Verdict Rally

03/19/2023

We made it through to the finish at the 100 Acre Wood Rally, and accomplished our main goal for the race of breaking the rally DNF streak that started here in MO two years ago when I left this race on a flight for life and continued through four straight races with the new car plagued by electrical and cooling issues. We tackled 17 fast and difficult stages and had had a great time all week.

Before the race I said that I would be satisfied at being the slowest car that finished the race, ahead of the more than 30% of the cars don’t make it to the end. We just about ended up in that position, and in reality being at the back of the time sheets is unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. Now that I have a car that is 100%, I was reminded how much more work there is left to do to develop the skill of committing to corners that you can’t see. Rally is hard, but that’s what makes it meaningful.

A HUGE thanks to Eric who did amazing in his debut as a co-driver, as always the best crew chief in the sport Travis who continuously amazes at how well he takes care of the car with quick fixes for the many tricky issues that pop up with rally cars, and Damian for all of his help on crew. We got this one done, and now we will put the pieces in place to step things up on the next one.

03/18/2023

Ready to go for Day 2 here in MO.

03/17/2023

All set at Parc Exposé

03/17/2023

This week we are in the Missouri for the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood, centered in and around the fast and demanding gravel roads in the Mark Twain National Forest. With Travis back as our Crew Chief the car is in great hands and sailed through tech this afternoon while Eric and I spent the day out on recce. The roads look great, and our pacenotes are shaping up nicely.

The race runs from roughly 3:00pm to 9:00pm tomorrow and 11:00am-8:00pm Saturday - and there are a number of ways that you can watch our progress if you’re interested.

Live stream coverage is available during the race on the ARA’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com//streams

Follow us and the rest of the field through our GPS trackers here (select the 100AW or 100 Acre Wood option):
https://rc.statusas.com/events

Simple scoring (when the race is on):
https://sneakattackrally.com/ARACombinerThing/index.html?live

We are car #33, entered in the National Limited 2WD class. Our main goal is to end our DNF streak here where it started - we’ll see you guys at the finish line party.

03/14/2023

02/11/2023

Unfortunately, while Travis is a hero and tried to return to the co-driver seat after a broken neck and artificial vertebrae replacement last year, the bumps and bangs and general environment of being in a rally car for an extended period of time were not doing him any favors, so we have withdrawn from the race.

We were sitting in 2nd place in National L2WD and had found a nice rhythm on course and looked forward to stepping things up to finish strong today. Thanks for all of the support everyone - and best of luck to all of the crews still out there today.

02/11/2023

Dale. 🇨🇺🇺🇸💪

02/11/2023

AK’s pics make us look fast.

02/10/2023

After a long off season of car prep and improvement, the start of our 2023 race season is here! This week we are at the Sno*Drift National Rally, which covers 310 miles through the snow covered and icy forest roads of beautiful northern Michigan.

Practice on Wednesday went great and we got some valuable tire testing done. We spent the day today on recce, or reconnaissance, where we drive the roads in normal cars and write the notes that the co-driver, Travis, will be reading to me when we are back there on Friday or Saturday at speed. The car passed tech this evening, and we are ready for some final prep in the morning before an afternoon start tomorrow.

Racing runs from roughly 3:00pm to 9:00pm tomorrow, and 11:00am-8:00pm Saturday, and there are a number of ways that you can watch our progress if you’re interested.

Live stream coverage is available during the race on the ARA’s YouTube channel, or this page:
https://www.americanrallyassociation.org/aralive

Follow us and the rest of the field through our GPS trackers here:
https://rc.statusas.com/events

Simple scoring (when the race is on):
https://sneakattackrally.com/ARACombinerThing/index.html?live

Race map with all key points:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1aJYT9oz1XiY81EvvrIiqo3-UKQwfK1E&usp=sharing

We are car #33, entered in the National Limited 2WD class. Since we’ve had a string of DNFs, we are starting at the back of the pack and our main goal is to get to the end of the race without incident. Wish us luck!

01/11/2023

Our friends at Rally.Build have everything we need in stock and the fastest shipping around. I’m pretty sure that Gabe never sleeps. Thanks for helping us get prepped for the 2023 season, which starts in four short weeks at Sno*Drift National Rally!

07/01/2022

A HUGE thanks to our good friends at Anastos Motors in Kenosha, WI for doing the impossible and finding us a new engine compartment harness when the entire Ford network shows it on national backorder with no ETA. This is the elusive piece that we need to get back out on the stages. We have a busy run coming up, with Summer Sno-Drift in MI, Ozark Rally in MO, and the Ojibwe Rally in MN over the next seven weeks - and we can’t wait to get out there in a car that is at 100%. Thanks again guys!

06/19/2022

Another frustratingly early end to this rally, with an overheating car at the end of stage one and a mechanical DNF with a car that won’t start at the start of stage 2.

A huge thanks to Sam for all of his help getting us loaded, Arin, Joe, Eric, Jake, and all of their crew and everyone else in the service area who helped out. Thanks to NASA Rally Sport for putting on another incredibly well run rally on fantastic roads with basically zero transits, with a special note of thanks to Rod and Andrew in the Jeep on sweep who not only towed me back through 14 miles of stage but took me all the way back to the service area. That was a pretty wild ride in itself!

This rally was intended to be a shakedown and opportunity to get more familiar with the new car, and in that regard there was some success. I didn’t get the full 98 miles in the car but the 13 I did do were well spent and I learned a lot about the car. Running this one ”blind” with no co-driver showed me very vividly just how much faster and more confidently you can run these stages when you know what’s on the other side of all of those crests before you get there.

Preliminary diagnosis seems to indicate that the in-line switch that we put in to fix the wiring issue that was present when we bought the car and led to our similar retirement at Hardwood Rally failed, causing it to short which melted the relay. I hard wired it in between stages but as I was sitting on the start line for stage 2 the car stumbled, died, and will not restart. It’s throwing all sorts of codes relating to cam position sensors and other things. This could be a big repair and possibly a new motor, plus we will be doing a complete harness swap to get back to a proper non-molested baseline to fully treat the underlying issue that’s been plaguing us with this car.

We will get it sorted and get back out on stage as soon as possible, though I’m thinking most likely our race schedule will be impacted for the foreseeable future.