Event Report : Sinco de Mayo Rally Crosso

[robert_a_dupree at bankone.com]

May 5th was the virgin event for the group Rally Cabal (no Afgannie
affiliation).  Located at BlackHawk Farms Raceway near Rockton, IL the
weather couldn't have been better.  Sunny, dry, temp somewhere over 70f; as
the event personel waited for competitors to arrive we were all happy.

By 9:30AM we were quite bummed.  A total of 6 people had arrived and signed
up, our goal was 40 cars and given the W-A-G events as well as Arkansaw
Rallycross were both filled it was a reasonable goal.  By 10:30 we were
packing the registration in as a group-o-subies showed up to give us a
total of 17 entrants all total.

At 11:00AM we started running.  The course was layed out with 20 turns
covering .69 miles in length.  The surface started on fairly firm
grass/hardpack and turned very quickly into soft dirt pretty loose.  It
wasn't until the back side of the course that you would encounter the fast
hardpack clay and then return to the loose stuff before the finish.

As people were walking the course (no parade laps) they were all a little
worried about how tight it was.  IMHO it was too tight, but we were trying
to keep within the spirit of the SCCA RallyCross rules therefore speed was
to be kept under 40mph.  Going to fast?  Add some turns!

As the competitors ran it the ruts gotm pretty deep but since the surface
was very soft there was little potential for damage.  All of the incidents
were limited to snow tires rolling off the rims.  Even at 40psi inflation
on subie driver managed to roll the tire.  Snow tires have soft sidewalls,
but this caused us to redo one turn anyway.  Overall the fastest time was
done by Greg Drozd in his Subie 2.5RS.  The WRX guys were mostly stuck in
1st gear and were missing the grunt of a NA motor's torque.  The one Audi
at the event (Event Master Mike Anson running a 4k Q) was approximately
10secs off the pace, but he was driving conservatively.

My personal performance was limited to fun running as the starter had puked
on the Grp 2 ClubRally car.  The very nice Subie drivers would drag me
around on the tow strap and then I'd make a few runs.  The Colt drifts
beautifully in second gear on dirt.  70% thottle, and 30% steering.  I get
it now.  Unfortunately even with proper rally tires the AWD advantage on
the loose stuff really made a difference.  I think I may have been faster
than the Honda on street tires...  I hope I was at any rate.  My runs were
cut short with the onset of a fuel delivery problem that as of yet is
undetermined.  I broke one damper that was placed to control axel hop, and
I think it was due to age and fatigue more so than my idiotic driving.

Overall the we made it through this first event as organizers without
having a heart attack.  Timing and scoring made a couple newbie mistakes.
The course was too tight.  No one showed up.  But asside from that it was a
good time.  We will be holding more events at BHF as well as other
locations.  If you are interested in running SCCA RallyCross please come on
out.  Information (and pics soon) can be found at http://www.rallycabal.org
Otherwise please feel free to drop me a line.

As a side note there was an SCCA Nationals event going on at the real race
course.  As the teams were leaving we'd get some great gawking!  I had two
F500 drivers show up and run the course on their quad runners they use in
the paddoc area.  One took the unofficial FTD!  Most of them had never
heard of, let alone seen an SCCA RallyCross!

In the future it sure would be nice to see some more Audi cars at events
like this.  Someone to show Subaru that they're not the only game in town!

Rob Dupree
     Safety Steward - RallyCabal Group SCCA RallyCross
     84 UrQ
     97 4Runner Ltd
     77 Dodge Colt SCCA ClubRally Grp 2



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