10/04/2020
2020 Show Me Rally:
Wednesday:
After testing, we find our VF36 is blown and after trying 3 different turbos we finally get a new turbo/header/uppipe on the car thanks to the hustle of Jeff Reamer—back to a VF39 for this event. In proper rally fashion we get on the road around 8pm with a 7am ETA.
Thursday:
We arrive at the ranch early morning grab an hour or two of shut eye then head out to recce—our first time writing our own notes. Recce goes smoothly—we’re confident in our notes (atleast as much as ya can be your first time).
Friday:
Only 2 stages to recce before the event begins. We get through these without issue, though we can tell KP Ollie is going to be a challenge.
We start the event and immediately have very limited boost—7 to 9 psi. SS1 Pandora goes fairly smoothly though we absolutely blow both the hairpins. SS2 KP Ollie proves to be the challenge we anticipated: extremely dusty, rough, and long. We spend most of the stage lost in our notes and have a moment or two(two wheels off)—wee bit of yelling but no fisticuffs. We completely miss the note for the hairpin and nearly go through the banner. Ron felt like he was going to be a bit ill but he pressed on! We feel one of the front struts go after the cattleguard.
At service we find the culprit—the top of our left front strut has sprung a leak. Jeff springs into action with the help of our neighbors and plugs the leak with a rubber washer and a spark plug—a little air from the compressor back in the shock and off we go.
We run Pandora again—which will be the last stage of the day. Visibility is rough but we still manage to improve from the first running.
Saturday:
Back at the ranch we pull the intercooler and find a crack in the y-pipe. We swap it for the intercooler on the recce car and head to Potosi. We’re not going to make in time, so we unload the rally car and drive ahead of the tow rig. We immediately find more boost but the car won’t rev over 5k, a fender liner is rubbing and one of the exhaust stud nuts came off at the head. We arrive with about 6 minutes until we’re off. Greg Healey provides us with the nuts we need and we’re able to get the car just about ready before we head off.
S5 Holey Moses is a blast, S6 Floyd Tower we couldn’t really get on pace with each other and on S7 Pigeon( ) we blow the right rear caliper just after the start. We still manage to have a blast!
Back at service we find the clutch switch is held on (stupid driver adjusting things he shouldn’t) so the car was in launch control all morning! Ron has the brilliant idea of plugging the righ rear brake line with a rivet—works like a charm. Back to the stages with 3 brakes and car that revs—holy smokes what a different animal
We manage to better our morning times tho we stay somewhat conservative since finishing(and not making even more work before snodrift) is the main goal.
Finish, impound, carnitas tacos for dinner back at the ranch!
Thank you so much to 31 Motorsports and Howards Auto and Trans!
Thank you very much to our gracious hosts, The Sweitzer Family at Mariposa Ranch!
And as always thank you very very much to all the volunteers, Show-Me Rally and American Rally Association for putting on a great event during these strange times.
