BlackBear Rally 2005 -- July 23rd, 2005

[subterfuge]

That's right kids! THIS WEEKEND!!!

http://www.mlrc.ca/blackbear/index.html

(DKN or BBR? I'm SO damn torn!! :cry: )

[subterfuge]

...actualy I suppose I could both.. :gap:

[wedge]

Oh gee... :shrug:

Tough decision!

Anyone who can't make it to spectate at Black Bear - I hate you :mad: . Err... I mean, you can check out live results and news postings from the comfort of your own home at: www.flatovercrest.com. They'll be updating that site throughout the day, so you won't miss any action. :driving:

Edit:
Of course, when I say action, I'm talking about stuff like this:

http://www.flatovercrest.com/img/2005baie/warwick/barnes_jump01.jpg

[Skyla]

...actualy I suppose I could both.. :gap:

that sounds like a good idea!!
u better b at dkn. its gonna b a crazy partay

[Piotrov]

Sweet Jump Matt!! Is that the one where you broke something? I read the write up on SPDA.
Congrads on finnishing! Great job :2thumb:

[GT4LechacZ]

I'm there, hopefully i'll meet up with some of you!

[Syn]

Wow, that's...far away :giggle:

[wedge]

That rally was quite a painful experience for me. Everything was going wrong.
It's only that car's second rally, and it's already starting to fall apart! It is literally coming apart at the seams in several places.

On the first stage we started losing the exhaust, which wasn't a big suprise, but it's one more thing that now needs to be fixed.
Right after the start of the second stage, the battery light came on then went off. It didn't come back for the rest of the stage, but it did again later, and became progressively worse. So there is now some mystery electrical problem which must be fixed.
Later in the second stage we hit a big rock very hard right on the front of the skidplate. I don't remember that happening, but I KNOW it happened because of the giant gash down the skidplate, and the fact that the front lower crossmember (which the skidplate bolts to) is severely bent upwards/sideways. I'm lucky that didn't go right up through the radiator.
We reached the first service, our guys did a great job. We took a quick look for electronic problems, but couldn't find anything, so that had to wait. They did the best job they could to refasten the exhaust system in under 20 minutes. Just as we were leaving the service area, one of them was torquing down our wheels and one of the studs broke right off. "Oh great... what next?", I thought. The car is taking a serious beating, and there is still about 70km of stage left. Nearly 30km of which is VERY ROUGH, much rougher than what we experienced on the first 2 stages.

We began the third stage. It's an interesting stage. 25km long, starts out fairly smooth, but is narrow and twisty. Then it becomes even smoother, and wider and very fast. Then it becomes slow and extremely rough for the last 1/3 of the stage. Even though we were in a close fight for the class win, I knew I had to be careful to save the car. I planned to push very hard in the fast parts, to build as much of a lead as possible, then go slower in the slow rough parts to prevent any further damage.
We were going well in stage 3, I wasn't pushing 100%, but I was close to it. Fast when I knew it was safe, and slower over bumps, and I wasn't jumping as much as I wanted to. We made it about 8km or so, right about to where the stage becomes faster. I went to upshift and hit the gas and the engine went "VROOOOOOOM!", it just revved way up. I thought I missed the gear, and called myself an idiot. I put it back in neutral and tried to shift again, but the same thing happened. So now I know something is wrong. I tried a few different gears, but none of them worked. We rolled til we found a safe place to pull over, then stopped, and that's where we stayed. There was no bang or clang or anything, so it wasn't a tranny or driveshaft problem. It had to be the clutch. So we didn't finish unfortunately. It shouldn't have been such a surprise. The car has over 300,000km, and it's the original clutch.

So we DNF'ed from a possible very good result. We were 10th overall, and 2nd in our class, only 10 seconds behind the leader and we were closing in on him. At least there should still be some great photos of us from the first 2 stages.
Once again, we learned many lessons. Even though we will now miss GCFR, the car will be an awesome rally machine before Tall Pines.

[Piotrov]

sorry to hear about all your problems but i guess thats the way of rally.
if you get any pics post them up! we would love to see them.

[wedge]

Yeah, it's a big disappointment. But that's the sort of thing that happens sometimes, the best thing we can do is learn and improve from it.

Here's a video of our final stage: http://slipangle.servehttp.com/bear/
Unfortunately we didn't get the camera working for the previous stages. Which is a real shame, because one of them was the best stage of my life!

When I have time, I'll post some short clips of other cars that we recorded while standing on the side of the road.

[ieatglue]

That sucks Wedge. It's crazy. Did the clutch give you ANY warning at all? I mean, didn't you feel it slipping in previous races, or on the earlier legs? I didn't know they could go 'all of the sudden' like that.

I guess one of the keys to rallying is picking a car which has cheap parts. Seems there's always going to be tones of damage, bent rods etc!

Anyway, hope you get her all fixed up for the next run. The video looks great!

[wedge]

That sucks Wedge. It's crazy. Did the clutch give you ANY warning at all? I mean, didn't you feel it slipping in previous races, or on the earlier legs? I didn't know they could go 'all of the sudden' like that.


Maybe a little bit. But I was too stupid to notice. We've been having trouble getting up steep rough hills, I always blamed that on lack of torque. But some minor clutch slippage may have contributed as well.



I guess one of the keys to rallying is picking a car which has cheap parts. Seems there's always going to be tones of damage, bent rods etc!

That is completely true. That's why old VW's are so popular among smaller teams.

[wedge]

if you get any pics post them up! we would love to see them.

I would love to see'em too! There lots of sites with pics from these events, but none of my car...
You should come out to some event and take some yourself! Then we can all be happy. :idea:

[Piotrov]

hahah.. Tall pines for sure this year! :2thumb: