1981 Mazda GLC

February, 1998, I bought this car in Oregon as a turn-key rally car. Terry Unger who had rallied it about a year sold it to me. He bought the car from the guy who built it, Jack Horn. I've never met Jack Horn, but I know he rallied the car for about four years. He won the NORPAC U2 championship in it. So I knew I was buying a capable car. After Terry mailed me a video he made of the car I decided to buy it. I bought a one way ticket to Portland. Terry picked me up from the airport and let me drive it back to his house on the freeway. The thing was wandering all over the place. It felt impossible for it to go in a straight line without constant correction. I sat in silent worry about having no return ticket to LA. I commented on the handling to Terry who mentioned it was caused by the grooved roads from the winter chain season. I really didn't want to buy this car if I was going to have to drive two days back to LA like this. Especially with the major pass between CA and OR potentially snowed over. I convinced him to split the cost of an alignment with me. We took it to an alignment shop in the Portland suburbs. It was a partly sunny winter day. The air had a bite to it. Portland has some nice neighborhoods and there were trees and pockets of snow all over the place. It was a refreshing change from all the concrete of the South Bay part of Los Angeles. So, I thought in my mind, even if I decided not to buy the car I had a nice short trip to Portland nonetheless.

When we got it to the shop, they immediately put it up on the rack. Our alignment guy was super-animated. He was definitely someone difficult to forget. He explained every step of what he did with great enthusiasm and body language. When we got to rear toe, the screen registered a whopping 3 degrees of toe out. He quickly set about rotating the toe cams, but there was no way to bring it back. He saw immediately that the trailing arms were bent out. Without hesitation he grabbed a giant sledge hammer and started wacking away at the trailing arms. He sure got them straight again; I was initially shocked by his technique, but then I realized - heck - I knew enough about rally to know that the giant sledge hammer is the rally alignment tool of choice;-). With the rear toe set to zero it tracked nice and straight, and I was happy.

The first day of the drive back I noticed a number of things about this car: First there was a nasty exhaust leak. Even with freezing cold temperatures, snow, sleet, and rain outside I had both windows rolled nearly all the way down so I wouldn't go into a coma breathing all the exhaust fumes (this leak is now fixed). Another thing was that this car sounded way louder and looked way meaner than it really was. Going up the passes I would merge into the lane with all the semis and motor homes. This thing had no power - it looked like a race car with all of the stickers Terry put on it plus the bright blue race stripe down the center, but it got a lot of stares from Honda Civics drivers that blew by me up the passes even as I revved the hell out of the Mazda (in second gear going 50 mph up the steep pass in a 65 mph zone. It would bog in third. A nasty combination of tall gearing and miserly fuel economy; i.e. no power. It hit me then that I had just bought the legacy child of the OPEC Oil Embargo.) How embarrassing. 

The second day of the drive took me through California, and since the temperatures were a heck of a lot warmer my mind started to drift to other things. I was starting to eye every dirt road around as I still hadn't driven the Mazda on dirt. My chance came at the Cuesta Grade near San Luis Obispo. I took a dirt canyon cut-off and drove a five mile twisty dirt road. Initially, I was worried that it would be difficult to throw the tail out on a front wheel drive car. Rear wheel drive cars are easy to throw the tail out, having driven rear wheel drive cars most of my life, and I thought rear drivers or 4-wheel drives were the only way to go; but, the Mazda was relatively cheap so I bought it even though it was a front driver. Besides most race cars nowadays are front drivers so why should I worry. This worry about fwd wasn't a problem, the tail came out nicely and easily on the curves. I was surprised. I also gave left foot braking a go for the first time since getting stuck for a year with my grandmothers automatic Chrysler with loose torque converter an eternity ago. Wow. Left foot braking worked great! I was hooked on rally driving. I felt like a hero being able to slide the car around the bends. It brought back memories of when I was a kid watching Group B rally cars on I think it was ABC Wide World of Sports. The Audis, Lancias, Peugeots, etc going insanely fast on the dirt roads in Greece. The sensation was addictive and I didn't want it to stop, but I had to get back...

Well there was another opportunity to drive on the dirt I thought. All those memories of watching rally on TV made me remember another story many years ago. As a kid growing up in Santa Barbara, the roads looked similar to the roads of Greece I had seen on TV. So I decided to take my Mom's Honda Civic for some "rally" action up in the mountains. I had a hard time getting the car sideways. I always ended up plowing in massive understeer mode and kicking up lots of dust. The dirt roads were still fun and there were a few little jumps to take. About the third time out there "rallying" there was a massive pop, pop, pop. I had just popped about five spot welds in the unibody including the left sway bar mount. I nursed the wiggling Honda home, drilled out the spot welds and bolted everything up again with grade five bolts. That was the end of my young rally career, or so I thought, as my mind shifted to 4x4 trucks like Ivan Ironman's Toyota. Those could withstand the abuse I thought. I eventually bought a truck, and along with it my interest shifted to rock-crawling jeep trails in 4-low. Now here it is many, many years later and I'm back in Rally mode. What got me back in rally mode is that after many years of driving a 4x4, I started to miss sports cars. I got a new job and my truck was racking up some high miles so I bought a 2nd gen. Eclipse GSX as a second car. Right off a stock Eclipse just wasn't going to do. My truck handled better. 

I saw a Road/Race Car in Street Power Magazine and was thoroughly impressed. Mike, the Mitsubishi guru got me started. On one of my many visits to the Road/Race shop I saw Timmerman's 323 GTX rally car being prepped and that really got me interested (much more than Rod Millen's ex-rally car posted on the wall of the shop). I was surprised that rallying existed in California and that people were doing it as a "hobby." Mike turned me onto the California Rally Series and Ben's Rally Page and that's how I ended up buying the Mazda GLC. Which brings me back to driving the GLC home to LA. I had much earlier decided to take the Santa Barbara route back to LA. The scenery is a lot nicer than the Golden State Freeway (I5). Well since I was going through SB I might as well take a short detour over some dirt roads. I decided to take a dirt canyon road over the mountains. I headed out that way. It had been an intense winter so far and the creeks were raging rivers. I started to worry about the creek crossings. After winding partway up the canyon and making three nerve racking crossings I was stopped by the fourth creek crossing. The road was fairly washed out and the were large rocks strewn all over it as well as foot and a half deep fast moving water. Dang, I hadn't even reached the dirt part yet. Turnaround time, but I was also worried about reversing the earlier crossings and getting swept down the creek. It went alright and I eventually made it back to LA. :-), the happy new owner of a real rally race car.

My impression of the car: although low in power (67 stock horsepower) and pretty nonexistent torque, it's a blast to drive. It handles great and is light.

In March of '98 I went to the California Rally Series Rally school held out in the high desert town/city of Ridgecrest, CA. This school, held every year in different locations, was fantastic. For a nominal fee (I don't think they run this school for a profit) they pretty much taught me all I really needed to know for my first rally - Rim of the World in May of '98. I highly recommend the school to anyone remotely interested in Rally. You don't need a rally car to go. I got my first race results with the Mazda at the school rallycross. Here are the results. Check out their web site for more details http://www.californiarallyseries.com/

The car: 1490 cc E5 Motor, ported stock manifolds and head, mid-high range cam, lightened flywheel, upgraded clutch and pressure plate, 5 speed, front wheel drive, 323 sedan front rotors and calipers, rear drums and spindles, 323 sedan control arms, Terratrip rally computer 303+, Procomp 130 watt lights, etc. I feel like the car is making about 80-90 hp modified. It is also an extremely rugged car. I feel I abuse the heck out of it and it keeps running great.

Safety: full welded cage, Kirkey seats - it seems that these are very popular up north. I like them. They offer lots of support and really lock you in, but I think my next seats will be Cobra carbon fiber ones instead of aluminum.

Tires: a heavily used set of Bridgestone's came with car. These tires worked well. They lasted one rally. I replaced them with Michelin M4's. The Bridgestones had more lateral grip, but I'm happy with the Michelins.

• The events

(I'll continually update these with pictures and text as I get free time):

Rim of the World, Palmdale California5/98: 2nd Place Friday and 1st Place Saturday, Stock Class.

Reno Pro Rally, Reno Nevada7/98: DNF Hit a BIG rock in the middle of the road, killed the oil pan :(

Gorman Ridge Pro Rally, Gorman California  8/98: 4th Place, Stock Class

Treeline Pro Rally, Azusa California 11/98: 1st Place, Open Class (2wd)

Laughlin International Pro Rally 12/98: 2nd Place, Group 2

Holtville Rally Cross: 3rd Place Rally Cross Saturday and 3rd Place Rally Sprint Sunday, Open Class (2wd)

Rim of the World Pro Rally, Palmdale California 5/99: 4th Place Friday, Open Class (2wd) and 2nd Place Saturday, Stock Class

Treeline Pro Rally, Azusa California  11/99: 4th Place, Open Class (2wd)

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