SS5 - Icicle Brook South, 16.09 miles Same stage, opposite direction. This time we're starting off driving into the sun. With the dust this makes it even more difficult to see. We love this stage! It's rough, for sure. But it's fast and exciting. The poor old car takes a pounding, but Martin shows it no mercy. It's a little hairy in spots where the dust is hanging tby Ferdinand - Community Forum
SS4 - Icicle Brook North, 15.84 miles Finally, a real stage. The first five minutes of this stage used to be on a smooth, wide, very fast road. It's the road where Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino had their big crash last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJCf8gnnSuc But they've done something awful to the road since then. It looks like they've run a roto-tiller over seby Ferdinand - Community Forum
SS3 - Mexico-2 Our second pass on the Mexico stage was much cleaner, again no drama over the jump, but better line through the hairpin, no half-spin, no bogging down in 2nd gear. Yes! That felt MUCH better than our first run! So how come we were actually slower? Our first run was 47.0 seconds flat. This second run was 47.8 sec. Go figure. We're still doing okay. But secondsby Ferdinand - Community Forum
SS2 - Mexico-1 Straight from Sunday River, next up is a 45-minute transit to Mexico where there's another even shorter Super Special spectator stage of only 0.4 miles. This one features a jump, which last year had a really nice takeoff ramp and long gradual downslope for a soft landing. It encouraged jumping for distance and showing off for the many spectators gathered there. This waby Ferdinand - Community Forum
SS1 - Sunday River The two-day New England Forest Rally is an American National Rally event. It is also run (much more cheaply) as two entirely separate single-day Regional Rallies - the Mexico Rally on Friday, and the Errol Rally on Saturday. Running the two Regional rallies we cover the exact same stage distances with the only difference being that the National entries pay about $1k moreby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Shakedown Thursday morning 7:30am, start of recce. We get Jemba-prepared stage notes, and only one familiarization pass on each stage. Still it's a long day. After recce, rush to get through registration, tech inspection, and line up for the shakedown stage. Martin is worried about the engine. It overheated badly during a test run back at home. He thinks the head gasket might beby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Here's a photo of Angela in the back seat of the pickup truck. Note the small window behind her head. We don't have a photo of Jennifer, but there's a good reason for that... The pickup truck has a standard-sized OEM fuel tank. When towing the big heavy trailer it drains that stock fuel tank in a hurry. Therefore Martin has a large auxiliary tank in the bed of the pickupby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Two years ago on the way to NEFR, Martin and I crossed into the USA at a tiny Vermont border crossing staffed by just a single officer who kindly allowed us into the country, despite the fact that Martin had forgotten to bring his passport and then tried to convince the border guard that his plain-jane Ontario driver's licence was actually one of them new-fangled special "enhanced"by Ferdinand - Community Forum
Just getting to the rally is often half the adventure. Unusual for us, departure from Martin's place was precisely on schedule. Angela Cosner, who happened to be visiting in Ottawa, joined us for the ride down to New Hampshire. We would also be stopping briefly in Montreal to pick up Jennifer Daly on the way. On the 401 near Cornwall we came across this bizarre hybrid vehicle. From aby Ferdinand - Community Forum
QuoteFerdinandDoes your car have power side mirrors, i.e. can you adjust their aim via the switch on the driver's armrest? Are they still working now? The reason I ask is because the side mirrors draw power from the same source as the blower motor, through the K7 Unloader Relay. If the relay is dead, then the power mirrors won't be working either. But if the mirrors are working okay,by Ferdinand - Technical Forum
Hi Raffaello, welcome back! Does your car have power side mirrors, i.e. can you adjust their aim via the switch on the driver's armrest? Are they still working now?by Ferdinand - Technical Forum
Let's be careful out there now Rick!by Ferdinand - Community Forum
Note revised schedule. SPEED will be airing the 2010 Targa Newfoundland at the following times: Sunday, June 5 @ 2pm ET Wednesday, June 8 @ 3am ET Saturday, June 18 @ 4pm ETby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Here's a photo for ya.by Ferdinand - Technical Forum
How cool is that? Christoph has one of his photos (the seagull) in the "Featured Photos" page of Picasa Web Albums. https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/featured?feat=featured_all#by Ferdinand - Community Forum
A little dusty, but otherwise no worse for wear, we head back to the Service Park for the finish. It was a successful event for us. 5th overall, 1st in Group 5, 1st 2wd, and now that the car is 20 years old, we also finished 1st in Classic. Cars lined up in Parc Ferme. The top three finishers get to spray champagne in the podium ceremony. 1st place , centre in photo, Open Clby Ferdinand - Community Forum
We lost another three cars on that 5th stage. Neil and Lorna Wright sideswiped a rock with their Mazda RX7, Lance Webb and Max Vadeboncoeur snapped a halfshaft on their VW Golf, and Paul Hartl and Chuck Storry were forced out with a "mechanical problem", methinks due to brushing up against a rock. See this really cool mood-photo of Paul Hartl shot by Peter Macdonald. With the famby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Stage A5 - Northbound. Earlier on our previous Northbound stage I fumbled with an incorrect note. In the video you can see the spot in my notes where I then made a correction and scribbled over the bad bit. Well damn, didn't I go and blot out the wrong instruction? The notes are still wrong here. Having screwed it up both times on each Northbound run, I now know exactly whatby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Stage A4 - It's game on. Sylvain is only 1.5 seconds behind us. Now it's time to push. I changed the camera view to the one mounted behind us on the rollcage. I prefer that view as it shows Martin at work. The image quality is much clearer too. Listen, as we roll up to take our place on the start line, how every freakin' bushing in the suspension creaks and groans and squby Ferdinand - Community Forum
We were provided a generous amount of time to transit from the end of the stage back to the Service Park in Lanark. This is a good thing as it means there is no need whatsoever to be breaking any speed limits on the open public roads. It's just a leisurely cruise back to town. However, it meant we then had to queue up and wait a while before checking into Service on our correct minute.by Ferdinand - Community Forum
Stage 3 - Southbound. The camera view is further obscured because I forgot to clean the dust and water splashes off the windshield during our wait at the turnaround. I switched to the other camera view for the remaining three stages though. The picture improves for those stages. Really it does. At the start of this third stage we were informed that there are two cars off, pushed safely oby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Everybody made it safely through the first stage, after which there was a re-seed to shuffle the running order according to the first stage's scores. Not everyone would make it through the second stage though. The road is much tougher in this direction, running Northbound. It doesn't flow nearly as well in this direction and there are several nasty deceptive corners to catch you ouby Ferdinand - Community Forum
This is a really good video shot by a spectator! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhYgtm6HVE The image quality is not so great, but I love how it compares everybody's lines through the same corner. You can tell right away who is fast and smooth, and who isn't. Sylvain Vincent, is running first on the road and giving it everything. Then brother and sister Nick & Kelly Matby Ferdinand - Community Forum
One-by-one we then leave the service park and head out to the forest. Here's our in-car video of the first stage. Note the fancy new countdown lights at the start. Because it was a bright and sunny day, I chose to use the camera mounted at the top of the windshield for these first three stages. The other camera mounted back on the rollcage tends to see too much of the interiorby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Saturday morning started off with a second slow pass of recce. We were thrilled to see Sylvain Vincent and his son Simon show up. They left Montreal at 3 a.m. that morning in order to get here in time for just one pass of recce and then to compete. A lot of younger rally fans may not even realize who Sylvain Vincent is. (See really excellent photo by Leon Switzer.) Sylvain is one of onby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Perhaps the best part of rallying, besides actually doing the rallying, is the people you meet and get to know along the way. Rallying is a close-knit community of good friends, always willing to help each other out. This is "Freak". He's our chief mechanic and all-round nice guy. He takes time out of his busy life to come out and help us, so we get to have fun bashing the raby Ferdinand - Community Forum
The 2011 Lanark Highlands Forest Rally organized by the Motorsport Club of Ottawa was another resounding success. Martin and I packed up the trailer and headed for Lanark on Friday morning. But first, as always, we had to make a couple of small detours. We stopped in Smiths Falls at the car wash to hose off the mud left from last November's Rally of the Tall Pines. That was six monthby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Quoterkjthe music was great also, what was it? Sunshine Superman - Donovan Walkin' down the Road - Ozark Mountain Daredevilsby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Here's a little in-car video I put together of my morning commute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vHHG08WMj4by Ferdinand - Community Forum
QuoteDave_G Don't worry too much about that. Too often, beginners try too hard to be fast, and end up learning bad habits and sloppy technique. If you start out trying to be smooth and consistent, learning the line, and listening to the advice of your instructors, speed will come. Excellent advice from Dave. Really, don't worry about how fast you are or aren't compared to othersby Ferdinand - Technical Forum