For this, I took a stroll down memory lane, to the [url=http://solo2.org/forums/4/115855/ShowThread.aspx]2006 100AW thread[/url]. Rally had suprised me in many ways at my first event, and its interesting to compare my thoughts after the 2007 iteration.
I mention alot about car setup and power. I made a number of changes to the car since last year. A reflashed ecu which makes a bit more power up top, though it does so at the expense of the lower range to some extent. The motor also recieved an unplanned rebuilding. I am still running AGX's, but this time they still have oil in them [:)] I also upgraded the springs to the Tein g-techs. These helped, but were not the magic bullet I had hoped for. My ride height, at least in the rear, is still too low. The rates are higher, but not high enough. Or perhaps its because they are progressive rates, which was news to me when they arrived. I also went back to the 22mm front sway bar. It had worked so well in auto-x, and it helps in rally, too. At least it does for me since I can't do extra camber adjustment in PGT. Other than that, the car was the same, right down to the tires, which also were used at Rallye de Paris last fall.
Overall, these things helped the car. Its still not enough to make up for the lack of a turbocharger, but it helps. However, the stage notes helped far more. With more practice with them and confidence in them, they will help even more.
I also mentioned how much more confident I felt on the slower sections. Unfortunately, there really weren't any slow sections this year. I still can hit a junction better than I series of high speed turns, though the difference wasn't as exacerbated as last year. Even during the rally, I made great strides and, I must say, keeping your foot in it through a series of 5-6 blind turns in a row at 70+ is a great feeling when you make it through. This is still my weakest area, without a doubt. I also found I tended to leave some room for error in the braking zones. Part of this was by design to put finishing before being fast, but part of it was being too cautious. Cody noticed and chided me to get on it more, which definitely helps.
Beyond car part ideas and driving, there were three things I noticed about rally that were somewhat incongruent with my expectations.
1) That rally is a true team sport, incorporating the driver, co-driver, and crew.
2) That rally is (still) an endurance test, more-so even than a test of outright speed.
3) That long/night stages drive the same as short/day stages.
These same things crept into my thinking during the rally, and I'd like to reexamine each one.
First, rally is a team sport. If anything, this rally, as well as my experience in Texas, solidified this belief even more. At Paris, when the headgasket gave up the ghost, it was the stellar crew that noticed its early warning and then thought of and executed a plan that allowed me to limp the car to the finish. At 100 Acre Wood, the team was even more important. With stage notes instead of tulips, there is an immense pressure on the driver. The working memory requirements are very demanding. There were times, especially early in the rally, where I found myself zoning out and not really listening to Cody. Obviously that's not good, but the information can be overwhelming. Later in the rally, with more practice, things improved. For Cody as well, I'm sure staying on top of the notes was a challenge. More so, I'm sure, was the pestering he was getting from the lump in the left seat. "Keep going." "Slow down." "I'm at the L4". "uh, what?". Luckily he didn't have to endure the "uh-oh, Uh-Oh, UH-OH" that John did [:)] Achieving a synergy of communication is crucial to exploiting the notes fully and its not as easy to accomplish as it may seem. This is especially so since its a moving target, requiring Cody to slow down on the tighter sections, and speed way up when we're doing 80mph.
Beyond inside the car, the rest of the team is just as critical. We didn't have any major mechanical troubles, but that was in part due to the eagle eyes of the service crew. Finding loose bolts, improvising a light bar, chasing down wiring issues. All of this needs to be done timely, accurately, and with great coordination and care. As the driver, I pretty much am mentally dead except when I see the start clock, so I'll let Jeff, James, and/or Phil go into details of what they did and how they planned it. I can attest, however, to the fact that everytime we rolled onto the blue tarp, they had a plan, each person knew what they needed to do, and they went to work, just as focused on the task at hand as Cody and I were on stage.
The endurance aspect of the sport also serves to emphasize the importance of the service crew. Rally is exceptionally tough on cars. Maybe the top flight cars here and in international competiton have enough money poured into them that they don't break very often. That's not the case in my budget effort with what is essentially a stock 2.5RS with a rollcage. Things break. All the time. Without even doing anything. I think an enumeration of the stuff I broke this rally will demonstrate my point. The front bumper cover ripped from the car, a side skirt ripped from the car, the catalytic converter smashed into oblivion, the mid pipe is banged up but still has another rally in it, the strut bolts kept coming loose, and the muffler section bolts were completely gone after the rally. This, I might add, is all without going off the road once, or even driving at 'maximum attack'. I might also add, that this was a very smooth route. The car-breaker roads near Ellington weren't in the program this year, nor were the big jumps near Viburnum. However, with the weather on Saturday, keeping on the road and perserving the car proved plenty tricky.
Finally, there are the long and night time stages. It didn't effect me last year. It did this year. I think its because I was driving faster. Before my next rally, I'm going to pony up for a proper light pod and replace the 1000's with another pair of 4000's. This is partly due to my old light bar being mauled in its infusion to the lumber, but mostly because I need more light, and I need it mounted higher up. The notes help with what you can't see, but its hard to get it right when you can't see the turn in point or the apex.
The long stages were more difficult for the same reason: I was going faster. However, its not quite what you think. I realized that there is a very, very big difference between driving in an auto-x, or even around a racing circuit, and driving a rally stage. It occured to me that auto-x is all about finding the line and doing what it takes to stay on that line. A race circuit is all about percision. You get more laps than you can fathom on a fairly simple course (at least from an auto-x/rally perspective!). Of course, all this practice means you can experiment with how to eek out every last morsel of speed from yourself and your car, and then put it all together. Rally is a wholly different beast. While the others are Newtonian objects traveling around the tarmac course under the guise of a few basic laws, rally requires quantum driving. That is to say, its probablistic. The turns don't have numbers. You don't get to look back through the cones on your walk. Even with notes, you simply guess. You think about your probablity of making it through the turn. You can slow way down, and be fairly certain of survivial, or you can go for the win and give yourself a 50-50 shot at tracking out into a tree. This is because you have to make so many assumptions about the turn and the road surface, again, even with notes. Experience, notes, and recce allow for a finer differential in setting your 'driving probablity', but its still there. You can't drive optimistically the entire event. I think this is why having a good handling car is so crucial. Its not necessarily about max grip, but about being able to adjust your line and feel confident in the car.
Alright, I think I've rambled on long enough. I just thought it would be fun to close with a cross-year comparision of objective performance.
| 2006 | 2007 |
# of starters O/A | 51 | 57 |
# of starters O/A (regional) | 20 | 28 |
# of starters in PGT (total) | 10 | 11 |
# of starters in PGT (regional) | 3 | 5 |
Finishing position O/A (TW) | 12/20 | 7/27 |
Finishing position PGT (TW) | 3/3 | 2/5 |
Finishing position O/A (100AW) | 10/17 | 5/24 |
Finishing position PGT (100AW) | 2/3 | 1/4 |
Finishing position O/A | ~25/39 | ~16/44 |
Finishing position PGT (total) | 7/8 | 4/8 |
Best Stage rank O/A | 18 | 13 |
Speed Factor (overall average speed) | 36.51 | 47.36 |