100 Acre wood
The dust has settled on the 100 Acre Wood Rally, and I for one am happy to get our first proper points on the board!
The Missouri stages were probably the most enjoyable stages I have ever been on. Fast, smooth and flowing, they were everything a gravel rally should be. Competing on such stages with a driver of David’s caliber was also a first for me, and in many ways subjected me to a new level of rally speed. After the first proper stage of the rally, my comment to David of “Well, you are certainly no slouch on gravel!” summed up my initial feelings!
The Friday night stages proved to be a tough start, with brake problems slowing us and although we were close to Antoine L’Estage, we couldn’t quite match him. The Superspecial stages were short but fun, and, due to torrential rain on the previous day, Stages 2 & 4 had to be replaced with Stage 11 because part of the transit section was flooded.
Our Subaru Rally Team USA mechanics – Shaun, Brando and John – did a fantastic job as usual during the service halt and changed our gearbox and rear-diff with minimum fuss, and with the car feeling much more driveable, we were looking forward to the Saturday stages.
Saturday morning started with a very busy Parc Expose in Salem, with plenty of Subaru fans on hand asking for autographs and photo’s with David and Dave Mirra!
We decided to have a good push on the first loop of Saturday’s stages, although unfortunately all did not go to plan. On the first stage of the day, we went off the road at the end of a very fast straight after a communication error, and were very lucky not to incur any damage after landing on top of a tree stump. Fortinately the car reversed off the stump with no damage but we dropped about 18 seconds. We also experienced a drowned car after a watersplash which dropped us more valuable time.
The rest of the day saw David and myself gel more and more with each stage, and although we charged hard after Antoine, we couldn’t do quite enough to catch him, although we did halve his lead by the time we finished in Salem.
Overall it was a very good weekend for the Subaru USA Rally Team, with our team-mates Dave Mirra and Marshall Clarke following us onto the podium in 3rd Overall. I can honestly say that 2011, so far, has been my most enjoyable year in rallying. And the best thing? We are only a third of the way through the season!!
The Missouri stages were probably the most enjoyable stages I have ever been on. Fast, smooth and flowing, they were everything a gravel rally should be. Competing on such stages with a driver of David’s caliber was also a first for me, and in many ways subjected me to a new level of rally speed. After the first proper stage of the rally, my comment to David of “Well, you are certainly no slouch on gravel!” summed up my initial feelings!
The Friday night stages proved to be a tough start, with brake problems slowing us and although we were close to Antoine L’Estage, we couldn’t quite match him. The Superspecial stages were short but fun, and, due to torrential rain on the previous day, Stages 2 & 4 had to be replaced with Stage 11 because part of the transit section was flooded.
Our Subaru Rally Team USA mechanics – Shaun, Brando and John – did a fantastic job as usual during the service halt and changed our gearbox and rear-diff with minimum fuss, and with the car feeling much more driveable, we were looking forward to the Saturday stages.
Saturday morning started with a very busy Parc Expose in Salem, with plenty of Subaru fans on hand asking for autographs and photo’s with David and Dave Mirra!
We decided to have a good push on the first loop of Saturday’s stages, although unfortunately all did not go to plan. On the first stage of the day, we went off the road at the end of a very fast straight after a communication error, and were very lucky not to incur any damage after landing on top of a tree stump. Fortinately the car reversed off the stump with no damage but we dropped about 18 seconds. We also experienced a drowned car after a watersplash which dropped us more valuable time.
The rest of the day saw David and myself gel more and more with each stage, and although we charged hard after Antoine, we couldn’t do quite enough to catch him, although we did halve his lead by the time we finished in Salem.
Overall it was a very good weekend for the Subaru USA Rally Team, with our team-mates Dave Mirra and Marshall Clarke following us onto the podium in 3rd Overall. I can honestly say that 2011, so far, has been my most enjoyable year in rallying. And the best thing? We are only a third of the way through the season!!
posted by David at
10:18
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