As things go, building a project usually takes much longer than originally planned. With HDT set to be my first rally, I entered the week approaching May 3rd with a lot left to do on the car. The cage wasn't finished, there was no windshield, no intercom, no steering system, and the interior was completely disassembled, among other things. I went hard to work on the #73 Open Light rally car, getting only a few hours of sleep Monday and Tuesday night. There was no sleeping Wednesday night and the cage was finished around 5:30 AM on Thursday morning. The tech inspection was scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday at a location roughly three and a half hours from the shop, so there wasn't much time left. What remained of Thursday yielded seat brackets, an attached trunk lid, an intercom, and the seats were installed, but none of this went as smooth as it would seem. The seat brackets took forever, the trunk pins had to be adjusted countless times, and the seats had to be taken in and out several times. Luckily, $285 and two zipties later, the intercom was installed in under five minutes.
With no sleep on Thursday night either, the steering system was fabricated, the dash installed and a front bumper and skid plate mount fabricated, again not without adversity. 9 a.m. Friday morning, which was the time I needed to depart, came five hours earlier than we hoped and expected it would (no surprise, I suppose). I called the organizers of the rally to see if it would be possible to request a later tech appointment since I only needed two or so more hours to finish the car. Thankfully, I was told to that any time within reason was fine. Eight hours later, I faced a major set back with installing the fuel lines; the driver's seat was going to have to come back out. This also marked the time I would have to depart in order to make it before tech closed. I called the rally organizers back and apologized that after months of planning HDT as my first rally, and as a gift to myself the weekend of my birthday, that I wasn't going to be able to make it. They too, were disappointed to hear that I wouldn't be able to make the rally. Finally at this point, facing my defeat, I took a one hour nap.
Shortly after I came to, I received a phone call from the organizers. In an effort to give every last bit of help that they could, they informed me that my car could be tech'd in the morning before the event and that it wasn't too late. As much as I appreciated their generous offer, I had come back to reality and realized that it just wasn't going to happen. They had to break the news to my co-driver who sat on his knees beside them, whispering sweet nothings to the sky in hopes that it would sway the rally gods into allowing me to finish the car with super-human speed. My co-driver's counterattack was for organizers to notify me that he had an entire army of mechanic gnomes waiting in his garage to quickly assemble the rest of my car. Even with that knowledge, I still made the decision to call it quits to my hell week and end my misery early. After sorrowfully ending my phone call, I stepped into the shower to clear my crowded mind and cleanse my body from three days worth of dirt (gross!). As I stood there in the near boiling water, something struck me. It suddenly occurred to me that I must have been quite disoriented after not sleeping for two days. Come on, sweet nothings to the sky, rally gods, and mechanic gnomes? What was I thinking. I was going to run this rally and nothing short of a small German fellow named Hans would stand in my way. I finished showering and immediately called the organizers back. I told them of my revelation and then made a bee line to my shop.
All we had to do was push the partially assembled, non running car into the trailer, right? Wrong. There was five hours of trailer cleaning and packing to be done first. Oh, the things that are forgotten when one is in a hurry. Eventually, we did manage to get the car into the trailer, but not without the help of my trusty Forester. We departed the shop at approximately 11:30 p.m. and arrived in Ridgecrest, CA, at about 2:30 a.m. giving our eagerly waiting team only three and a half hours to finish the final preparation of the car. I managed to catch two hours of sleep, but had to finish the wiring harness before attending the drivers meeting at 7 a.m. The car was complete minus working radiator fans, so we figured we would just go without them.
Following the driver's meeting, we rushed out to Jawbone Canyon where the rally was to take place, 45 minutes from Ridgecrest. The car was given a snappy tech inspection and there were only a few more items to be inspected before we were given the go ahead. Those items are personal safety items including a helmet, flame retardant driving suit, and a HANS (head and neck restraint system). I set out my helmet and suit and then quickly located one of my Rally Kings teammates to retrieve my "loaner" HANS. It was at this point, that I learned that my HANS had been left behind in the hotel room in Ridgecrest. I desperately inquired with other teams as to whether they had a spare that I could borrow, but had no luck. My day was done... again, or so I thought.
The race was broken up into two smaller races, the Chaparral Stages in the morning and the Mojave stages in the afternoon. If I could procure a HANS device, I could race the afternoon stages. Also to my advantage, the rally was running a little over an hour behind schedule, which gave me even more time to get that pesky little fellow. I hurried back to Ridgecrest on the tail of my teammate with the hotel room key. I called him over and over, with no luck. When I reached the hotel, he was nowhere to be found. I remained in Ridgecrest for another hour with hopes of a rendezvous, but no such thing materialized. Tail between my legs, I headed back to Jawbone, the final straw had broke and there was no getting passed it this time. Upon my return, I found out that my teammate had lost his phone and had arrived in Jawbone shortly after I had left. It was also brought to my attention that my co-driver's helmet would not work with my intercom system and we would have had no communications even if we had found a HANS. Our weekend was over, it ended right on the start line, but in the end we could truly say that we had done everything we could and fought until the last possible moment. That day, destiny decided that I was not going to race.
Although I had missed my first stage rally, Sunday offered one final chance for me to redeem myself and enjoy the benefits of all of my hard work in the form of the High Desert Trails Rallycross. After my first three runs, I wasn't feeling very good about my performance and made the decision not to look at my times or anyone else's. I felt that I should just savor the moment and enjoy driving my race car that I had spent months building. I returned to the pits and sat down with my fellow Rally Kings only to find out, to my astonishment, that I was sitting in 2nd place. It was a great feeling. I finished out my runs staying relaxed and not worrying about the times. John Trucks managed to pick up the time he'd lost to me in cones on his first set of runs and I finished out the day on the podium in 3rd place. It was a solid finish to one hell of a week.
Most importantly, without my friends and teammates, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did. From the bottom of my heart, I just wanted to thank: Peter Carroll for countless hours of help, Nicholas Roder for the help and enthusiasm, Tim Brown for letting me be a pain in your ass, Tim Wallis for helping me get the cage all put together, Kris and Christine Marciniak for going so far out of their way to help me make it to HDT, Nick's buddies that stayed up wrenching all night, and last, but not least Miss Regine Trias for toughing it out all week and helping me stay positive. Thank you guys for the support.