Snow rally!

 

Cochrane rally 2011

The 2011 Cochrane Winter Rally is Round 1 of the WCRC championship.

Weather conditions: great sunny day

Road conditions: tricky, on some stages there are water, rough ice, wet ice, gravel, dirt, snow - just everything.

Competitors: 19 teams, 19 cars, 10 of them Subarus, just one of them white JDM STI, just like Colin McRae's car :-)

Service park before start

Our team setup service area

 Start of 1st stage of the rally

Before rally I told myself to be slow and careful on first 3 stages. There were pretty tricky road conditions, we had everything on the road: rough ice, polished ice, wet ice, water, snow, gravel. mud. And we expected in many places conditions will change all the time, rough ice can became polished ice when cars brake or slide thru corners, hard soil can become mud when sun heat the road, and so on.

But I was careful only on 1st of 2 my short stages. On the way back I speed up right away, made stupid mistake on 1st chikane, went off road, dig show for 10 minutes until Mike pull me out. Then I was very calm, told myself now I have absolutelly no reason to drive fast, just relax and enjoy. But I was calm just 2 minutes until I buckle up myself, connect intercom and press pedal. When I just started to drive and reached some speed, started slides, etc my brain said this is much more fun than slow driving and may be I became a little mad  

(c) by Stan25

I knew it can be more slippery ice before bridge, I knew its pretty narrow bridge but somehow I think risk it good for rally and spectators need some fun as well. So I did not brake earlier and when I feel that ice I knew I will hit the bridge so I prepared to correct spin after hit.

I checked video and I do not see what exactly mistake I did after that. I turned wheels to right before impact and put them straight after impact when car was driving straight. How did I slide to the ditch? I am not sure. 

Perhaps I expected more heavy impact and over-corrected expected rapid spin that did not happen because tires found some grip on relatively dry surface on the bridge, that's why impact was easy - there is just small scratch on left wheel and left bumper.

Probably my another mistake was to choose classic trajectory. As I see now its right on polished ice while there are some snow outside of ideal trajectory. Polished ice is not good for any tires, especially for old tires with some lost studs...

So I hit the bridge then cut snow bank on right side just a little bit but on this speed it was enough. Show catch the car like cat catch the mouse.

Car become airborne for a moment

 

  

 

I saw nothing because of snow on windshield but I press gas trying to correct trajectory using my sense of balance and trying to keep some speed so car can go to the road without stopping. I did not see but I knew road must be somewhere on the left :-) and I knew if car stops, we stuck here for a long time.

  

 

Unfortunately it did stop and we stuck just 100 meters before finish of the stage

 

 

Polish rally fans and my friends jump right away tried to pull, push, swing and dig car out of snow but without much luck

 

When we finally get out of snow (thank you Mike again) I realized we damaged suspension. Car was able to reach service park so we can check damage.

Control arm was bent. Its not a big damage but without spare parts we were unable to continue rally. Too bad, the following stages were very interesting and challenging.

So we became spectators and watch the snow. And show was unpredictable

Many times champion Hardy Schmidtke showed fastest time on 1st stage but his car went of road on 3rd stage, cut the tree and was destroyed by fire :-((  Driver and co-driver were not injured.

 

Very fast driver, winner of Kananaskis raly 2010, JC Bourgeois, went off road on and lost about 20 min in snow

.... 

Due to engine problems (blown turbo?) EP Racing team (from BC) did not finish rally

 

Winner of the rally. Max Riddle has won his first rally, the Big White rally 2010 in BC. And now he won Cochrane rally 2011 as well. Congratulations!

Video materials:

- Crash on stage 2 (5 min)

- Cochrane 2011 part 1/2 (15 min)

- Cochrane rally, part 2/2 (19 min)

Huge thanks to Krystian and his team for ride on his trailer for my car!

Hope to see everybody on next rally!

Kananaskis rally 2010

Nice weather (but with some chances of rain/snow later), nice roads, 17 rally cars and friends. Should be a great day!

Photo by Evan Jones

This time we have a lot of video materials, thanks to cameragirl and crew.

Note: videos show just part of these long stages.

Video Part 1 (stages 1-4)

I was the only one with winter tires. I thought there may be some frozen parts of the road in the morning and did not check that every other driver choose gravel tires. I was wrong. But still it was a fun :) and we did not loose too much time on these short stages: got 7th time here, just 2 seconds behind 6th place.

Video Part 2

Now I have gravel tires and 2 long stages (24km each) plus 2 short stages to go in this section. Stages are very nice, experienced drivers can drive here very fast but its very demanding for good notes and good work from co-driver. A lot of turns over crests or right after crests, jumps. So you have to handle car properly before such corners/jumps 100% relaying on co-driver notes.

Fortunately co-driver did a great job today (missed correct places just couple times and found right notes quickly). So often I trust notes and drive like rally driver should, e.g. jump over crest sideways. You have to do this when there is corner over crest. And its a lot of fun :)

 Winner of the rally (JC)

Our little car

Tibor on Celica GT4 crashed/rolled while flew thru finish line (stage 5) but did not lose a second because went thru finish and then stopped. Then he put car on its wheels and continue rally!

Video Part 3

Here you may see mistake from co-driver + my mistake around 4:00. Co-driver did not tell me about L5- after jump (I ask several times - what's after jump?)

My mistake: I left throttle. Now I think I should brake shortly only on the crest and use more throttle and less steering right after crest. Not sure this could help because you should steer before jump, there is no traction after jump..

Fortunately we did not crash :)

Video Part 4 (with music)

Last 2 long stages to go. Sunset is coming, fortunately I was thinking about delays and brought extra lamps. Check what cool lamps some guys have.
Look at damaged Celica GT4, it still goes a little bit faster then we do!

There is no in-car video from last stage. I tried to drive more carefully because its last stage of the rally and we had enough fun for today and now its important to finish rally with car in perfect shape. Plus dust from previous car makes more problems at night, sometimes you just don't see anything.
However we were driving very sideways thru some corners, I assume some places without gravel but with dirt was frozen after sunset.

  Marshals at work

 Hard working support crew

We took solid 7th place overall (2nd place among novice drivers):

- 6th place (Celica GT4) 1.17:33

- our time (1995 STI) 1.19:38

- 8th palce (1992 STI) 1.24:54

JC took 1st place (white STI with red leafs) 1.12:13.

He is novice as well, just 2nd year in rally! And note: no one from experienced drivers crashed (I think they know these roads like own backyard). Well Tibor crashed but he flew thru finish line and did not lose a second in the stage.

So it was great day for us :-)

But 3 teams were not able to finish this rally :-(

Our car works fine, handles pretty good in corners but I still think I need to adjust wheel alignment somehow, probably increase rear toe... Car does not have stability in straight lines on loose gravel, that's why I did not drive over 130km/h while other drivers hit 160-180 on straight lines.

Pacific Forest Rally 2010 (PFR 2010)

We came to our 2nd rally and this is national event again. 

So our little car was lost again between cool professional guys. 

No problem this time - I put couple stripes on my car so now it looks like rally machine as well ;-)

H'm, but how to adjust my struts and make some rally wheel alignment? I have no idea :-(

On the other hand I drove my car over 700 km from home to Merritt without problems, my car has muffler! so actually its luxury car :-)

What is really really good - there is no rain in Merritt!! I can't believe I will be driving on dry gravel! Finally.

H'm, recce shows that some stages here are scary even without rain. Princenton Cutoff Road is very tight, has some rocks and big cliffs. In some places you cannot make any mistake at all. If you move just 50cm from the line, you will need to make new car.

Another possible problem - if my driving or road itself will scary my co-driver, she may lose notes.

Nicola stage is nice and fast but has some places with rocks that can hurt my little car and its difficult for novice co-drivers. If you lose notes here, its hard to find right spot again because all corners look similar, a lot of Left 5 - Right 5 sections. So yes, we were lost and could not find the spot because corners are pretty similar and I could not check odometer (partly because we did not make many marks, partly because its hard to see odometer at night at high speed in shaking car).

We definitely need rally computer...

Comstock South? Its nice and interesting stage with 1 asphalt section but there are some rocks as well.

Dillard, Missezula, Helmer Lake - very nice stages. I love them: no huge rocks, a lot of different corners in various combinations: corners before crests, corners after crests, corners on crests. Nice.

Unfortunately we did not have time for 2 recces on long Helmer Lake stage (23km) and we had to stop sometimes to allow fast cars (that was going these recce 2nd time on higher speed) to pass us. So I am sure we made some mistakes in the notes :-(

Ok, lets roll. Friday evening, we have 5 stages in Nikola and Princenton Cutoff Road and I do not have any intention to push hard on these stages at night. Better I preserve my car for long Saturday race.

So I drove carefully tried to avoid all rocks and cliffs and I think I was right. How many cars had problems within 2 hours? Runamuck Rally team rolled car on its side in front of us, several Subarus had problems as well: damaged tire, broken suspension, etc. Everybody are fine but time was lost and teams need more money to fix cars and that part sometimes is most difficult part in rally.

Saturday. What a nice warm day, good for spectators and for competitors. Now I am ready to push harder on smooth roads. Just need good notes.

Ready to start!

1st stage: Dillard

Flight without problems

Video from Dillard

Missezula: 

RRRR... left 5, right 4, left over crest, 50, right 5 over crest into left 5-, 50... NICE! I can do this all day :-)

... right 3.. what "right 3"?? There is some LEFT corner!

While co-driver looking into notes trying to understand what is going on I am entering into Left 5- (or Left 4) and there is that Right 3 on intersection! But its too late.. Brakes! Spin! Where is rear gear in this car?! Ok, just turn aroung and go, go!

Where are the notes?! Left 4. No, its not left, its right. Right 5? Oh, shit, this is Right 3!

Go, go! Then she finally found correct notes and we drove a little bit faster and much more safer.

Wow, that was exciting, again.
Actually it was so exciting that my co-driver wrote a poem and read it instead of pace notes ;-)
See below 

Again we saw triangle, slowed down, made sure racers are Ok and go to the finish. 2 cars slipped off the road and hill on the same corner. One car cut the tree and this tree fell on another car. Cars are significantly damaged, drivers and co-drivers are fine.

2nd time: Dillard.

I checked tire pressure between Dillard and Missezula stages - shit, we have leak. I changed tire between stages, put spare Pirelli while other my tires are Yokohama and went to the stage. Everything looks fine until car reaches about 100 km/h, then left Pirelli tire pushes car to right, twists it harder when we go faster. Why?? Its supposed to be the same size. Ok, go, go!! Everything was fine until I slide more wide than usual in tight corner and said magic phrase "shit, shit, shit" while trying to keep control. Of course, co-driver was interested what is going on and lost notes again :-)

Done, finished stage and may be not bad because I see previous car in stop zone.

Video from Missezula

1st service: today we have a service crew and friends with tea. Nice :-)
So we are changing all tires to Pirelli and checking if everything is Ok with the car. Yes, its fine.

Crazy Leo helped me again. I wanted to adjust my strut settings and I thought I should make them harder on smooth gravel roads while using softer settings for rough stages and very slippery stages like snow and ice. But Leo said I should use softer settings for smooth gravel roads as well. I did, and it works! Probably I need to softer rear struts a little bit more and harden front struts a little bit back.

BTW there is Crazy Leo blog: http://crazyleo.net/

Comstock. I did not push hard on this stage because of some rocks however I missed that invisible R1 corner and I missed it twice. I heard correct notes but you can't see this intersection even if you stop right there because connecting road comes from sharp downhill.
AMR. Very short spectator stage with very slippery gravel mixed with sand and some rocks that come from nowhere (previous cars just dig them out and place on middle of the road). And I stopped here 10 meters before finish! Because car shook during recce and notes were not readable on last corner before finish. Left or righ? There was an intersection right before finish and I was not sure which way to go. Shit :-(

Finally: Helmer. Very nice long stage but we do not have very good notes here, just 1 pass on recce. Yes, notes were lost again despite pretty distinctive 3 Left3 corners. But we drove well here, probably got close to previous car when finally found notes and drove in clouds of dust.

(c) Thumphoto

1st pass on Helmer - dust and sun

2nd pass - dust and high beam lights

No visibility in the corners? This is rallying!

(www.rallysport.ca)

Results: 10th place.
I drove slowly on Comstock tried to preserve car on rocky stages, I drove without notes some sections on most of stages, I stopped 10 meters before finish on AMR (because was not sure which way to go), I span twice but somehow we got 10th place in regional! I was gentle to the car and it brought us to the finish and then home :-)

Video: SS15 - Helmer

BTW: My best times were on Helmer1 and Helmer2 where we drove in dust. On Helmer1 we drove without notes for about 5km (see video) but we still had 10th time. On Helmer2 I stopped right on spectators section because some spectator turned powerful lamp on and I thought this is car in front of me span or had an accident. Then we drove without maps for about 3 km, then we got closer to another car and was sliding through corners in dust. Sometimes I have not seen anything and drove on notes only! That's when I felt I was not real rally driver until now (interesting what I would think after my 10th rally?). Then I made mistake and spin. But despite all this we set 8th best time on this stage!

Crazy Leo got 3rd place in national, driving last 2 stages damaged car. Cool!

 

 Thanks to friends and spectators for nice pictures :-)

Short video from congealedmeat (SS10-Missezula)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5KUfxSGsOE 

Not related to this rally but IMHO the best rally tribute video 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqSGhWfkxxk

Poem from co-driver

(sorry, cannot translate it well)

Поворот, поворот

И опять по газам

Шум в заносе колес, рев мотора

Поворот не дает отдохнуть тормозам

Ну а я посылаю хвалу небесам

(и это вместо того чтоб читать легенду! прим. драйвера)

И опять поворот

И опять по газам

В клубе пыли призрак дороги

Ты несешься вперед не зная что там

Я сжимаюсь в комок алегорий

И опять поворот

И опять по газам

И опять нецензурное слово 

(а шо делать?! прим. драйвера)

Камень, слева обрыв

Но ты держишь штурвал 

И тебе покорилась дорога