So who knows. maybe subaru will contend in NASCAR in a few years.

But, long story short. I won first in class with my 1999 subaru impreza 2.5RS & Ray Metts took 3rd in class.

Next year will be a different story. Ray decided to turn up the heat at the end of the year, and by heat i mean tires. LOL. So expect him to make a surge to the top. Next year will be very competitive. We have some newcomers in NO4, but they are not new to rallycross racing. They put up some impressive times last year during our non-points event to show us what’s to come.

Next year Both Ray and Myself will be the VP’s of the RallyCross program here at THSCC. If you’ve been thinking about coming out and racing, stop thinking and do it! its fun, its addicting, and its cool. oh and its a lot more fun than autoX (because they dont frown upon you if you slide or go off course )

Ray and I did well. It was a hot day and a fast course. Pictures and official results arent up yet, but i will post them ASAP.

Ray ended up 4th in class and 4th overall and I finished 2nd in class and 2nd overall. I also tied the FTC2 (Fastest time of course 2).
What a crazy weekend. Cant wait for the next race.

Perry County’s Rally Race : Behind the Scenes

Track-side. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about NASCAR, Formula 1, Indy, or Moto GP, the closest you can get to the action is track-side. You can get a nice view from way up in the stands, you can see the whole track, even have a direct line to the hot dog cart… but it’s not track-side. To be right on the course, to feel the wind as the cars and bikes race by, to smell the fuel and feel the tiny specs of race rubber hitting you, that is what the true race fan wants!

But what about a rally? Rally Tennessee, coming up in just a couple weeks on Memorial Day weekend, May 29-30, 2010, is going to be racing on roads all over the county. From tip to tail, the racing area is about 20 miles high and 15 miles wide. So how do you get close to the action when the race fits into an area of 300 square miles? The answer is still the same: you want to be right on the track.

How about being the guy who’s counting down the cars to start? It starts with the classic ’5, 4, 3…’ which is right when the drivers start to spool up the turbochargers. The car starts to growl. ’2…’ Now the engine is roaring! You’re standing only a foot away, with your last finger counting down in front of the windshield. You finish the countdown shouting ’1, GO!’ and you can’t even hear yourself as you pull your closed fist away and step back. The clutch engages and the car tears down the road. Just as the car gets to the top of first gear and the driver shifts, the high-tech anti-lag system engages, sending a bang of an explosion out the exhaust. Just as you see the car hurling around the first corner, you turn around and the next racer is pulling, getting ready to start.

On the other end of the stage, you could be one of the people at the finish. Once all the safety pace cars come through, you’re waiting for the first race car to come through. Standing at the marked finish line, safely up on the berm, there are several minutes of just standing in the quiet woods, listening. Then you hear the first faint sound of the exhaust, over a mile away. It fades in and out as the car goes in and out of the valleys coming toward you, but always getting louder. Suddenly the noise booms as the car comes into view! The driver knows that he has to floor it till he gets to exactly where you are. You are on the radio to the timing crew, with ‘Ready…. MARK!’ as the car crosses the line. You see the nose of the car dive as the driver hits the brakes to decelerate. Now the sound of the tires working against the road takes over, and if it’s dark, you’ll see the rotors start to glow as the car heads for the timing crew.

One or two tenths of a mile down the road is the timing crew. If you’re on the timing crew, you hear the ‘Mark!’ come in over the radio, and seconds later the car comes into view under braking around the last few curves. The race car pulls up and stop right next to you. If you look at the driver you’ll see him breathing heavy against the five point race belts. The navigator slides open a hatch in their plastic side window and hands you their time card. You can feel the heat from the engine and the brakes. You write down the time for this run on their card and hand it back to the navigator. You can smell the hot race brakes as the navigator checks the time. He gives you a thumbs up and a big smile, then turns to his driver and they motor out to the next stage.

What about in between the start and the finish? That’s where the folks called marshals have what amounts to their own private spectator areas. At each spot where the course intersects with another road, the rally needs to staff that intersection to make sure it stays closed. If you want to get pictures no one else gets, see the race in a way no one else sees it, marshaling gets you that backstage pass for the best viewing.

And finally, the nerve center that holds everything together is ham radio people. A full compliment of radio folks, with their two meter radio bouncing signals over the mountains, are the eyes and ears of the organizers and race teams. When a car crashes and needs their pit crew to come and get them, or when everything is ready to start the next racing section, the amateur radio operators report everything back to the pits.

Rally Tennessee is right around the corner, and is still looking for guys and gals to volunteer for all of these spots. So, if you want to get track-side and, at the same time, help out the community with this all-volunteer race, they need your help! More information, along with schedules and sign up, is on RallyTennessee.com, as well as sign up for text message updates about and during the race. You can call Amy Feistel at 919-434-3267 with any question about volunteering.

Note to editors:
• Rally Tennessee takes place in the Town of Linden and the City of Lobelville, Perry
County, Tennessee.
• Rally Tennessee will be held on May 29-30, 2010.
• For motorcycles, Rally Tennessee is part of the Atlantic RallyMoto™ Cup, the only rally
format championship for motorcycles in America. The Atlantic RallyMoto™ Cup is part
of NASA Rally Sport’s trademarked RallyMoto™ program.
• For cars, Rally Tennessee is part of the Atlantic Rally Cup.
• For media support contact Amy Feistel: +1 919.434.3267, amy@nasarallysport.com

We started off with a snow “storm” passing through on friday night. Usually, I love snow and i want tons of it, but this was the weekend of our first Rallycross and there wasnt going to be a cancellation because of lack of participants getting there. well, we kind of got lucky. The snow did not really stick to the roads, but 1-3″ stuck to the grasslands. a big plus for us, or so we thought.

Ray Metts and Pete Guthrie were the co-chairs for this rallyX and we all planned on getting to the BMW Farm field around 10am to help setup and get out of there to spend the rest of the day inside, and warm. Pete and Charlie picked the bus up on friday night, and started to head out towards the course on saturday morning.

Here is were we knew it was going to be a long day. They couldnt get the bus/trailer up to the site so we had to ditch the trailer along the path to the rallyX site and use our cars to take supplies up to the course and the bus.

So we did and when all was said and done, we had a stack of cones and 3″ of snow to try to setup a course. From our last event, we knew that this location is very slippery and no one would have fun if we made it a tight, technical course. So we had to open the course up and make it flow smooth so people wouldnt be getting stuck and sliding out off course.

We were lucky to have our friend Pat, who had a FWD car there that we used as a guinea pig to see where there was lack of traction, and it turned out pretty much the whole course was lack of traction, but as the day went on, it kind of dried out and we were able to fine tune the course so even Pat could have a good go and have some speed round the course.

6pm, that was it. We had it and wanted to go home.

Race day was cold. Ray and I got to the site around 7am and the ground was a frozen tundra, our plan to have a course for slippery conditions needed to be looked at, because if the ground is hard and frozen, people are going to get traction. So we hoped for a little warmth and sunshine to soften things up.

This was Charlie and I’s first race as the new VPs of the rallyX program and boy are we glad we had some help. We learned the ropes and had a blast. Ray and I did very well this race. I finished 1st overall and 1st in class, picking up FTD, FTC1&2 (fastest time of the day, fastest time of course 1 and 2) and Ray finished 3rd overall and 3rd in class. Not bad for a track that we all thought would throw us around because of the slickness.

It was fun. and I cant wait until next month to do it again!

First place in class. NO4

the schedule and the pre-registration will be up shortly. we’re trying to make it $5 off if you pre-pay/pre-register for an event.

we need at least 25 people signed up (payed or unpayed) for an event to happen.
SO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

http://www.thscc.com/rallycross for more info (in a few days hopefully)

Our first run was on Sunday. this is what the creek looked like then.

It rained really hard on Wedn. Lots of roads around here were flooded. Today (friday) we went back on the same trail and this is where we stopped. After 5 miles, we saw this .

It was either cross, or turn around and run back 5 miles (hahh yea right)…. So what did we decide to do on a December day?

The water was COLD. our legs were freezing. We knew the path from crossing there before so it was concrete under our feet.

All in all it wasnt bad. Id do it again.

Well its always good because we get to race!.. but bad because that means ive got to get some susp and what not so i dont do more damage to the car. My plans, if it were a non-points, was to just go out and have fun, and maybe even take another car. But Team 9one9racing is in the race for seasons points leader. Both Ray and I have good chances of getting some trophies this season. That will be awesome. We’ve had a trend this season, Team 9one9racing has trophied each race this year (as far as i know we have) and well, If Ray gets a trophy, then I dont, and if I get a trophy, Ray doesnt.
So here’s to the last race and to both Ray and I getting some trophies!

Cheers M8

Right off the bat I’ve got to congratulate my teammate and friend Sir Ray Metts from New Bern for placing first in his class (SO4). He did a damn good job racing on some bald tires in a new-to-him car (in a way). This course was long, fast and fun. Very Fun!! props to the Chairs who put it together.

Ray had some really fast times in his class… he went all out.

I wish I could say the same.lol. The morning started out with a parade lap around the course, which was good because it’s been so long since anyone has been out there that we forgot how to drive. hah.

Some fast drivers out there this race. The morning session didnt go so well (seems like a trend in the past 2-3 races). I was hitting cones left and right. I just couldnt get the car settled after going over bumps/rutts, and it showed… you could litterally push the rear end of the car down with 2 fingers… my struts were shot. I couldnt do anything at the moment, so I just had to do my best and try to avoid the jumps, or really the rebound.

The afternoon was better, I managed to make up some time, but those cones I hit in the morning kept me from getting 3rd place. (got 4th).. no biggy though. Ive already made some arrangements on some suspension.

Our next race is Nov. 21st at the same location and Ray and I are chairs for this race. so we’ve got some planning to do!