Geoff240Ti wrote:
Edicius wrote:
Woo! have fun and stay right side up with all windows and body panels intact!
If that doesn't happen.. his backup car (or parts) is ready and waiting

well the shiny side stayed up...ALL RALLY!...but I still want that car Geoff, eventually anyway
here's some pictures and stories...
Meeting at the Best Western in Rocky Mountain House for the driver's meeting/registration/technical inspection



notice something new...oh yeah...the mean azz tyres!!!

i am so in love with these tyres, they are most amazing thing ever...these are my first set of brand new tyres, ever, they rock! can't say enough or find the right words to describe them, they give you confidence
first stage went okay with the usual hiccups of rookie's...calculations messed up a little bit, learning the timing etc...but all in all it went okay
then...Raz hit the ditch...(although a lot of people without studded winter tyres were saying how hard it was to drive in these conditions)

i tried to pull him out, but to no avail...while i was trying this, a subaru ditched on the other side of the road due to some overplow on the road....so i tried pulling him out...

...and was succesful...

by this time like 3-4 other car's behind us had come upon this utter mess of car's everywhere...after we got going the rest followed, and everyone got back on track for stage 2
this is where it gets fun...coming around a corner at about 80 km/h i got greedy and "put the hammer down" before fully exiting the corner, here we go sidewayz, i let off the throttle...BANG the tires gripped and threw the car around the other way...
picture turning right, sliding a lil sidewayz, then whipping around backwards/sliding sidewayz again...all at 70-80km/h still...
needless to say i hit the ditch...really hard



with the warning triangle set up and my navigator holding the tow strap ready to get towed out, i began to dig out the car with my nifty folding shovel



this is when i realized i wasn't getting out until someone towed me out, we had slid thru the snow-pack-bank and hit the frozen-mud-bank (which was also covered in snow) on the side of the road, lifting my rear tires off the ground, so i had no way of getting the car moving
sweep came not too long after though, i had the whole car dug out and ready to go, it was an easy extraction...i was alright with what had happened although my navigator seemed a little shaken up, he told me he thought we were going to roll once we whipped around
the rest of the stages went off without a hitch, no drama. went half off the road once in some deep snow which slowed us down but we didn't get stuck or anything...the stages were lots of fun, lots of fast driving thru WICKED one lane roads thru the forest...such a sweet experience

^^^me and Jason (navigator) during a moment of rest waiting to start the next stage
here we are moving onto the second leg of the day...the night stages, which were so much fun and we actually ran faster during the night, i guess it was because i couldn't see all the danger's



so some day stages and some night stages, all really fun, learned a lot about my car and what it can do with some decent tyres on it, how much less i need to throttle thru corners and how well it handles on rough rough terrain, like 1-2 feet of air sometimes, just abused the thing! With a decent suspension/tyres/motor i really think this car could be a force to be reckoned with
SO...in closing, the goals of the rally for me was to A. Have Fun B. Finish the Rally and C. learn about rally'ing and improve my driving skills
all three of those goals got accomplished

and that make's me happy...well worth the expense of tyres/time put into the car/entrance fee...WELL WORTH IT!
anyway...some more pictures
back in Rocky at the Rally conclusion...


^^^ ice cream hell yeah! i ate two of them

and back at home in Calgary!



Quote:
They see me rollin
They hatin
Patrolling they tryin to catch me ridin dirty
Tryin to catch me ridin dirty
going to lethbridge sunday afternoon instead of tonight...talk to ya'll later!
ciao