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We left our house at 3:15am, stopped twice on the way up & arrived a few minutes before Phillip – who had stayed in VA overnight - at around 7:15am. It was 253 miles from our house to Oakland Acres. We got unloaded, registered & teched, then went out to walk the course. I had asked one of the guys up there if it was ok to walk it at that time, and he said, “Yeah, you can go walk it – but you’ll get a drive-through before the timed runs start. ” Rob Bergstrom was out placing some cones, and we talked to him a few minutes. It was a Laurinburg-length coursewalk, and it was pretty easy to remember most of the important stuff, so we only did it once. Here are a few photos of the fresh course:

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/course1.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/course2.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/course3.jpg

Went back & hung out here:

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/pits.jpg

around these folks (& others):

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/apcimpreza.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/roughwrx.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/bling.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/bodyshopcar.jpg

until the drivers’ meeting, then we all took our cars & drove over to the course to await runs. 4wd & rwd went first, then fwd. Same thing in the afternoon. Morning runs sucked pretty badly for us, since we didn’t have rally tires. There was a lot of loose dirt & rocks, and we were sliding around on that while the cars with rally tires were flying. I think the fastest car in our group was about 4 or 5 seconds faster than my fastest time, and I was a few tenths faster than Phillip. We were running 1:43’s and 1:44’s. For working, we lucked out & got to choose station 1, which was on the edge of the course & upwind.

A few photos of us on course:

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/kevin01.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/kevin02.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/phillip01.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/phillip02.jpg

(Chrstine took those from a little observation stand in the middle of the course)

There was a looooong break for lunch, which was available on-site (subs & stuff), then we went back out for afternoon runs. Just like our events, they reverse the course for pm. Otherwise, the course stayed the same – no problem with ruts. This time Christine rode with me all 3 runs, so no pictures. I had cleaned it up & put it away, anyway. Didn’t want to get too much dirt in the nooks & crannies. This time out, we actually had decent grip, so I was only 2 tenths off the fast guy in our group. Phillip had a run that would’ve been fastest in our group by about 0.5sec, but coned it. We got stuck in the dust working afternoon runs, but it wasn’t so bad because we only had one turn between us & fresh air. And their club provided everyone with dust masks.

Here are a couple of photos from the observation tower that Christine took while Phillip & I were working:

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/pmcourse.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/pmcourse2.jpg

And before/after shot of our cars:

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/cleancars.jpg
http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/dirtycars.jpg

Wish I had taken some closer photos of the surface to show the big, ugly rocks in the am & the rubber that was squealed off the tires in the pm. Just use your imagination.

The way timing worked was thusly: 2 guys stand at the start. They radio timing to tell them what time you're going to start - for example "10:21am" Start writes that on your card, then you get it back. One of the start guys has a watch set to official time - he tells you when it's 30, 20, 10 seconds, then counts down the last 5 & yells "go!" You run the course, and at the finish you trip a timer. Don't know the exact details of how it records the time (whether they input your start time & it gives them your elapsed time, or whether it records your finish time & they calculate your time, or whatever), but somehow they end up with your actual time. They write this on your card at the finish. You repeat this process for all runs. After your last run, they put your card in a box. Don't know where it goes from there. No trophies & no official results on the event day. Timing is obviously not as exact as the way we time our events (especially when the morning counter-guy wasn't actually holding the watch, and was counting down from 5 seconds with random speed from car to car ), but it was still fun.

It was a great course, lots of friendly people, and very competitive (imagine Jim Feinberg, Phillip Redd & me, all with rally tires, multiplied by 5 ). Everything ran smoothly & we had a great time.

If you love to rallycross, come with us to the next one. It is definitely worth the drive.

I also had a lot of fun at the DCRallycross. My trip was about 7 1/2 hours total, one way. It was 466 miles going up on mostly interstate (I-77, I-81 & I-64). It was 415 miles back; coming down US-29 from Charlottesville, VA to Greensboro before getting on I-85.

Oh, Kevin, I saw what the cable at the finish was. It was a push button that the finish line person pushed when you came across the line. Electronic timing would have been so much better.

As usual, I spent most of the day trying to keep up with Kevin. Good job man.

Their next one is June 26th according to their website.

Great pictures too, Kevin and Christine.

_________________
Common sense is NOT so common. ...Voltaire.

Oh, ok! So they start by count down, and hit a button at the finish, but they record the time to the hundredth? I've heard that there's some discussion on getting an electronic timing setup; hopefully they'll be able to do that pretty soon. The times the fast people were running were competitive enough that it would be very beneficial.

The results are up, but they're on the yahoo group for dcrally, so I uploaded them to my webspace:

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/5-29_prelim.xls

Gee, I should have stayed in RM4.

Congradulations to Kevin, 1st in class (well, only one in class since I changed mine ) and 5th overall. Seems like I saw a few cars that looked like they should have been in modified.

Thanks for posting the results.

_________________
Common sense is NOT so common. ...Voltaire.

Nice. Will have to see if I can keep Jen from making plans for me for the next one.

Looks like it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, I was wondering why only 2 cars were in Open class... (I overheard the RM2 guy saying he had done an engine swap)

I guess they're using the "Kevin Allen method of classing" up there.

I'll probably keep running RM4 up there, since I already have 10 points, and mods are unlimited down here with our rules.

Here's what Ted Cooper (the guy with the really clean WRX) replied to my question about the rules:




turbos, eh? Maybe I'll just run RSA with the 2.5RS...

Ought to really kick some a** then.

_________________
Common sense is NOT so common. ...Voltaire.