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Maine Rocks!

Thursday July 26th, 2001 4:45pm - Our trip begins once again as we leave the E-Quad and hop in a fully loaded rally car. This time our journey brings us north to Maine to compete in the second Divisional event in the Maine Forest Rally. This was the big time and we were psyched. All the top teams would be there: Subaru, Hyundai, etc... And then there would be us - we dubbed ourselves "Team No Crew" for the weekend since Flying J had some family obligatons this particular weekend and my cousin had to start his summer job. We pressed on regardless, as is the rally way. We weren't going to let something like no service crew, or tow vehicle stop us from running Maine!

We headed north on Rt. 1 out of Princeton only to find traffic *gasp!* Who would have thought... Figuring we might save some time we decided to turn off Rt. 1 and find our way to 8a of the Turnpike instead of 9. Well, 15 minutes into our trip and we were allready lost in New Jersey! We wound up back on Rt. 1, only a couple of miles north of where we got on. Press on...

Finally we made our way up the Turnpike, over the GWB and through the Cross Bronx without too much of a hassle. We entered Connecticut on the Merritt Parkway and stuck to the Golden Rule of Driving to Maine: Never stop in Connecticutt as best we could but nature called and we made a quick pit stop at one of the gas stations on the parkway. That's an acceptable violation as long as you don't actually buy any gas... Instead we gassed up as soon as we crossed into Massachusetts.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful and we pulled into the motel we were staying at for the night, the Townplace Suites in Scarborough ME we had scored throgh Priceline, around 12:30am. As soon as we pulled into the lot, a guy in a Scirocco pulled up along side us and asked if we were going to the rally. We could tell we were in rally country, unlike the last event in South Carolina where the locals didn't seem to understand motorsports outside of NASCAR existed.

The room was acceptable, and had the best shower we would see all weekend. We set the alarm for 6am and, after a few hits of the snooze we showered and were on the road by 7:30am. Loading up the car in the morning we met another local who was into rally, and in fact he said he did some rally driving back in India. Yep, Maine is rally country...

Friday July 26th, 2001 6:00am - We woke up and got an early start, anticipating that registration and tech would take a while since there were over 120 cars in the event, and we would be a low priority since we're on the waiting list. As we were packing up the car, a middle aged Indian gentleman came up to us and was asking a bunch of questions about rally in the US. It turns out he drove a rally car back in India! Once again we were impressed to find someone that actually knew what rally was!

From Scarborough we drove up to the rally HQ in Rumford, ME. Well, first we made a pit stop at the local McDonalds to unload some excess fluids, and then we showed up at registration. It was really exciting to pull into the parking lot and see a lot of familiar, top runner cars. We even got in line to register behind the Sprongls! This feeling of being equal with the big guys was short lived however when we got to the head of the registration line and told them we were on the waiting list. "Ohh..." Lots of confused looks and running around... "Well, you'll have to come see us Saturday morning to register." "Okay, can we have a route book?" "Umm, no, not until tommorrow." This was a bit disheartening. It meant we couldn't make the corrections and highlight the route book until just before the event. Plus, we needed to find out where the restart and service were so we could plan our morning. Remember, we have no service crew so we needed to register somewhere at Sunday River Saturday morning, then drive to the service area, drop off our stuff, and then drive to the start of the event!

Well, maybe someone else can help us out... We saw a guy with a big atlas of Maine sitting at one of the tables so we figured we'd ask him if he knew where everything was. As it turns out he wasn't a competitor, but rather a reporter from the Maine Times. He didn't have any better idea than we did about where everything was, but he was very interested in our story: how we bought our car, what we had done to it, and how we would manage to pull this off with no crew! Just yesterday he had the opportunity to ride through the press stage with the likes of Sheible and Millen, so now he had a chance to see how the opposite end of the spectrum operates. And I'm pretty sure we were the lowest budget team in the event. He and his photographer came outside to have a look at our rally car all loaded with our stuff and the took a few pictures. He asked a lot of questions about getting started in the sport and what it takes to convert a regular VW into a rally car. This was a good start to the day, again reminding us that we were in rally country. However, we had to get our car unloaded, through tech, and then loaded back up again, so we had to bid them farewell. His story should be up on Maine Times around Aug. 9th, so maybe we'll get mentioned.

Tech went through without too much of a problem. Our rear lights were having some trouble because the photographer dude touched the parking light switch on the dash which can be very tempermental. And the scruitineer didn't like the way one of the passenger side belts was looped around the seat bars, so we have to fix that before the next event. But other than that it went really smoothly. We were very impressed by the organizers ability to get 120+ cars through registration and tech so quickly. Even with the distractions we were done before noon. Cool, time to hit the McDonalds and get some lunch!

After lunch we weren't quite sure what to do with the extra time on our hands we had budgeted for registration and tech. We even started to do the odo check but then we realized we had the wrong tires on, so instead we just drove down to Topsham to pick up our Penske rental truck and trailer. Topsham is 60 miles from Rumford and took over 1.5 hours each way. So we didn't have time to check out the Parc Expose or any of the rally on Friday, but at least we got our truck straighted out just in case anything happened to the rally car during the event.

After driving back and forth to pick up the truck we checked into the hotel and unloaded the trailer. We took a quick pee break and then got to work on the rally car, swapping the front tires and installing all the contingency stickers we picked up at registration. Eddie exploited the many degrees of freedom of our new camera mount and got the video camera in position for a great view out of the windsheild. We went for a quick drive with the rally car, taking care of the odo check and gassing up the car and our two gas cans. While at the gas station who pulls up but Brian, our friend from the NY region rallycrosses! We exchanged a few stories and brought him up to date on Lumpy's latest exploits. It was really cool to see him again.

With all that taken care of, we went into town with the truck and hit Subway for dinner. We split a REALLY spicy cheesesteak. Whew... Then we stopped off at the grocery store to pick up sandwich fixins. You see, the key to getting through a rally with no service crew is to make the sandwiches the night before the rally! We also stopped back at the rally HQ to see if they had a start list with our names on it. No such luck. We asked Buffum if he knew if we would make it and he told us we wouldn't find out until Saturday morning. He did say it looked promising though. Wandering amongst the crowd of rally drivers, it seemed like everyone was talking about the big rocks on the stages. Every other word we overheard was "rocks...," "Rocks!" "ROCKS!!!" "rocks..." It reminded me of that scene in Being John Malkovich where he enters himself, and everyone's like, "Malcovich, Malcovich, Malcovich..."

While there we took a long look at the big map on the wall and figured out where service and the restart were and developed a plan for Saturday morning.

Saturday, 5:30am - After an uncomfortable nights sleep and a little bit of snooze button abuse we wake up, shower, and head out. The first stop is Sunday River in order to officially register. Assuming they have space for us, but after mingling with the crowd Friday night and hearing stories of a car burning to the ground, we're pretty sure we're in. The tough part is finding the organizers as they never said exactly where at Sunday River they would be. And it's quite a big ski resort... We wondered around the hotel for a bit and finally found them. Good news! We were in the event! We picked up our route book, got official time, and we were off...

First we headed north just to check out the restart at Wilsons Mills. I drove while Eddie marked the changes in the route book. Lucky for us we did that on the way up because some of the changes were on the transit to Wilsons Mills! Along the way we spotted a moose on the side of the road. Damn, it was really big! I shuddered to think we might encounter one on a stage. It looked like we could drive under it and only hit its legs. When we arrived at Wilsons Mills there was just a couple of guys and a motorhome at the lot. Okay, next stop Oquossoc where service for the event is held, about 40 minutes away.

We drove into Oquossoc and promptly found Skip, the service area steward. We explained how we had no service crew and just needed a place to dump our stuff. He pointed out a spot between a couple of boats in the boatyard where we could do just that, and he said he'd keep an eye on it for us. Excellent! He seemed like a great guy and was very helpful. So we unloaded the car and then went to the general store to get some breakfast. We sat outside eating our muffins and going through the route book with a highlighter. While outside we chatted with a few locals who seemed very interested in the rally. Again, we were feeling very welcome.

After breakfast we drove back to the restart at Wilson Mills, passing a few service vehicles headed to Oquossoc along the way. We realized that the first few cars should be coming into service before we even start the event! At Wilson Mills we parked and waited, mingling with the rally folks. We chatted with Pablo a bit, who we met at Sandblast in May. Also Adrian Wintle stopped by to take a look at the big red button on our Alfa Pro, which was the topic of a recent discussion on the forums at Special Stage. We got to say a few words to Scott, who was having trouble with his odo sending unit just before he was about to start!

Finally it was our turn to check out of the MTC and start the event! We got bumped up a bit because some other teams weren't ready and the starters were anxious. The transit to the start of the first stage was very short - less than one mile I think. So before we have time to think we're driving the first stage! Woohoo! The roads were beautiful! I drove fairly conservatively, although Eddie frequently critisized my lines, saying I was a little too close to his side... But I'm sure all co-drivers say that... We passed a whole bunch of cars off on the first three stages, I can't begin to remember them all. Some seemed buried in the trees and others were just on the side of the road, perhaps with mechanical failures. The first three stages were right after one another, with very short transists, so they all seem to run together, looking back. We went up around Lake Parmachenee and back, and the scenery was beautiful, but we didn't have much time to admire it! I kept a steady pace, reminding myself that our primary goal was to make it to the spectator area at the end of the third stage. And that we did, greating them with a few blasts of the "La Cuccaracha" air horns! The crowded loved it! People were cheering, some were even dancing. It was such an amazing feeling. We were so psyched after that, we made a wrong turn heading back to service which cost us 40 hundreths in road points. Oh well...

At the first service we ate some sandwiches, cleaned the windsheild, added some fuel, and Eddie worked on rewiring the intercom which had been cutting out. A few of the soldered connections on the co-drivers mic had come apart, so we switched microphones so that the co-driver could talk to the driver, but the driver couldn't talk back. Sounds like an ideal situation to most co-drivers I'm sure! During all this, hoards of rally fans came up to us, asking questions, taking pictures of our car, etc... We tried to oblige them as best we could, but with no crew, there was barely enough time to get everything done, let alone talk to everyone. So my apologies if we didn't have enough time to answer all the questions.

I have to take a moment to say how impressed we were with the organizers. Checking out of service we were handed a print out of the results so far! Amazing. We were listed as dead last, although it was hard to interpret because we didn't have times for Friday's stages and the results were for the entire rally.

So we drove out to the start of stage 4, which was 22 miles long! It was mostly roads we'd seen on the first three stages, with a little loop off to the side, and finishing again at the spectator area. This time through the roads were a little rougher with deep ruts since we were effectively the 200th or so car to come through! I can see why WRC drivers sometimes pause at the end of the first leg in order to drop back a few positions and not be first on the road. There was a lot more grip to be found following the tracks of the previous cars, than there was going off line and driving on fresh gravel. We had a very minor off on the fourth stage, and drove through a ditch, but we emerged unscathed. Once again we came through the sectator area with the horns singing and the crowd cheering! Randy Zimmer actually caught video of us coming through the spectator area. We're towards the back, two cars after Ander's pickup truck. Just listen for our theme song!

When we pulled into the FTC we noticed our car sounded very loud! Ooops... We drove into town and while waiting to check into service we inspected the car. There we saw our tailpipe dangling from its mount, but no muffler at all! The midpipe was just hanging by the wire I placed around it a while ago incase we should lose our muffler. We got into service and parked across a ditch such that we wouldn't even need to jack up the car. One of the Hyundai service crew members came over to help tie up our exhaust when he saw we had no crew. I'm so sorry I didn't get his name, but his help was very appreciated! Before we knew it, it was time to check out, and drive out to the last 17 mile stage!

Our plan for the last stage was to take it easy and nurse the car home to a finish. We drove conservatively, but the spectators at the begining of the stage, who seemed to be lining the rocks for over a mile in, egged us on and were rewarded with blasts from the air horns. We really felt like superstars at this point, even if we were struggling not to finish last! We were passed by a yellow Saab about seven miles into the stage, who I guess was having problems earlier in the day if he wound up behind us. I'm not sure who it was, but sorry if we held you up. I could feel the thumping as the midpipe bounced up and down against the bottom of the car. So much for our quick safety wire job! I have to say, the car sounded awesome during throttle blips while downshifting. And it seemed to be running really well. Who needs a muffler! By the time we made it to the end of the stage I had lost my voice from trying to scream over the unmuffled engine. But we did it, we finished Maine, which is more than we can say for a third of the Club Rally entries! We wound up 44th overall, out of 46 finishers and 68 starters in Saturday's Mead Club Rally.

Back in Oquossoc we chatted with some more rally fans as we packed up the car, telling tales of hitting 80mph on the stages and just how rough they were. It was a really good feeling to see how many people were interested in the sport. From the looks of it, the number of rally cars in the North East hasn't hit its peak yet!

We met up with Eddie's girlfriend Diane and her friend Kathleen, the official 2097 Racing photographers. They said we were a big hit at the spectator area and they shot a few pictures which you can see below. Excited and exhausted, we drove down to our motel, showered, and met up with the girls again at the Sunday River Brewing Company. Despite the 1.5 hour predicted wait (which we expected), we settled in for the wait and swapped stories about the rally. We wound up getting seated in about 45 minutes, as a lot of people left, thinking they could find good food elsewhere. We got to chat with Lance Smith for a bit, who we hadn't seen since we picked up Lumpy at Vermont SportsCar a year and a half ago. We bought our car from his client Ramana Lagemann, who is doing quite well this season in a Subaru. Hard to believe he started out in our little car...

Sunday, 9:30am - Sunday morning we slept in, lazily crawled out of bed, got the car loaded on the trailer, and had an uneventful drive back to New Jersey. The only bad part of the trip was the New Jersey Turnpike. First we pulled into the Vince Lombardi Service area truck parking, and we couldn't even see the service area from where we were parked! We ran around the lot, finally finding the place, but it was under construction and we had to settle for porta potties - all but two of which were out of order, and one of the working ones was too unbearable to be of any use. To add insult to injury, we were charged $10.15 for the priveledge of driving to exit 9. That's over three times the amount for a car. Next time we take Rt. 1 all the way!

We unloaded the car and Eddie had fun driving it around our apartment complex with no muffler! I'm sure the neighbors love us... The whole trip was a huge success, and I was beaming for days afterwards. The event was very well run, with long stages and short transits. Combined with the friendly locals, you just can't ask for a better event!

Within a week of arriving back from Maine, we sent in our entry for Rally New York on October 13th in the Catskills. I believe this is close enough to us to be considered our home event. So see you there!

Watch the Maine Forest Rally on Speedvision on Monday August 27th at 8pm EDT!!!