Here's a nice set of photos of our incident on Farley II by Philippe Jodoin:
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Perce- Neige Photos
Photos have started trickling in from Rallye Perce-Neige.
Here's a nice set of photos of our incident on Farley II by Philippe Jodoin:
Here's a nice set of photos of our incident on Farley II by Philippe Jodoin:
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Perce Neige!
I just got back from Maniwaki. Perce-Neige was terrific. Cold, but terrific.
My driver Luis had a fair bit of experience in rallysprints, but since this was his first full rally, we took it easy to start out. Even so, we started to slowly move up the running order, especially thanks to the slippery roads that put several of our competitors in the ditch.
Our one "gotcha"
Luis drove a clean rally. The only "moment" we had was on SS 6, the second run through the Farley stage. As we came into a Left 3, the car slid a bit to the right... Luis corrected, but the road turned to sheer ice. The car spun around, and we ended up nose-first in the ditch with our back wheels sticking out onto the road.
Luckily, we did all this in front of a spectator area (and luckily or unluckily, in front of one of the TV cameras). Even as we were coming to rest, there was a pack of spectators running over to our car. About five of them tried to give the car a quick push, but they couldn't move it. Finally after a few seconds of this, I hopped out and grabbed the triangles, and another bunch of spectators ran over. With about ten of us pushing, we finally got the car back on the road. A fan threw me the triangles, we jumped back in and took off. All in all, we lost about 3 or 4 minutes.
I saw a few folks with video cameras there, so if I find any YouTube video of what happened, I'll post a link.
Lighting Gremlins
We had problems with the auxiliary lights all weekend. On Friday night during our checks and scrutineering they were only working intermittently. We thought we'd found the problem and fixed it, but finally on Saturday when it really mattered, they didn't work at all.
This meant that on the night stages, we only had our standard headlights. We had to slow right down and lost a lot of time.
Still, all in all, we were happy with our performance, especially considering our lighting problems and the fact that it was Luis' first rally (and first time racing on snow). It seemed like Andrew Comrie-Picard was happy to see his old car rallying again; he and his co-host for the CRC TV broadcasts Jen Horsey took a fair bit of time out to do a spot on the car and an interview with Luis. I'm hopeful that at least some of it will make it into the final program.
Thanks
As always, I'm amazed to see the sheer number of dedicated people who come out to spend all day in the woods to let us race, and the organizers who commit huge numbers of unpaid hours to make rallies happen. While we were driving through the snow and cold at Perce-Neige, I was reminded how much all the volunteers and fans love the sport.
Our service crew was terrific, too. Paul and Luis' son Josh had never serviced at a rally before, but they pulled it off perfectly.
Photos, video and more to come!
The photographers and spectators are still trickling back to their homes, so photos should start appearing online within a few days. In the meantime, you can see a photo of us in this story on flatovercrest.com - look down the page for Car 44 - the little white Lada.
TV coverage is coming later this year. I'll post news on air dates and times when it's available.
Jeff
My driver Luis had a fair bit of experience in rallysprints, but since this was his first full rally, we took it easy to start out. Even so, we started to slowly move up the running order, especially thanks to the slippery roads that put several of our competitors in the ditch.
Our one "gotcha"
Luis drove a clean rally. The only "moment" we had was on SS 6, the second run through the Farley stage. As we came into a Left 3, the car slid a bit to the right... Luis corrected, but the road turned to sheer ice. The car spun around, and we ended up nose-first in the ditch with our back wheels sticking out onto the road.
Luckily, we did all this in front of a spectator area (and luckily or unluckily, in front of one of the TV cameras). Even as we were coming to rest, there was a pack of spectators running over to our car. About five of them tried to give the car a quick push, but they couldn't move it. Finally after a few seconds of this, I hopped out and grabbed the triangles, and another bunch of spectators ran over. With about ten of us pushing, we finally got the car back on the road. A fan threw me the triangles, we jumped back in and took off. All in all, we lost about 3 or 4 minutes.
I saw a few folks with video cameras there, so if I find any YouTube video of what happened, I'll post a link.
Lighting Gremlins
We had problems with the auxiliary lights all weekend. On Friday night during our checks and scrutineering they were only working intermittently. We thought we'd found the problem and fixed it, but finally on Saturday when it really mattered, they didn't work at all.
This meant that on the night stages, we only had our standard headlights. We had to slow right down and lost a lot of time.
Still, all in all, we were happy with our performance, especially considering our lighting problems and the fact that it was Luis' first rally (and first time racing on snow). It seemed like Andrew Comrie-Picard was happy to see his old car rallying again; he and his co-host for the CRC TV broadcasts Jen Horsey took a fair bit of time out to do a spot on the car and an interview with Luis. I'm hopeful that at least some of it will make it into the final program.
Thanks
As always, I'm amazed to see the sheer number of dedicated people who come out to spend all day in the woods to let us race, and the organizers who commit huge numbers of unpaid hours to make rallies happen. While we were driving through the snow and cold at Perce-Neige, I was reminded how much all the volunteers and fans love the sport.
Our service crew was terrific, too. Paul and Luis' son Josh had never serviced at a rally before, but they pulled it off perfectly.
Photos, video and more to come!
The photographers and spectators are still trickling back to their homes, so photos should start appearing online within a few days. In the meantime, you can see a photo of us in this story on flatovercrest.com - look down the page for Car 44 - the little white Lada.
TV coverage is coming later this year. I'll post news on air dates and times when it's available.
Jeff
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