October 22-23, 2004

Lake Superior Pro Rallies

Houghton, MI

After many years of dreaming, preparing, practicing and saving, LSPR 2004 was finally here! Lake Superior Pro Rally 2004 was my first stage rally. My dad had been out of the competition seat for almost 20 years and it was time for us to run together as a team. The weekend was a time of transition for both us and for stage rallying in the U.S. This was the last SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) sanctioned pro rally. Due to increased insurance costs and other “legal” issues the rally division of the SCCA was being re-organized by Rally America.

Being our first rally event there were months of preparations leading up to that critical weekend. We had to invest in all the required safety equipment, tow vehicle, trailer, etc. Luckily we had been running the Dodge Shadow rally car for a few years on time speed distance (TSD) rallies, so the car was in decent race-ready shape. We headed off to LSPR with many uncertainties. We did not know if the car would pass tech inspection, how would we perform, how would the car perform… We were very nervous and very excited!

Race weekend we had an entire crew of friends and family join us in Houghton for the rally. My mom and uncle (Bill) came to run primary service crew. They would be driving the Suburban to the service areas and working on the car when repairs were needed. My roommates from college also came up, Paul and Alan came up in Paul's white pickup truck. The truck was properly decaled for the rally with the use of some blue masking tape! We all had a great time and the service help was awesome!

At tech inspection on Thursday the Dodge Shadow was cleared to run the event and we were VERY relieved. It was actually going to happen, we WERE RUNNING LSPR! Thursday night a right front driveshaft started clunking while driving around Houghton. We decided to be cautious and change it out prior to the race. We did a driveshaft swap in the parking lot of the College Motel Thursday night and the car was ready for competition on Friday!

October 22, 2004

Ottawa Club Rally

Friday we prepared the car, the food, crew, gas and tires before heading out to the parc-expose. On the tansit from the parc expose out to the first stage the co-driver window fell out of its track and sat crooked in the door frame! We could not move it up or down. Luckily we had a 5 minute gas “splash and dash” on the way to the first stage. During that time we were able to refit the window into the door frame and jam it up into place with the window crank! We were back on the road and heading to the first stage. Once we got out on the stages everything felt AWESOME. The first corner of the first stage felt perfect and from there on we knew that we were in for a good race!

We started out slow and consistent. No big issues or “moments” in the stages, however, we did have a moment in an early evening transit. We were crusing along at about 45 mph on a sandy road transit when a deer ran out in front of the Dodge Shadow Rally car! We hit the brakes and he froze! We managed to drift sideways (rally style!) into him! Luckily it did not damage any of the driving lights but rather he crunched the left front fender, divers door, and drivers side mirror. So, we pressed on and ran an otherwise clean and consistent rally.

We knew we were running tight with McCleerys in the X14ti. We had been trading stage times back and forth during the night Friday. By the end of the night we had ended up in the lead of Group5, just a few seconds ahead of McCleerys! We had won our first ever stage rally!!

October 23, 2004

Auto Value Keweenaw Club Rally

On Saturday all the scores from Friday are wiped clean for the club racers and a separate event is run. We were riding high from our win the previous night and were looking forward to charging hard on the day's stages.

The first stage of the day was Gratiot Lake. The start of Gratiot is a long transit north of Houghton into the Keweenaw Peninsula. We were pumped up at the start of Gratiot and I was driving VERY hard through the stage. It was pouring rain and had been all morning. In retrospect I was driving past the limit of my abilities and of the car. Toward the end of Gratiot, about 6 miles in to the stage, we caught air over a “yump” in the road. When we landed we heard a huge “BANG” followed by a “klunk-klunk-klunk…..”. I though that it might have been a front halfshaft CV joint that had blown out. Since the shadow has a welded (always locked) differential we continued on with “one wheel drive”.

Once we ended the stage and pulled out into the transit, we stopped to inspect the damage. It was worse than we thought; we had blown the extension housing off of the transaxle, busted the intermediate shaft, and destroyed the right side driveshaft! This is something that we could not race on, and that could not be fixed at service. We would not be able to finish the rally.