soomcraft Racing

Last night we competed in the Ides of March rally. The event went very smoothly with no major crises and only one 2.5 minute time allowance! The real excitement actually happened the day before the event, as I snapped an axle on the way in to work on Friday. I completely destroyed the outer CV joint, there are parts of it all over the road near RIT. Cory was kind enough to swap it out on Friday night. This wouldn’t have made it through the rally.

After our first-place finish at the last event, and with clear weather ahead, Cassie and I decided to try running in the B speed group (40 MPH instead of 36). Also, we used Increments tables to keep track of distances and times on longer legs (we had some trouble with that on the last rally). The even started at Cheap Charlie’s in Bloomfield and we had a 9 mile run to the OMP. It was still light out for the first two or three controls!

We missed a turn after the first checkpoint. The mileage may have been off, and despite the giant COUNTY ROAD 32 sign, the road wasn’t named on the route instructions — a new pet peeve of mine! We took a time allowance but we were still off by 41 hundredths, our worst leg of the whole night.

Many of the roads were familiar; the route was similar to Jake’s rally from two weeks ago. The sky was clear, the roads were dry, and the locals were few and far between. For the first time this season, we actually made it to the break on time! What a strange sight, meeting up with all the other competitors, and having time to stretch our legs!

Checking back over our leg scores we realized we were consistently early, even when the increments sheet said we were on time. This made sense, my snow tires are just slightly larger than the stock size. I tried to compensate by slowing WAY down when we saw a checkpoint, and it worked . . . we got our first zero!

The only weird thing that happened was a concerned local who warned us to stay away from the goats, “cuz they’ll shoot ya over there!” (Goats?) The rally was a little shorter than normal, I turned in the scorecard at the last control and we got back to Cheap Charlie’s with a ton of time to kill before the scores were posted.

Not only did we take first in Novice class (out of seven cars) but we placed fifth overall! Our highest finish yet. Wow! I think we’re going to get kicked out of that class pretty soon.

The next event, “Is This a Road?” will be held on March 24, and it’s the last one of the winter series. Rallymasters will be Cory and Dana in their exclusive Honda Impreza.

Link to the results: http://www.flr-scca.com/rally/2007/WinterEvent4-Results.pdf