Headwaters, continued from page 4
ally isn’t hooked up to the cooling system, I finally found the hole that the alternator had cut in the radiator hose, and our rally was done. The winners may object, but I think I am going to call for a "do-over" on the weekend."
Larry was right. Mark Utecht, winner of the event, was quick to respond... "I couldn’t object more. Obviously, we had one of the best rally weekends we have ever had. Mary got to go play and didn’t hurt the car at all. The same cannot be said for me. We hit the often referenced "watermelon-sized rock" when I got greedy going into a 90 left. We heard a loud clang and all of a sudden the car REALLY liked turning left. We had bent about .5 inch of toe-out into the right rear. We were able to finish the stage by just taking it easy on the lefts. After the stage I got out and looked and saw that the only problem was the toe-out. Funny thing, the car wasn’t nearly as squirrely after I knew what was wrong. On the following stage I was having a blast throwing the car into a huge slide for every left turn. When we got to service, our crew did a great job and adjusted the rear toe back to match the left side of the car. We were set to jet! The first stage after service was the first night stage, and as we were about to start the stage I found that the light pod wasn’t working. We had to run the entire stage on the stock headlights. Lucky for us, that was the dustiest stage and the rest of the field was held back to match our pace. At the end of the stage, I found that the pod had merely come disconnected. I fixed that, but when I got out I noticed the rotors were glowing. Running without lights, I was using the brakes a lot. Because
I didn’t keep air flowing over the brakes after the stage, we instantly boiled the brake fluid. We ran the short transit to the next stage and that was not enough to cool the brakes, so for the first 5 miles of the next stage I had to triple pump the brakes before I got any pedal. On top of that, our alternator was giving up, so I could only run two of the four aux lights. Thankfully we have two HID’s, and their lower power usage is why we were able to continue. In the end, we were able to win the event and have very little to do to the car for the next rally. I am the first one to acknowledge that if we were not first on the road, we would not have won the rally. However, this was my first rally that I started first on the road and I enjoyed it. Here are a few thoughts I had during the rally:
AWD is cool.
First on the road is cool.
Minnesota rallies are cool.
HIDs are cool.
Dust is cool (only if you are first on the road).
Your wife driving and finishing a rally is cool.
Rally folk are cool.Mark’s wife, Mary, and Heidi Meyer ran their first event in the Mayhem Racing Dodge Omni GLH Group 5 car. They started at the back of the pack, ran steady all night, and finished 16th overall, 4th in class.
Karen and I would like to thank all the competitors and workers for coming to the event. Without all of you, there would not be a Headwaters. We look forward to seeing all of you next year.
REport, continued from page 1 race in Winnipeg. If you want to enter one of the support races (karts, IT, FV, FC), go to www.motorfestmanitoba.com for information. The Chaparrals are featured at the International Challenge in July (F1 is the feature next year!). There are rallies, Solo II events and road races going on all over. It’s racing season! Reality will resume in late October.
Speaking of October, we will need candidates for the election for the Board of Directors. Being on the BoD gets you working on a team that has a direct impact on the club. You know that you can write better REports and that you can manage things better than the current crop of idiots on the board, so put your name forward as a candidate. We’d love to work with you.
On a personal note, my son got to work corners for the first time. To say that he had fun would be an understatement. Now there is the matter of who was attracting all the trouble at 2A and a cow bell .........
DRIVERS WANTED
Donnybrooke Motorsports is offering a 15% discount to any LOL member who signs up for one of their driver's schools at CBIR.
Tonneau On-Line July 2001
Page 5
Copyright 2001, Land O'Lakes Region Last revised: March 13, 2003
