100 AW RALLY

Since my last entry we’ve been to Missouri and back with our friend Burak. Burak of BTM-Sport won his class at Rally America’s 100 Acre Wood rally. He won by a large margin and he’s too humble to credit himself, instead he hoped out loud that there would be more two wheel drive competitors at the upcoming events. Things went smoothly for us despite difficult weather. Ramana came with us and enjoyed all of the same hardships including having to answer to everyone why he wasn’t racing. (we’re not the only ones working on sponsorship).

We landed in Missouri in a serious downpour. The captain warned us on the descent into St Louis that we were trying to beat the weather so we could have a safe landing. When we aborted the landing at the last minute (landing gear up, or down? Not sure) my palms got a little sweaty. We were reminded of 100aw 2006 as we ran through a wall of rain to the rental car for the 100 mile drive to Rolla from St Louis.

Friday was cold, Saturday was cold and I was also fighting a cold which made that the theme of the weekend.

I also tested my new Pelican tool case this weekend.
We weren’t as organized as possible at the rally and we (the team) are working on improving this for the next event. If something had gone wrong with one, or both cars we might have not made it out of service without a time penalty.

We have two galleries of 100AW rally. One is here. The other is a more personal link with more pictures not associated to racing but of the whole trip.

I took a lot of pictures of Evos for some reason.  I also have a couple of fly-by videos on Youtube if anyone’s interested. Tanner’s new Evo X had a good showing for being such a new car. I think we can expect good things from it. It’s also light for a late model car.

Sponsorship for DSG’s team

We’ve spent a lot of time this week and the week before on sponsorship proposals. We have some good leads on quality products (ones that we’d actually hope to use!) and with Ramana and Ron helping something good should come of it. Ramana will be driving Bill’s 240rs MAXI S09, (the oldest car with the longest name) at Redline Time Attack events. Bill figures that he can tend to the car’s needs better when he’s not distracted by both duties. Ramana should be the perfect master, partner, cowboy, driver of the Maxi with his experience in analyzing faults and getting the car to be where it should be.  It should be a productive operation because the car will be fast with an organized team.

The Evo will be ready for the summer. I’ve been trying to pare-down my personal lifestyle to pay for racing, this means homemade cardboard driving shoes. The schedule for ALEX is looking something like this:

• May 16 Ascutney
• July 11 Okemo
• August 8- North Carolina  Redline Time Attack
• Sept 19- Ascutney II

I’m trying to fit a COM event at NHMS in there somewhere. I’m bummed about not making the Englishtown Redline Event but August, like other Augusts is devoted to my other personal passion; attending weddings. I’m sponsored by roses, tears and poems for weddings.

I’m going to do one COM event in the summer because I want to break 1:14 at NHMS in Chicane-Chicane. It’s my white whale and it will happen. Why is this a big deal? It will be a club record, it will also mean that I’ve overcome previous obstacles in doing so. These have included- Flat tires, pierced oil filter, broken 4th gear, shredded power steering belt (4 different events)

At this very moment

We are welding a floor pan. The shop smells like a tire factory fire. We had Tony’s Evo X on the dyno the other day. It makes 189whp for those wondering what a stock Evo X makes on a Dyno Dynamics dyno.  Some other shops have reported 250whp stock.  We also tested a Works air filter, reported on their website to make 20+ hp with no changes.  They had have the “no changes” part right.

I’m looking forward to riding my bicycle to work.  (still) and I’m not sure why.

Rob stopped by a few days ago. I don’t know Rob’s last name but I know him online as Robevo RS from the Evo forums. It was great to finally meet someone who I’ve been talking to for about a year online. We helped him find a 34mm restrictor for his Evo X rally/Hillclimb car build. The car was fresh from Chris Howard’s shop where Chris once again outdid himself in constructing a Replica Mitsubishi factory cage in Rob’s car. It looked amazing. I think that I’m going to bring my car to Chris after this season.