Yeah, well, as with so many things rally, unpredictable factors in the system can sometimes upset a carefully laid plan.
We set the pressures at 38F 34R as suggested and they felt good until we hit a patch of loose gravel in a downhill braking zone and slid straight off and bounced through a culvert. Fortunately we had no problem getting back on the road, but we needed to run our tow strap around the LF control arm and to a big tree, and then back up hard a couple times to get the wheel to clear the bodywork so we could continue. We also pretty much shredded the inside edge of the tire, as we found out when we got back to service. No problem- we replaced the control arm and put the 2 best Azenis on front and had 1 Azeni and 1 Goodyear RS-A on the rear (still 38F 34R).
Andrew's confidence was somewhat shaken I think, and we proceeded at a more conservative pace until he missed hearing me call a Left 3, leading to a long spin that ended with us backing into a ditch at about 30MPH. Again we were fortunate to be able to push the car back onto the road, though we had a flat LR tire which we finished the stage on and changed on the transit. Our alignment was a bit off now, though, and our RR tire was rubbing on the spring. We confirmed that it was rubbing badly when it blew out explosively later in the transit, and we drove the last couple miles to service on the rim.
All our efforts to gain some clearance for that wheel during the service period were in vain, and we would have had to withdraw had they not cancelled the last stage of the evening, giving us until morning to solve the problem. Luckily we hardly needed any time at all, as we saw our answer right across the street- a parking lot with big molded parking stops in it. We sidled the Scirocco up close to one so the RR wheel was up against it (we used the mangled transit wheel), then wrapped the tow strap around the top of the wheel and hooked the other end to our Tahoe on the other side of the stop. With the curbing to keep the Scirocco from getting dragged sideways, a couple good pulls with the truck turned our 10 degrees of negative camber into about 5 degrees of positive, and we were "good to go racing" on Sunday.
Now we were down to 2 really marginal Azenis and 3 decent Goodyears, so we put the Goodyears up front and the Falkens in the rear (relevant thread content: 42F 34R). The RS-As actually felt pretty good, though we were now moving at a
really conservative pace, as the goal of the weekend was to successfully finish Andrew's first event. Which we did, without much further drama, though the time we lost on Saturday put us way into last place. Still, we were ahead of the 6 teams that DNFed.
So thanks for all the advice on tire pressures.
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