The potential for trouble is always present in rally, some would even say it's expected. But there's typically a limit to how much we think can go wrong. STPR pushed that limit into a ditch and buried it. Welcome to zombie rallying.
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I've mentioned before that one of the great things about being a co-driver is the ability to jump around from empty seat to empty seat. Even co-drivers who have found a regular ride (like I have with Rory/TAG Rally Sport) will hop into something else when their driver isn't racing. When Rory told me he wouldn't be doing the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally, one of my personal favorites, I started looking for a seat.
The first stop for a free agent looking for a ride is pretty much always SpecialStage.com, and sure enough I found a post from Troy Miller looking for a co-driver. I'd never met Troy and didn't know anything about his driving record, so I checked his history on Rally America (two events, zero DNFs) and sent him a message to claim the position. We sent messages back and forth, working out the details, and on May 29 I headed out to Wellsboro, PA for the rally.
Wednesday night was spent discussing note preferences, calling style, driving style, and basically getting a feel for eachother. As usual I spent a couple hours before bed getting my pacenote books ready, finally getting to bed around midnight, knowing I'd have to be up in just over 5 hours for recce. Recce itself went well with the standard changes to the notes. The roads and scenery themselves were beautiful as the entire rally (with the exception of two stages through the area Waste Management facility and the spectator super specials at the fairgrounds) is run in the county's magnificent state parks. It also reminded me just how zero-screwup the roads are, with constant exposures (read: cliffs/dropoffs) and what I've repeatedly referred to as "fuck your shit up good" trees lining the roads. By the time we returned from recce around 4 PM the rally car had arrived and been taken through tech. Troy and I put our gear on and headed for the shakedown stage. This was where our weekend would begin to change.
We lined up on the shakedown stage, did our final checks, and launched into the fast 3 mile stage. Though with it being a 1990 GTi and the start being uphill on gravel it was less of a "launch" and more "steady acceleration" into the stage. We were barely a mile in when we first knew we had trouble. The engine oil temperature had climbed to over 280, the car had very little pulling power on the straights, and we could smell that something was extremely hot. Troy flipped on the hazard lights and we crawled it to the finish. Mechanical problem 1.
Not wanting to risk damaging the engine Troy pulled to the side just after the finish control. I jumped out and immediately realized we may have misdiagnosed the problem. Smoke was floating out of the right rear wheel and when I went back to look the rotor was glowing bright red. We had a seized caliper, mechanical problem 2. We called Will Rudasill, our crew chief for the weekend, and told him to bring the trailer. Half an hour later he called back saying he was at the end of the road. We drove down to meet him and, with the oil temp back down below 200, we decided to try nursing it back to the service park. The drive took about seven eternities but we ultimately made it. As Troy called every auto parts store within 100 miles looking for a new caliper and rotor Will checked the engine, discovering the engine had no oil in it whatsoever despite being full the day before. Mechanical problem 3.
Troy eventually found a store about a half hour away that said they could have the caliper and rotor first thing in the morning. With nothing more we could do we went for dinner and called it a night. Fast forward to Friday morning and Troy and I arrived in the service park at around 8:40. Will had left the hotel around 7 to pick up the brake caliper and by the time we arrived he had it installed, but not without a catch. The caliper was working properly but had a leaky seal, brake fluid gushed out with every press of the brake pedal. Mechanical problem 4. Troy got back on the phone, once again searching for a store with a caliper. At around 9 AM he found one 90 minutes away in New York. We had to be into parc expose by 11:30 so there was no way we could make it there and back in time. Fortunately Troy's brother was on his way to the rally and would be going right past that area. Coincidence had saved our weekend.
At 11 Troy's brother arrived with the replacement caliper. Will threw it on, bled the lines, and had us out by 11:20. We pulled into expose just minutes before it closed, just in time to wait another 2 hours for the rally to start.
Just after 2 PM we started the first stage, the rough and twisty Waste Management stage. The 9 mile stage is so twisty that the elite fire breathing unlimited class cars of Ken Block and David Higgins barely managed over 50 mph. There are a few sections where all but the very best co-drivers have to ignore all qualifiers and just call corners. Any crests, +, -, opens, tightens, or other extra pieces of information disappear and it just becomes R4 into L2 into R3 into L2 into R2 into L3 into R3 into L2 (yes, I did pull that directly from the book). In other words, it was the absolute worst stage for Troy to say "power steering is gone" halfway through. Shit. Mechanical problem 5. The oil temperature issues returned as well, despite actually having oil this time around. By mile 5 the needle had climbed past 300 and was completely off the gauge. We had a brief exchange about pulling over but decided to keep going for the moment. If it popped it popped.
Troy muscled it through the stage and the oil temp dropped back down below 200 on the transit to stage 2. Bolstered by the temperature drop we tried to find our footing and put in a good run on the short, fast second stage. It was not to be, as on the long, fast straights of the stage we learned that the lack of "go" we had yesterday wasn't just because of the seized caliper. The engine was definitely down on power in the higher RPMs. We cruised through the stage and Troy muscled it through the third stage (the same twisty Waste Management stage run in reverse) before returning to service. Telling our issues to Will he managed to diagnose our lack of power as a bad fuel pump and our lack of power steering as a bad power steering pump. Unfortunately we didn't have spares, these were problems we would have to deal with for the rest of the rally. We were now in a "survival" mentality instead of a "competitive" mentality. For the sake of fun we ran the final two stages, two passes of the half mile super special in the fairground's field, with me doodling instead of calling notes. The end result confirmed I should never become an artist.
Saturday dawned way too early, as the second day of a rally always does, but we were excited to run the state forest stages. These are the roads we all come for. Before the start I checked the standings, showing us seventh fastest with three stages left in the first regional (as previously mentioned in the regional division at Rally America events each day is considered its own rally. However because the first day is less than 20 miles at STPR the first three stages of day 2 are also part of the first regional rally), pretty much what we expected with all the mechanical issues we'd had so far. No worries, this was about fun, experience, and personal improvement, not winning.
The first stage of the day (stage 6) went smoothly, though Troy was hesitant through some of the corners. We were starting to get a rhythm and gel as driver and co-driver. Stage 7 started even better, with Troy practicing momentum conservation and hunting the true limits of grip, hardly lifting for the 4's (only possible because of the bad fuel pump). Then on a hairpin right at the six mile mark Troy shifted into first, the engine revved, and nothing happened, no acceleration. We coasted down the hill as Troy rowed through the transmission, searching for gears, finding only agonizing grinding. "I can't get any gears," he said. Seriously? Mechanical problem 6, we're now counting on two hands.
Finally third gear caught and we were moving again. Troy checked the other gears, finding first and second gone but third through fifth still there. We made our way through the final miles of the stage, painfully slow on exit of the tighter corners, and finished the stage. Troy tried second gear in the shutdown section and it was back, without so much as a grind. What. The. Actual. Fuck. First gear was back as well, which was good news for the start of the third stage (nothing worse than having to launch in a gear other than first). We cleared stage 8, the final stage of the opening loop, and returned to service.
We once again told Will of our issues and he once again diagnosed them with his expert knowledge of Volkswagens and the shit that goes wrong with them. In this case we had melted the bushing holding the shift linkage in place. As a result it no longer fully engaged (or, once a few miles into a stage and the engine & trans get warm, no longer engaged at all) first or second gear. Will made a temporary bushing out of zip ties but he warned us this too would melt before long. The oil temp was still reading off the gauge on every stage but we decided to just tell ourselves it was exaggerating. As an additional amusing issue one of the inner front lights was beginning to withdraw itself into the grille. Get back here you little bastard! (Mechanical problem 6.5?)
Back out to the stages to start the second regional and the car's working great (well, great considering). The zip tie fix is holding, Troy's driving is excellent, and I'm hitting on the notes. We're not setting any stage records but it's a good run none the less. Which is why less than a mile from the end I'm caught off guard by what sounds like a car behind us laying on the horn. We've been caught? I ask Troy if he hears a horn. "I think that's our bearing," he replies. Greeeeat. Mechanical problem 7.5. Stage 10 is more of the same as Will's zip tie fix melts, we overcook it into a hairpin left, slide backwards into the banner tape, and we sit motionless for a full ten seconds as Troy tries to find a gear. Despite this we managed to close on the car in front of us, hitting lingering dust in the final three miles. Stage 11 was miraculously free of new mechanical issues and we cruised through the stage before returning to service.
Will fashioned a new temporary shift linkage bushing, this time out of a mudflap, and while installing it noticed we were bending the camber plate atop the left front strut. Mechanical problem 8.5 anyone? He didn't want to risk fatiguing the metal by trying to bend it back down, so he just told us to be careful and sent us out to run the final loop of stages.
Car still running, though now without first and second gear. Still no power steering as well #zombiecar #stpr13
— Steven Harrell (@DVMSteve) June 1, 2013
Stage 12 was essentially incident-free, though we did lose the new bushing halfway through. Stage 13 was going well until five miles into the 12.8 mile stage when we started hitting some heavy pockets of dust. We pushed on, the dust getting thicker as we went, clearly we were closing in on the car ahead. Eight miles and the dust had visibility down to less than 100 feet. We were forced to slow to avoid running into one of those aforementioned trees. We hit a cliffside clearing (no trees, 50 foot drop on the left) and the sun hitting the dust made visibility even worse. We caught a brief glimpse of the car in front of us rounding a L3, then the cloud engulfed us again. Knowing that with more than four miles to go we had to try to catch and pass the car we pushed in the dust. Visibility was now less than 40 feet. I called a R4 with an exposure (steep drop) on the outside but we couldn't see it through the wall of tan before us. Troy made his best guess at the corner, but as we exited a massive tree came storming out of the cloud, headed straight for our car. Troy turned hard right as the left side tires started slipping over the edge of the embankment. The car clawed at the ground, and after a terrifying moment managed to pull us back onto the road, just missing the tree. Shaken, we backed off, resigning ourselves to playing it safe and just cruising to the finish behind the slower car instead of trying to pass it. We crossed the line physically six seconds behind the slower car, running the stage 54 seconds faster than them. Armed with this I convinced them to let us go first on stage 14, giving us clear sailing for the final full stage of the day.
Stage 14 was a clean run, though I could tell Troy was still backing off a bit after the scare with the tree. We returned to the fairgrounds for another run through the super special. Once again we decided to run without notes and have fun, this time with me holding up a sign for the cameras that read "ZOMBIE CAR LIVES!" (it had earned the nickname "Zombie" due to all the bits rotting and falling off during the course of the rally but the car refusing to die) and giving what was probably the worst rendition of the song "Radioactive" this side of American Idol auditions. Tired and hungry I made a beeline for the banquet dinner as soon as I was out of the car.
While standing in line for food I found myself standing next to the scoring monitor. I hadn't bothered to check stage times all day because Zombie had been so close to death I knew we were one of the back markers. Having nothing better to do while waiting in line and feeling mildly curious I checked the monitor. My mouth fell open, closed, then opened again, emitting no sounds. I looked around, searching for someone who could explain what I was seeing, then looked back to the monitor. Not knowing what else to do I finally called Troy.
"Hey, Troy. Have you checked the results for today's regional?"
"Yeah. Someone must have screwed up, it shows us winning 2WD and third overall."
"That's what I saw too. There's no way, is there?"
"No, has to be a mistake."
I went back to the monitor and looked at the times stage-by-stage, trying to figure out which stage (or stages) they made the mistake on.
This says we won the first four stages, including stage 10 when we spun and couldn't find a working gear. Clearly they accidentally scored us a minute fast on that stage. But if I add a minute we're still third overall and winners in 2WD. There must be another mistake. Hmmm, it says we were second fastest on stage 13 and only 10 seconds back, despite spending five miles at half pace in dust. That one must be wrong too.
I stood there, waiting for someone to come to the same conclusions I did and fix this obvious mistake, but no one did. The scores went up on the board, meaning competitors had a half hour to file protests against anything they thought was incorrect before the scores became official. Again I waited, certain someone would point out there was no way Zombie could have been fastest. Again no one seemed to have any doubts about the validity of the stage times aside from Troy and myself. Forty minutes later we were still in complete disbelief when we were called the the front of the room during the awards ceremony for our first place trophies.
It wasn't until I got home and sat down with a stopwatch and the in-car footage that I full accepted we really were fastest. It had been such a tough rally, with Zombie threatening to fall apart all weekend and us feeling like every stage could be our last. As it turned out though our car wasn't just a zombie, but a fast zombie. And as we all know NOTHING is more dangerous than a fast zombie.
Photo Credits:
Photos 1, 2, 7 - Alex Haugen Photography & Designs
Photo 3 - Andre Skandar
Photos 4 & 8 - Lori Lass Photography
Photo 5 - Steven Harrell
Photo 6 - MozesPhotography.com
Photo 9 - "Dawn of the Dead", Universal Studios
Rally Co-Driving Behind the Scenes, Part 7: Teach Me How to Zombie