The weather was a little warm for this one, but who can complain about sunny skies? Ron, my co-driver, was in great spirits and had most of the routes figured out when we met at the start. These shorter events (6 hours) are perfect for the Cobra. The cockpit can start cramping your legs on the longer events.
The run up Lake Hughes Road was beautiful and I realized something. In the early years of running rallies in my home-built car, I always felt I had to prove my creation was faster than all the other cars. I would push it hard and often make a mistake or break the car. That lost us a bunch of rallies. These days, in my older years, I just don't have the energy to push hard for the whole event. That has made me a better competitor. A relaxed state of mind allows you better focus on the problems at hard. A slower pace gives you more time to solve them, too.
We did have some problems on the rally. Our secondary Alfa rally computer failed on leg two and we had a little trouble with keeping track of the multiple tasks to find everything. But, the new engine was running great since I figured out how to limit vacuum advance timing to 10 degrees and that stopped the surging that it was doing while running steady speeds. So, the car was perfect.
The checkpoints were somewhat tricky to find and enter from the proper direction, but Ron got us to each one flawlessly. My timing over the timing hoses has improved too. Maybe it is due to the regular games of ping pong I have been playing to get in shape. As we hit them perfectly, one by one, the pressure was building to maintain the mental focus. We stopped for a quick hamburger at a new Burger King in Rosamond near Willow Springs Raceway and that gave our energy a boost. The run south on a long straight two lane blacktop encouraged me to push a little bit. The Cobra jumps up to triple digits with the slightest bit of pressure on the right pedal and Ron gave me a signal to hold back. He didn't want to jeopardize our perfect score.
And there are SO many ways to ruin your score. Many teams end a rally with thousands of points. We managed to roll all four tires over a pneumatic timing hose on an exact hundredth of a minute (6/10 of a second) on each of 9 checkpoints. It is very easy for a timing crew to have their clock just a little off. It is very easy to be distracted by something and miss that small window of opportunity. On checkpoint three, we heard a big dog barking nearby. I told Ron that a couple of people in my neighborhood had brought home pit bulls. I asked him why do people run the risk of having such dangerous dogs. He said, "peni$ size.......that's why I have a Chihuahua!" I started laughing and the clock started beeping and we almost missed the hose.
It got a little dark by the time we found checkpoint nine on a very well hidden little piece of road near Acton. It was a terrific moment of triumph for us when we scored that final zero. It was a feat that I have been trying to accomplish since my first rally in 1965. There may not have been any Champaign or confetti flying at the awards ceremony, but our spirits were soaring! The perfect zero score was a result that no one has achieved in the ITN Club since 2004. I will treasure this trophy for a long time.
The big Monte Carlo Rally of the year is coming up on November 20. Vegas Baby!
http://www.itnrally.org
RallySnake
Two Lane Blacktop, the Result
Linear Mode
