Mt. Hood on the hood

Here's the car with the new graphics on the hood.  It looks great!

Almost ready for Olympus!

A few more details... And the Olympus Driving Order

We've been plugging a way at some smaller details since Doo Wops.  Here, the gauge panel is finally done. 

We also got both radiator fans working.  We were thinking that one of the fans only ran with the A/C, which isn't installed in our car.  So, we figured that one fan wouldn't work- and that's how we ran Doo Wops.  But in fact, both fans run as long as all the relays and fuses are plugged in.


Dan has been working on adding some grating to the front of the car, to protect the radiator from rocks and sticks.  Dan has also finally solved the puzzle to allow us to hook up the oil pressure sensor.  That should be done soon.

The car gets some more RalliTek vinyl tomorrow!  It will get Mt. Hood on the hood of the car.  Now it will be even harder to discern from Mark Mager's car.  But we have black wheels and he has gold.  So that helps.

Dan got to choose if he'd drive first or second at Olympus.  Day 1 has 75 miles or so.  Day 2 has only 38 miles or so, but the Day 2 roads are somewhat preferred because they're more smooth and flowing. 

Dan chose Day 1.

We're going to do the recce at Olympus, which means we get to drive the roads once in advance of the rally.  We're also running the Jemba notes, which detail every single corner on the road.  This is different from "route book" that we usually use- which only shows the most dangerous corners. This should be fun!

Olympus is April 24-25 and is based in Ocean Shores, Washington.

Doo Wops Video - In Car

Here's some in-car video that I mixed together.  Some forward facing video, and some facing Paul and I.  This is from the Smith Creek Stage.

Terrific video from Doo Wops

Here's a really good video put together by Sean Sexton from RalliTEK.  It features both our car and Mark Mager's...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spius5nDiM4

Cool Doo Wop Photo

This one is from Matt Young at WorldRallySport.com

First rally, Finished! Doo Wops was great.

The first rally in the new car was this past weekend. The Doo Wops Rally, in Aberdeen, Washington.

The rally went FANTASTICALLY.

The only down side was that Dan couldn't make it.

However, at Dan's insistence, I took the car and shook it down along side longtime rallier Paul Eklund, who navigated for the event. Paul filled in at the last minute, also after having provided lots of advice on the build of the car, and providing many parts through his Primitive Enterprises.

Our goal for the weekend was modest: Finish the rally.

We set the car up for the minimum turbo boost on Saturday and I set out learning how to drive a turbo all wheel drive car. The first stage was tarmac- a good thing because it's more predictable than gravel. Then we moved to a couple of gravel stages. Our stage times were upper third. On the last two stages, which were 80% tarmac, we set top 5 times. On the Saturday rally, we finished 4th overall, out of 28 entrants.

On Saturday night, we washed the car and put some fuel in it. It's nice to have a car that's perfect, especially on the first rally. And this just shows how excellent the work was that all of our supporters did.

Sundays stages had more gravel. I learned a lot about using my left foot to brake- A common technique for making the car turn better on loose surfaces. We did turn the boost up one notch, and the car's power really was surprising. The first two stages were very marbly, and my confidence was still not high enough to be very fast. As the day progressed, we got faster. In the end, we finished 6th overall, behind some very formidable competitors.

Here are some links to some photos, videos, and results. Also keep an eye on the blog for more media as it becomes available.

Video by Doug Powell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afTGK_Myzr4


Video by Mike Schmeling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA6q8yIW2KQ 



Some good photos:

Here's the car at Parc Expose...

Here's our car parked next to the other RalliTEK car owned by Mark Mager. Mark's wing is cooler than ours.
Here's an awesome photo taken by Timm Von Derau on the Palix Stage...

Paul is way better at spraying champagne than I am...
Here's the whole 2010 Doo Wops team: Nicole Carrick, Sean Sexton, Bill Kostich, Paul Ekund, Doug Heredos, Doug Powell, Patrick Carrick...

Saturday Results
Sunday Results

Our next rally is the Olympus Rally, April 24-25. Hope to see you there!

Doug

Details...

Here are some progress photos. Lots of little details getting wrapped up now. Well... they appear "little", but each little detail represents a fair bit of time. Fun stuff, though.

Here are the door cards that Dan fabbed. Awesome work. they look factory. Well, the top part is factory, but the bottom part is custom, to clear the roll cage.


Rally intercom mounted... Actually in a place where we can reach the controls (right between the seats). In the old rally car, one had to perform Chinese contortionist moves to change the volume...

Spare tire mount, along with a fire bottle and first aid kit...


Tool bag mounted just behind the seats (left) and warning triangles, tow rope, and spill kit (right)