Near the end of Day two, mother nature provided us with a grand water splash.  The route book kept the speeds down but even so, some of the more “adventurous” cars got a good soaking and, in a few instances, the cars (mostly Subarus in a trend reminiscent of the water problems experienced by the Subaru WRC team in 2006).  My excuse is that my passenger was very busy dealing with the scoring (trying to keep the wait at the end to a minimum) and as such I didn’t get the benefit of the stated CAST or the warning that a water crossing was coming up.  The end result was a surprised driver, water over the hood and roof, a “rather loud bash” and a much slower WRX exiting the other side of the water.

A few hundred yards past the water we encountered the first of a few sadly disabled cars.  The Impreza radiator sits on plastic (?) mounts in the front of the engine compartment.  The mounts are fully strong enough to take normal driving but aren’t really up to the task of holding things together when bombarded with thousands of pounds of water.  And so in at least three cases they failed which caused the radiator to spew water out the bottom hose.  Aaak.

A few years ago, when I started involving my shiny new WRX in this amateur “sport”, I decided to take some precautions.  I skipped the stone guard (witness the many rock chips the next time you see me) and instead went for some underbody protection.  I reached out to Paul Eklund at Primitive Enterprises for both a front and rear skid plate.  The skid plates easily bolt on and I can attest to their resilience and protection every time I look under the car and see the myriad of scrapes and dents from rocks that looked shorter than I thought at the time (nothing says park it here like a hole in your sump or a cracked differential).

We finished the rally at the Moses Lake State Park.  As Steve worked on the scoring, I popped the hood to see if I could find the source of the scraping sound that had followed us from the water splash (it turned out to be the wheel well guard that had ripped out at bit and was rubbing the tire but that was easily solved with a Leatherman saw and some elbow grease).  It took me a while to realize why the engine bay looked odd, and then I realized what it was:  I could see the ground.  Under the engine.  Where was the skid plate?

The “rather loud bash” was the sound of the skid plate removing itself from the car.  Removing itself and then twisting into a piece of scrap aluminum (according to someone who found it later at the water splash).

The front of the skid plate is attached to the frame using four  bolts and the stock bolt holes that are normally used to attach the stock plastic undershield.  The force of the water splash pulled the bolt holes completely out of the frame.  The back of the skid plate is attached to a connecting plate near the back of the transmission with two bolts that go into stock holes.  One of the bolts had already suffered a direct hit by a rock and was lost.  The water splash made pretty quick work of the other bolt.

So now I am in the position of having to replace the crumpled up metal (now sitting near a water hole somewhere in Eastern Washington) with a new skid plate(2) but since the mounting holes are now no longer usable, I also have to figure out a way to replace the holes.

Enter Dave of DaveSport in North Bend.  Dave does performance tuning and fabrication.  He is going to see about welding some plates with tapped holed onto.over the blown out holes in the frame.  He is also going to look at the rear mounting area and see what can be done.

I am heading over there next week for a look/see and hopefully the project will get started by mid-July (as the next Rally, Crestline Trail, is the first weekend in August and I really want this done by then).

I will update here during the process.

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(1)  I drove Steve around the weekend so he could concentrate on gathering the scores and keeping the running totals up to date.  He did a great job and once again Rainier was able to keep the scoring time to a minimum.

(2)  I’ve ordered another skid plate from Paul at Primitive Enterprises and this time I am going for the more substantial 3/16” thick model instead of the 1/8” I originally got.  I am sure that if the exact same thing happens again, the extra thickness will not prevent bolts from pulling out of the frame but I will have a bit more strike protection.

Sunday’s route was far different from Saturdays and last year’s.  Sure, there were some great paved country roads and short gravel sections to start, but then about mid-morning, the roads began to look familiar — and not in a comforting way.  The course began to follow some sections from the ‘2008 The Road Not Taken’ rally.

We started to worry. We remembered the rally-ready cars that that TRNT broke.   Worry turned into perspiration and then cursing.   When we came upon a section with huge potholes that spanned the road, that was enough.   We called it quits, not wanting to become the 4th DNF.  We  headed for pavement and home.

This year’s 500 illustrated the paradox of the rally format: are you to bring the worst car possible, and let the rocks fall where they may?  A couple teams did, the best(?) example being the $100 Toyota. Or are you to bring the nicest car possible, and try to preserve it? In this camp have to be the two XJ-6s, as well as a v. v. nice&shiny RX-7. Before you suspect that the rallymaster let the fools rush in where angels fear to tread, note that his was the nicer of the Jags. He wasn’t tip-toeing.

So the 500’s a mystery to me. I thought I understood it last year, but just when you think you’ve got the rally game figured out, there’s a new twist.

The entry list:

- 2 Jaguar XJ6s - mismatched body parts, one gas tank rusted through

- 2 Mazda RX7s (1st gen)

- (non)Reliant K - blown head gasket, dnf

- Fiat 124 - dnf, didn’t make it 10 miles

- Orange Pinto Station Wagon - dnf, blown head gasket

- 1978 Flat Black Pinto Runabout (license BLK DTH) - orange flames and simulated injector bolted to hood. Also has a ‘flammable gas’ sticker on the hatchback.

- VW Vanagon - 2 tires going flat in the parking lot, right now. Tail happy on loose stuff.

- 1997 VW Passat - mismatched hood and dent in roof and lingering “moisture” problem inside (result of the hood blow back/windshield blowout/sat out in the rain for 2 months incident)

- 1972 Mercury Marquis Tunaboat (429) - “Best Use of Metal” winner

- 1982 Toyota Corolla - T-bone victim, moss green (not the paint color), fender pulled out with a come-along and a walnut tree. It is filthy, smelly and slow.

- The Saab 900 - best running car and fastest in the rally; –what is this car doing here?

No checkpoints, just drive to the finish. What a hoot! More tomorrow!

But ’twas all for naught: our 737 has an overheated friberitzer valve, and it ain’t going anywhere. If we’re lucky we’ll get out on the next bird, but it’s delayed too for mechanical problems… hoping to reach PDX by 11:59 p.m. and terminate this ordeal.

We are SO looking forward to No Alibi.

Footnote:  We boarded the plane 3 times (and disembarked 2 times) before finally taking off 7 hours after our flight was supposed to leave.  We rolled into PDX at midnight.   It’s good to be home.

We call this rally, the rally of ‘CAST AT MILEAGE’ as there are few hard references.  With the sensor remount, my workload in the car dropped about 70%.  Suddenly we were getting 0s, 1s again.  The lack of hard references had made it impossible to keep on time using the 798 with the bad sensor unit.

We thought we were in the clear at the beginning on the last section of day 5.   The low tire indicator came on again.  We held our breath and kept going, hoping that our turn to work a control would come up soon.   But it didn’t until the very end of the section.  But the tire held and we nursed it into town.

We only got 52 points on Friday. Overall we came in 3rd in the EQUIPPED class and 4th overall.  Mapleback/Von Kaenel finished first overall.  The rally was tough, but we got a break at the end and finished on a good note.

Tomorrow we end up at the Grand Canyon and finish up the rally.

Today’s white knuckle moment occurred on the last section. We entered the leg late, scurrying to get back on time. Then we encountered 5 big white SUVs full of AZ LEOs. They really don’t move over when they go down the road. Can’t really BLOW past them either. Time allowances and points for all. We finished with a 93 today.

The timed portion ended in the early afternoon, allowing for a casual drive through Sedona. Had dinner with the General and Fred who offered some good advice on sharing responsibilities and rallying. They are well in the lead overall, BTW.

The sensor settled down. It seems to be working today. I dumped 8000 out of the factor since yesterday morning’s odo check. Yes that’s 8000. The numbers settled down to something reasonable. but the wheel spin that we’re getting with the bald tires is unbelievable. I pull out tenths of miles not thousands!

Near the end of the first section, we heard a rolling sound followed by a CRASH. Marinus said, excitely, ‘THE SENSOR PICKUP FELL OFF THE WHEEL AGAIN! ARE YOU COUNTING? ARE YOU COUNTING?”. I thought one of the antennas came off. I looked behind us and saw part of the car in the road. “It’s not the sensor, keep driving until the end of the section in .15″. It was the external wheel cover. I hope we got the insurance waiver because that thing ain’t showroom new anymore.

We’re in Payson tonight, headed to Cottonwood tomorrow night. Payson is much cooler than Gold Canyon/Apache Junction and Globe. The high was about 70-80 depending on location, unlike the 100-104 that we’d seen Sunday and Monday.

Overall we did ok today. I’m still haven’t gotten the hang of the wheel spin. We took 21 at one control because of it. But our score from yesterday was 650. We finished with 107 today. Good enough for 4th overall. This is without a doubt the most difficult rally we’ve run in the UNLIMITED class, not because of the rally itself. But because of the compensation for the equipment.

We did decide on one thing: no more rental cars. Marilyn is our dedicated rally car.

The mini 4wd is not behaving itself, following the example set by the computer setup.  At the end of the last section, the low tire pressure light came on.  A fast leak was underway.  We pulled over and put on the spare and noticed that the tires were, well, shot.   Managed to find a tire repair place just as they were closing in Globe. To compound matters, the near bald tires spin in gravel and the DSC is working against us. Not sure how the tires will fare the rest of the rally.

But on a brighter note, we crossed a ford with running water!   The scenery is so unlike the verdant NW. Cactuses and rattlesnakes are everywhere!  My hair is straight from lack of humidity.  The food is good, people are helpful, but dang we need a break.