2012 Rally of Tall Pines

[Crazyswede]

I competed in the Tall Pines Rally in Bancroft Ontario this past Saturday with Greg Healey in his 1978 Datsun 280Z. There were cars that started the event and only 27 that finished the event. Greg and I managed to complete all the stages without any penalties, flats, or mechanical issues and no offroad excursions. We ended up 22nd/27 finishers overall and 12th out of 18 finishers in the regional rally that we competed in. We also managed 2nd place in Group 5.

I also need to thank Keith, Henry, Jeff, and our own Nick Jacob for coming out to crew for us, keep the service truck warm, and keep us full of fried chicken

The roads for this event are pretty crazy with hundreds of crests, jumps, tight corners, and a few top gear straight sections thrown in for good measure. To make it even more exciting the temperature stayed several degrees below freezing all day and while most of the terrain was gravel there were a few icy corners that kept us on alert. This is an event where you go with gravel tires and snow tires as you never know what the weather will be like when you get there...or even as the day progresses.

I have several incar camera videos that I will get uploaded in the next couple of days and am keeping an eye open for photos as they come in.

[Crazyswede]

[Crazyswede]

A demonstration of what these jumps and loose road surface can do:

http://youtu.be/0QpQCWVFNnk

[SwedeSport]

That really is a cool car. I wouldn't expect it to do so well, or hold up to rally abuse for that matter.

I would imagine it is a little cramped for you. It's rather tight in them before you add all the safety gear.

[Crazyswede]

Here is an example of one of the surprise slippery corners. We had a bit of a late start off the line and that opened the door for the Suby to catch us...we let them by easily enough. But this is a good example of what you might find after a beautiful stretch of gravel. Also we were running soft compound gravel tires vs snows.

http://youtu.be/H_Pv94IjJfc

[Crazyswede]

That really is a cool car. I wouldn't expect it to do so well, or hold up to rally abuse for that matter.

I would imagine it is a little cramped for you. It's rather tight in them before you add all the safety gear.

The car is extremely robust and has very few modifications done to it. Other than the fit and tightness of the cage it would be easier to build a 280z as a rally car than it is a saab 99/900. Greg's car has beefier bilsteins fitted to the stock suspension uprights, a limited slip rear diff with different gearing, and some different springs. it has a cage, stock engine, stock 5 speed transmission etc. It is a very cramped space for myself and for Greg...we bang heads on the roll cage quite often...and we are both just about sitting on the floor.