Last few rallyX's the PA Saab vigilantes have been showing up to. And this guy (Mike Vanino) has been taking great pictures-




take a look!

http://www.mikevaninophotography.com/rallyx-2-8-15.html

Did you guys loose any studs? I noticed a lot of studded tires on the other entries in the pit area. Studs will l soon be standard equipment. You competitors should take up a collection and buy the guy with the T-bird some studded tires , or maybe a set of tire -chains.
Looked like fun, but I would have froze, standing on the course working. Winter is for working in the shop on cars, which I seem to be doing a lot.
It's great that you bring 2 cars and let 3 other guys share in driving.

Yep, and this time I got beat by every single one of them, in my own cars! I had 2 fairy good timed runs (even including my penalty cones!) but I BOMBED big time on a few runs, got stuck, and missed a gate, so I had no chance on the averages. 25th place for me. Was still a fun time!

I did not notice any missing studs, but I did not fully inspect either. Today I replaced the busted shock mount bushing on the blue 900, and put it back into "road use" by putting 120 miles on it No problem's other than the busted shock mount bushing and a busted headlight bearing clamp sleeve on the silver 900. To be expected though... it was pretty rough out there.

The guy with the T-bird I am fairly sure was un-aware that the throttle had more than "on / off" because that seemed to be all he was able to use. Especially at the start-line (I was running start!) I got blasted quite a few times with snow/mud. Oh well. I think they also had to pull him out with the truck what, 4 times? haha.

DeLorean wrote:

Is that 'SwedeSports' street/track car? Waht happened to the green stripes. Either way, I love that pic

I chucked a few studs. Also chewed up the tread blocks a bit. Really happy with the way those Winterforce tires are working though.

I probably would have been within the top ten if I had not high centered the skidplate in the plow berm on the first run. Went a bit wide, and got the outside front tire into the soft stuff and it just sucked me in. It was still a blast, I even had a good time hooning around in the snow with the plow truck.

The T-Bird just had the wrong tires, open diff, and rear wheel drive, not ideal... Put a decent set of snow tires on that car, and it would have done much better.

Adrian,

Yep... that's mine. Since I stuffed it at the Pagoda a few years back, I have been slowly working on refreshing the body/paint/graphics.

Planning to keep the Dolomite Sand, but change the two tone color, along with the pinstripe color.

Nice pictures, looks like you guys did a good job of representing Saabs as always.

My 9-3 has reached the point where it's getting expensive to maintain so I'd been toying with the idea of DD'ing a 900 again and these pictures certainly aren't helping!

You guys certainly have some funny wheel choices for rallyX

Yeah, I was the only one with proper Saab rally wheels



I also happened to place the highest. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

I haven't done a full stud inspection either, but I don't think I lost any, though the front tires have odd wear around the stud holes, like they were trying real hard to tear themselves out, I'll have to get a picture of the damage at some point. Real fun event as always, though I'm kinda annoyed I didn't put a few Hawk decals on the car and fill out their contingency form http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/ass ... Rally1.pdf Between Erica and I we'd have $45 worth of Hawk certificates from that race .

Paul

paulh wrote:I haven't done a full stud inspection either,

I've seen that wear around stud holes (hehe) on winter rallyX tires. If you don't dig down to the ground the studs tend to stay in. If you have any transitions from snow/ice to frozen dirt you can kiss your front studs goodbye. If you can stud them yourself you can add a little glue to help hold them in. It helps a little.

paulh wrote:though I'm kinda annoyed I didn't put a few Hawk decals on the car and fill out their contingency form

Photoshop & records doctoring?

paulh wrote:Yeah, I was the only one with proper Saab rally wheels



I also happened to place the highest. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

I haven't done a full stud inspection either, but I don't think I lost any, though the front tires have odd wear around the stud holes, like they were trying real hard to tear themselves out, I'll have to get a picture of the damage at some point. Real fun event as always, though I'm kinda annoyed I didn't put a few Hawk decals on the car and fill out their contingency form http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/ass ... Rally1.pdf Between Erica and I we'd have $45 worth of Hawk certificates from that race .

Paul

Edit next day! Something went wrong with my post last night and the text vanished.

I was suggesting putting the stickers on and just sending in a pic as it is now. Do you have to submit an in action pic? When I used to use Mazdaspeed you just needed to show results sheets with the car, not pics in action

paulh wrote: though the front tires have odd wear around the stud holes, like they were trying real hard to tear themselves out,

The studs are all still there on mine (or I should say Jeff Shores) studded tires, but they show the exact same damage to the tread, like they were really taking some abuse. This was not there before the event either - and I had put a few hundred miles of "normal" road use on them too, with some highway / higher speeds. I'm not sure how many events (maybe just one more) till they start getting flung out... Does seem like transitions between spinning and traction is really hard on studs.

Rally x really wears tires. We saw more wear on a pair of brand new rally tires at a rally x than we did during an entire rally. I suspect its a combination of the tire not properly warming up and because its spinning and changing direction a lot more than in a rally.

makes sense I guess. So at a rally X, you just bust tires up...