STPR 2008

SimonWright · **Posted:** Mon Jun 09, 2008 10:27 pm

This is a bit of a cross post from SpecialStage but I didn't want to forget our friends here.

Finally winding down from a fairly grueling 1.5 day rally. Carl and Emmie were there volunteering as usual (thanks!) and Matthew Johnson pulled in 3rd overall and 3rd in Open class in the national STPR rally.

Kieran and I took 3rd place in Group 2 in both of the two regional STPR rallies. We are now 11 for 11 (rally starts to finishes) and looking forward to Rally West Virginia in August.

We're very pleased to have finished STPR again. Really enjoyed ourselves despite the brutal WM stages. After we put the car on the trailer on Sunday morning we found that the left rear strut had lost its lower mount - so my nailing the hay bales in the final super special stage I am going to put down to equipment failure and not driver error :-)

I've grabbed just some of our in-car video and have a few highlights here...

The Waste Management stages were really rough being built on top of a landfill - makes Mortimer Schiff (the very rough stage at Rally New York) seem like a parkway. Here we are running SS2, the best of our runs through that site.

We hit a deer on one stage (Warning: colourful language ensues). I had spotted the deer cross the road from left to right and had just pointed it out to Kieran when the damn thing got spooked and decided to head for safety back across the stage. If I had been just a fraction slower it would have center punched us instead of the glancing blow that occurred. I keep my foot in it though but Kieran is a bit distracted for a spell.

On another stage we decided to demonstrate to the spectators the danger of sitting down alongside a hot rally stage. You can hear Kieran cackle when we see their faces (and know we've got it in hand).

And my final clip of this posting is our blind finish of one stage as we chase Per Schroeder (of Grassroots Motorsports Magazine) in his Saab across the finish line. See if you can spot the flying finish.

More later as we find them.

Simon
USUK Racing

Ash Nelson · **Posted:** Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:32 pm

THAT was freakin' AWESOME!

Thanks for the video and the cool chase scene, and I hope to see you guys at a RAllyX this year!

MarcusMcRae · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:45 am

Bambi NOOOOOOooooo!!!

SS2 looked a little rough. :shock:

What is that thing on your dash??

Nice job!

SimonWright · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 9:07 am

Thanks.

On the dash is our rally guru. An oriental gentleman smoking a pipe and observing our performance. He is our rally zen master, unconcerned about where we're going (since he's facing the rear), more interested in how we're getting there.

Photo by Kevin Allen

It was a bit of a joke putting him there but I swear he helps. At the start of each stage, as the seconds tick down to launch, his presence reminds me to take some deep breaths, to envelope myself in a cocoon of calm, to relax my muscles and focus.

Seems to be working.

Simon

CosbyWood · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:25 pm

So if we were to swap it out with say, something like this

you may not have been so calm in destroying Bambi? :twisted:

Sorry for the size, hosted site (quick find of the image) was huge.

Todd Breakey · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:32 pm

Great job at STPR Simon!!! I'm still baffled at the instructions that Keiren is reading.

I loved the videos, especially the part where you hit the photographer with your door!!!! :lol:

SimonWright · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:50 pm

I did wonder why he was walking off the stage. All the superstar 4wd cars had come though I suppose. Us 2wd get no respect I tell you.

Carl Fisher · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:42 pm

Did your audio feed from your intercom come unplugged for that last clip? I hear plenty of engine, but no Kieran...

Carl Fisher · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:53 pm

Here's a vid I took of Simon and Kieran at Friday's SuperSpecial stage. Looks like all that rallycrossing's paid off!

Carl Fisher · **Posted:** Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:08 am

Matthew Johnson on the Friday SuperSpecial:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2177&hl=en

Bob Wall on the Friday SuperSpecial:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2844&hl=en

Carl Fisher · **Posted:** Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:12 am

w1jim wrote:

So here is why you should work instead of spectate; you get to see the best action.
Stage 9, "Randall" mile 11.69 car 821 ( Robert Wall / Chad Edmunds) is catching the car ahead in dusty conditions when they miss the hairpin left and sail off the road, ending up halfway into the culvert (which goes down maybe 6-8 feet. Whip out the OK sign, set up triangles and hook up the tow strap and then flag down #204 (Emilio Arce / Tim Chevalier) who were running a conservative pace after damaging their car on a jump on stage 1. A quick yank and they're back in the game.
That's what rally is all about.

Jim Blumenfeld
Trakker 1
W1JIM

SimonWright · **Posted:** Wed Jun 11, 2008 12:46 pm

Carl Fisher wrote:

Did your audio feed from your intercom come unplugged for that last clip? I hear plenty of engine, but no Kieran...

Yes! We had forgotten to stick on our ghetto headphone speaker to the front of the camera.

Simon

SimonWright · **Posted:** Wed Jun 11, 2008 1:29 pm

Carl Fisher wrote:

Here's a vid I took of Simon and Kieran at Friday's SuperSpecial stage. Looks like all that rallycrossing's paid off!

Here is the in-car from that Super Special Stage. I was quite pleased with our performance - we were FTD for a while on that stage. They were running the field in reverse order so the cars got faster and more powerful. Note that I had only mastered handbrake turns a couple of weeks ago.

Simon

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