After blowing the engine (spun rod bearing) at Oregon Trail Rally in May, the team had some work to do as well as some decisions to make. The obvious was the work that needed to be done, and thus it began almost immediately. Before long the engine was back together and the car was up and running. The decisions to be made were not so obvious; operating on a completely independently funded budget forces us to make lots of sacrifices, like eating “Sorry ass hotdogs” for most of the season and constantly owing money to our friends and family (thanks guys!). After investing so heavily into one rally like Oregon Trail, only to experience such a huge defeat cost us more than the entry fee and event costs (something to the tune of $2500). More importantly, it cost us confidence in our machine we’ve spent so much time and money improving upon. We had arranged a weekend of testing in the Tillamook State Forest only to discover the head gasket hadn’t fully sealed, causing us to see inaccurate water temperature readings. We also had a dramatic loss in power, later sourced to a clogged fuel filter, In true Dirty Drifter spirit we wasted no time making efforts to remedy the situation, only to get the same results back. At this point (less than 2 days before our scheduled departure for Boise, ID), we called it a night and had all but decided to recede from the 2010 running of Rally Idaho. The night off was well deserved and necessary to give us the perspective and momentum to launch an all-out effort on that Monday morning to overcome our assembly woes, spearheaded By Joel Pacello (Ace Mechanic/Driver/Co-Driver). Alas, we succeeded. Our confidence in our Skills, Program, and Campaign for the 2010 running of Rally Idaho had been restored to 110%; we would be competing, Lord help whoever stands in our way!
Caravanning with the DD teams of Brian Gottlieb/Pat Darrow and Rebecca Ruston/Billy Irvin, we arrived in Boise after 8+ long hours of driving to awake early Wednesday morning greeted by none other than the Dirty Drifter's own Doug Folsom, who’ll be pulling co-driving duties for Max-Attack! hopeful Dave Henderson. Joel and I spent all day Wednesday doing recce with Pat and Rebecca while getting in some much needed Co-driver practice for both of us. Thursday’s pass of recce was for the Saturday stages; Rebecca left us to join her co-driver Billy Irvin and we were joined by driver Brian Gottlieb. The day's schedule also included the opening stage of the rally; a first for us and the Idaho Rally, a super special stage complete with a tunnel/jump crossover. We lined up in grid at 7:00, opting to face off against our teammates Rebecca and Billy, only to skate by them by a mere 14 seconds. But the highlight of the stage was without a doubt our second trip over the jump, nearly clearing the whole landing and in the process readjusting the skidplate and radiator core support.
Friday morning came early and we were pleasantly surprised that our performance at the super special had moved us up in seeding, but apparently not far enough, as on SS2 we came across our teammates Brian and Pat. They had been sucked off the road by silt, becoming stuck until getting extracted by the “nicest guy of the rally” Sean Medcroft. They then resumed their rally directly in front of us less than a mile in on the first long stage of the rally. Needless to say, we ate their dust, losing about a minute. The following two stages, Strawberry Loop and Long Gulch, were both completely new and welcome additions that consisted of long sections of rhythmic corners paired with breath taking exposures all linked together with wide high speed blasts on main roads over blind crests; good stuff! Between SS4 and SS5 we had a 2 ½ hour transit paralleling a river that beckoned us to jump in and swim in the 95+ degree weather, luckily we had the restraint not to because with less than 10 miles to the beginning of the next stage we had our fuel filter clog issue revisit us. Thankfully we had the foresight to carry some extra filter elements with us in the car and changing it out didn’t net us any penalties. We made it down Rocky bar without incident, which is more than I can say for our last trip down the same stage last year which literally ended with us upside down at the bottom of a ditch. SS6 was cancelled and we finished out the day with a re-run of Strawberry Loop and Long Gulch, with Joel making a 21 second improvement on his previous pass on Strawberry Loop, crediting it to his Co-driver. We did some minimal repairs, adjustments and celebrating and turned in for the night.
Saturday’s stages were all new additions to organizer Jens Schkade’s repertoire, centered around Idaho City. Running three out of four of the day's stages twice meant we had a tight schedule to follow, including a transit stage featuring a double caution down through a one way goat trail with a truly awesome view. Our day didn’t turn out to be as trouble-free as the previous as we had developed a leak in the top end-tank of the radiator, resulting in a makeshift repair and some “limping” (never slowing down of course) of the specials and transits. In Service we finally made a repair that lasted us the rest of the rally. We finished out the last two of the forest stages, doing our best to maintain our concentration in the 100 degree heat. SS15 made the whole rally worth it, we wound our way through the bottom of a deep canyon with a constant flow of rights and lefts, flat out beating the car in front of us by 1:30. We ended the day with another running of the super special where we skated by local driver Dan Rockrohr by just 4 seconds, this time jumping the perfect amount and to our surprise had emerged 2nd on the Podium for Group 2, our best finish to date. Man, did that Champagne (Natty Ice) taste good.
Thanks: Tricia Shepherd, Kyle Heacock, Tammer, Brian Gottlieb, Pat Darrow, Rebecca Ruston, Billy Irvin, Ben Trujillo, Ben Grewell, Dan Steinhart, Paul Eklund, Frank Lyons, Kris Lilly, Garth Ankeny and Jeff and Mary kay Lind.