which broke(That's what warranties are for, right?), 5 or 6 impact wrench's, 1 air wrench, 2 torches, a shit ton of wd40 and a bunch of pb blaster and one poor jack handle to get that single axle nut off. A crowd of service people watched and jumped in, ran back and forth to get other tools, discuss other options and just spread the word in general. They didn't have to, they wanted to. As one woman standing by putting so perfectly, it was like Cinderella's glass slipper but with impact wrenchs. We were unable to get the nut off. Unable to get a new boot over the now exposed axle. So what did we do? We improvised as rally does so often. We duct taped it and said "Drive it till it dies." Well, it didn't die. They made it back with the axle looking like this.
We needed to replace this as well as now fix the blown strut which we didn't have a spare. So another competitor offered a borrowed spare strut and handed over their spare rear axle now that ours was toast. Rally love I tell you. After wrenching and wrenching, a big dude and $600 impact wrench did the job. Around 2am we went to bed exhausted and got up at 7am to start day 2.
Day 2 was simple as pie and we even had a chance to go spectate and cheer on our friends racing and hang out with friends who weren't able to continue on. With the Cascadia flag swaying in the wind and the cloud of dust from a car sweeping in at 70mph, we laughed, cheered and enjoyed what this wonderful sport is all about. Our team would place 24th out of 26. Which to finish a race that only 26 out of 47 cars were able to finish is a feat in itself. They managed to survive their first rally together.
Hey look! I'm in the far corner! lol
Crazy photobomb level : creeper status. haha
What a dirty Volvo :)
So I'm in the process of editing the video for all of this. Most of the time I was actually doing what I said I do, work. But I did get a bit of footage and another incar/event video will come of this.
I know it was a long blog, I hope you enjoy :)
