Success at Rally West Virginia!!

[matt]

In the top 10 overall.
5th in Max Attack
4th in our class.

The car performed quite well despite rolling on less than ideal tires.
In fact by the end of the day we swapped to what we thought were our old crappy tires" and the car seemed to like them much better.

The skiplate took a major hit and has a rather large dent to prove it, as does the floor behind the drivers seat. We also lost the wheel sensor for the rally computer on the first stage, so the rest of the rally was run the old fashioned way "catch the guy in front of you and follow him."

More details to follow.

[paulh]

awesome! congratulations!

Paul

[Jordan]

Yes, Luke is going to do a proper write up (right Luke?)....but we placed 5th overall in the 2wd series (Including a WRX with the front drive shafts removed, AND some missing competitor penalty points). Out of 39 entrants we placed a solid 9th, a new best overall for Luke and Co-Driver John at West Virginia.

Pics and Video to follow!

[Luke]

This is probably the most significant finish that we have ever had as a team. 24 2wd teams set out in hopes of claiming one of the top 6 positions and the Max-attack prize money. The stages in west Virginia absolutely unrelenting. In places they are rough as a jeep trail, other places fast as an expressway, but always VERY VERY twisty. Nearly every blind crest is followed by a sharp turn... usually off camber and often on the side of the mountain. The stages run on Friday are some of the most intimidating I've ever seen. One slip up and you'll be lucky to get caught by a tree before rolling down an 800 ft ravine.

The goal for Friday was to set consistent but conservative times that ensured us a good position for the max-attack two wheel drive championship. The stages Friday were rumored to be very rough and we'd need to survive them to keep in the running. Saturday we would assess our position and drive accordingly. On the first stage in we had a major impact with a rocky washout across the stage caused by rain the day before. We hit it HARD and it kicked the drivers side up of the car up in the air several feet and for a minute it felt like we might roll. Luckily the car came down solidly on all fours without missing a beat. Several other cars that hit the same ditch were not so lucky. At the first service it was discovered that the impact had bent the sump guard rather severely but no other damage was found.

The stages on Saturday were epic. These are the roads that rally drivers dream about; endless turns, rough enough to weed out the weak, and fast enough to get in trouble if your co-driver blinks. We had some great stage times were even able to beat the megafast Sarasin and Burmiester outright on a couple stages. The stages were quite abrasive and our tires were consumed at an extraordinary rate. We finished the last couple stages on basically bald tires. This left us at quite a disadvantage to the other crews that were fitting new tires at every service but nonetheless we were able to hold our own with a top ten finish and 5th (should have been 4th if a competitors penalty points were properly scored) in max-attack securing us $1000 in prize money. We have some great photos and in car from the event we will be posting soon.

[DeLorean]

Amazing! I wish I could have come out to spectate this weekend, awesome news!

[saab90089]

Congratuations Luke and the team!

Ya Friday stages were really bad. My buddy was the F250 SuperDuty donig heavy sweep and he said he was quite busy friday pulling cars out. Although Saturday's stages took a fair number out of the race.

To make things more interesting Friday the weather was quite hot; at least at the service it was. Seemed like those that were crew just sat under the easy-up in hopes for wind or would just sit the service truck with the AC on.

Thanks for the sticker guys!

Ian

[stig-swoosh]

Welldone!!!

...can't wait to see the photos,sounds like it was a fierce tough rally...

Congrats!!!!

[Geoff]

GO old SAABs! Wahoo!

Slow down there whippersnapper!

[Crazyswede]

They have a clip from the local news posted on Specialstage. looked pretty good.

[Luke]

[Crazyswede]

cool

[Luke]

There was good historic turnout. Besides us there was:

[Jordan]

In-car of the RX-8 losing a its wheel (the first time).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=t1Fr4OqjLZ4

[matt]

I am attempting to do 10 things at once, but I hope to have at least some of my own pics up tonight.

If I find a few awesome ones from max's I may post those as well, but first I'll be looking at mine.

is there a link to the special stage thread?

[Jordan]

News 12 video here... not that exciting.