Ruffneck Rally Day 3 + Epilogue

Sunday, April 25 - Day 3

More rookie mistakes. We got lost again. I missed more shifts. It rained. A huge buzzard tried to land on the car. You name it, it happened. Our final position for the rally was 21st out of 29th....Uugghhh! So why am I not that upset? Because we know EXACTLY what we did wrong. But rather than bloviate, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Here's the car. We're at a rest stop on Sunday. I just finished filling the gas tank up and Joe is "meetin' wid da govna" if you know what I mean. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge....

Corky and Greg's pickup had some issues, so this is what they drove for the weekend. Cool, eh?!?! They finished just fine.

I don't know who this nice lady is, but she kept trying to share her ice cream with me....

The video was taken during the rally. I'm staring at the speedo (which is wrapped in plastic because it rained). Notice we're doing 50 mph. . . Git Some!! Yep, the exhaust is a straight pipe - nice and loud.

So our final day looked like this:

Leg #1: 1 sec late

Leg #2: 2 sec late

Leg #3: 1 min 31 sec late

Leg #4: 1 sec late

Leg #5: 1 sec late

So about leg three- we missed a stopsign and the restart after the morning break. We were more than 10 minutes behind and almost made it all up. As we came over a hill, we saw the check point and knew we were sunk. We could see the car ahead of us and knew we needed to be 60 seconds in FRONT of it to make perfect time. The amazing part is we calculated we were 1 min 30 sec off...... which means if you're an optimist, leg three was REALLY a 1 sec late (after you subtract our 1 min 30 sec correction). You can't submit a time delay for bone-headedness, so we sucked up the penalty and ended the day in 24th place. But we know what we did wrong. We know how to correct it. And we're keeping hope alive for the next rally.... TTFN!

Ruffneck Rally Day 2

Saturday, 24 April, Day 2 - The theme of the day was, "Hey, It coulda been worse!" Let's start with the rain. . . Yep. It rained. Murphy's Law states that if the sky is clear to the North, South, and East, the Course Instructions will take you West - STRAIGHT to the dark-and-stormy weather. And so it happened. We got rained on in an open car with no roof or windows. Rooster-tails kicked up from the four tires, rain drops collected on my goggles, and the Course Instructions got wet. BUT, all in all - It coulda been worse! The showers lasted less than 15 minutes and our new rain gear worked as advertised. So not too bad.

Now let's move to getting lost..... Yep we took a few wrong turns today. Twice we had to just stop and wait for a fellow rallyist to pass us so we could figure out how to get back on course. Once on course, you know how far behind you are based on who you're following (we have a list of competitors in order of start). The only thing left to do is to blast down the road until you're back in your proper place. So we did that today.... not once, but twice. But hey, it coulda been worse. We ended up with a 16 sec leg (which will be dropped) and a 5 sec leg. Once again, not too bad.

Finally, the car worked perfect. Every racers' fear is to go home on the trailer, and a few fellow competitors have. So we have that going for us - a car that needs nothing.

Connie from Midland writes, "Hey Sugar - love ur blog!! But exactly which car are ya'll racing this weekend?" Thanks Connie. We are in fact racing the 1928 Ford Model A Speedster you see pictured to the right. I would have actual photos of the rally to share with you, but they will have to wait because I brought the wrong cable to connect my camera to the computer. Sigh....

To recap:

Leg 1: 16 sec late
Leg 2: 2 sec late
Leg 3: 17 sec late
Leg 4: 3 sec late
Leg 5: 1 sec late
Leg 6: 5 sec late
Leg 7: 2 sec early
Leg 8: 5 sec early

We ended 18 out of 29 for the day and are currently 14th overall (This sounds sucky, but remember, this is our shakedown weekend...) TTFN

Ruffneck Rally Day 1

Friday, April 23, Day 1: The excitement began today. It was mostly good news: no rain, good lunch (thanks Ponca City!), and a healthy car. We were the number two car out, so not a lot of waiting around. We blasted through the North Oklahoma countryside and enjoyed the scenery. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of road-kill, so no weird smells. Bonus! The car performed flawlessly. My downshifts won't win any awards, but all in all it was a good first "shakedown" for the new car. Dinner was provided by HGH Museum & First Street Restorations (thanks guys) - the highlight was the kettle baked blackberry cobbler...... aaaahhhhhhhh! In the end, our scores were okay and we finished top ten for the day:
Leg 1: 4 sec late
Leg 2: 6 sec late
Leg 3: 4 sec early
Leg 4: 2 sec late
Total after age factor: 12.72 seconds - good for 9th place out of 29 cars

PS- Our friends JeanAnn and Gary finished with a 5 second day. I'm pretty sure they bribed the judges or something....

VCRA Ruffneck Rally 2010

Thursday, April 22 - Well we made it to Ponca City, Oklahoma. The trip was uneventful, which is the way I like 'em. Today was tech inspection and registeration. It's good to see old friends (like you JeanAnn!). This is the maiden race for our new (to me) car, a 1928 Ford Model A Speedster. I'm confident the car will do alright this weekend, I'm just not sure about the lug-nut behind the wheel. Rallying isn't exactly like riding a bike - you DO get rusty; at least I do. But we'll see. So long as the rain holds off and we aviod any fender-benders, the weekend will be a success. The competition starts tomorrow (Friday). Stay tuned, there's more to come....