Rim of the World Pro Rally 1998

Palmdale California, May 1998

Early Friday morning: Got up. Ate. I knew I was in for an exciting weekend. Hop in the Mazda and head out to Palmdale about an hour away from Torrance. Met up with Matt, Melodie, Gerry, and the RRE folks. I saw many familiar faces from the CRS Rally School and lots of new ones.

Friday Morning. The only "high-rise" in Palmdale, the Palmdale Holiday Inn, served as the headquarters. We had a room overlooking the start ramp and the "spectator stage." It was great feeling looking down at all the action from the room. Down at street level it was even better. All the "big budget" teams were there. Plenty of real nice rally cars to look at. A couple of Lancer Evo's (the older II and III models), the Hyundais, one hell of a built Escort, etc. This was my first time ever being at a rally. It was a blast just hanging out and checking out the cars.

Back to business, we got registered and SCCA annual teched in the morning. While waiting to be annual teched, I met Trevor Donnisson. He was a pretty cool guy. He, and his exceptionally clean Dodge Neon, went on to win the National Championship that year. It seemed everyone around was pretty cool. At the annual tech, Tom Bier noticed too much play in the front end. I was worried it wouldn't pass, but he let it go this time and told me to fix it by the next rally. Relief. Next we had to get it teched for the rally in Lancaster at America's tire.

We drove out to Lancaster. On the way out we looked for a place to get tape. We didn't have our names on the car or our helmets as required. This was turning into a hectic day. We stopped at Home Depot. The line was so long I thought we might miss the Mandatory Seed 6 meeting coming up soon. Fortunately the tech for the rally went OK, we managed to make some pretty ugly name labels just as we pulled into the tech bay. They passed us. Again relief. One thing nice about this tech was a live radio broadcast, free food and drink, and hanging out with the other rallyist. The seed 6 meeting turned out to be a review of the material covered in the Rally school, we needed the review. All the "controls" were pretty confusing at first.

Friday evening approached - time for the driving suits to go on. I was itching to get driving. After the start ramp they had a short little spectator stage. It was a fun 90-right into 90 right into 90 left 100 to finish or something like that (I'm sure Matt knows). The cars took off one right after the other to keep the spectators entertained. I tried to keep it floored even though this stage wasn't timed. On the last corner, we pitched the tail out a bit too far. It was easy to catch. The sound of the motor and the feel of the road was really getting me pysched. That short section was a blast, and I wanted more. We did a long transit down the 14 to Sand Cyn, then off to the base of the Magic Mountain stage. My palms were sweating for more driving flat-out, but a long queue of cars greeted us as anticipated by the two minute stage intervals. It was starting to get dark. You could hear the car at the start revving up and rocket off on the starters signal. All the different race engines having a unique and pleasing sound of power. We were having a good time. We would watch the beams of light (headlights/driving lights/cornering lamps/etc) of the car race up a few turns and then disappear around a bend into the thick fog. As the evening darkened and the temperature dropped the fog began to descend. There was a lot of activity going on at the start control. People on radios. The news filtered down. All stages were cancelled except stage 3 because of the extremely low visibility. Man did that suck. I was extremely excited about the night's stages, and now we would barely do any driving. After the long and twisty transit to stage 3 we got our only chance to drive flat out that night. The stage went through the brush covered hills near the desert floor. There weren't a lot of sharp corners and it was a primarily a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear fast stage on rolling hill terrain. 5.4.3.2.1. GO and we were off. I tried to keep it floored the whole time. After about the fifth bend I hit a sandy section and we spun 180º going about 30 mph. Not that bad, but the road was tight and felt lucky we didn't hit anything; reverse, forward, reverse, forward and we were off again pointed in the right direction. The Aliso cyn stage had many blind crests that could be entered in 3^rd or 4^th. After the spin I drove a bit more conservatively not wanting to be surprised again. I was surprised, however, to find that we came in 2^nd in class. It could have been 1^st without the spin... Eric O. and his brother Alfredo took the win in their super clean Corolla. Now I was really excited about Saturday's stages. We arrive at the hotel late at night.

Getting ready for Saturday's stages. Parc Expose. (All photos: Gerry San Juan)

 
More cars. Saturday Parc Expose.

Saturday morning, time to get gas. Over to Chevron for some supreme.

Stage 1: Del Sur south. The first 1/3 of this stage is an uphill climb to a beautiful ridge. We were hating it. The Mazda was not good going uphill. We spent most of the time going up redlining in first gear; this was for 2nd and 3rd gear turns. We were going way too slow for the corners, but every time I shifted into second we would just bog. 2^nd gear was just too fricken tall. It truly sucked. Once we got on the flat of the ridge, things got better. We had 2^nd and 3^rd gear turns on the relatively open chaparral and grass covered ridge, and then a short relatively twisty downhill section to the finish.

Stage 2: Del Sur north. We reversed the previous stage. On the final downhill section the brakes went. The pedal was going to the floor and I slowed way down. The Eclipse behind us almost caught us. We really lucked out because there was a service break coming up.

Service: Mike and crew quickly bled the brakes, and we were back in race mode.

Stage 3: Leona ridge. Much longer than Del Sur with lots of 1^st gear turns. Hit a metal drainage structure with the left rear tire. Surprisingly it didn't puncture. The stage went pretty smoothly. Fun.

 
2nd Gear turn on the Leona Ridge.

 
Getting set up for the flat-out 2nd gear right hander.

Stage 4: A short but fun stage nearer the desert floor. Nice, mostly second gear turns with some creek crossings that ended at Lake Hughes Service.

 
Just arriving at service. Merril's Escort leaving.

Service: Nothing much to do. Just hung out with the RRE folks, Gerry, and Melodie.

Stage 5: Maxwell. This was an awesome stage. It began at the top of the ridge and went downhill from there. Lots of sweepers, jumps, crests through the pines.

At the end of each stage they showed us the preceding cars times. Eric was seeded ahead of us so we could tell how we were doing. At the end of stage 5, we knew we won Saturdays race. What a high.

 
Back at the hotel. The overall winners. Hyundai, Escort, and Supra.

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