[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup
Apologies
for the length, but it's a good little yarn. Or at least I like to think
so. And you know, people always ask "so, how'd it go?" and I wanna tell
them everything, but it's never possible. So here it is:
http://www.saabwest.ca/photos/thumbnails.php?album=51 - some pix
This story starts several years back when some friends and I packed into
my Mom's Slovo wagon and drove out to watch the Big Horn Rally in Edson.
Seeing those cars, I figured, "hell, we can do that!". Up to that point,
my motorsports endeavours were just go-karts.
Fast forward several years to this past week. Rally prep to my '74 Saab
99LE were complete, and we were ready. Thursday, I brought the car to
Brad's place so that on Friday, he and Aaron could load it onto the
trailer Aaron had rented to drive it down to Cochrane, where the '04
Kananaskis Rally was to be based. Drive the car to work, and drive it to
Brad's ont he way home. Park the car in front of Brad's house and show him
how everything works, no problem.
Friday, noon. I'm buying lunch near work when Brad calls. Car won't start.
WTF? They have to rush down to Calgary to pick up Aaron's rally car, so
the 99 sits in front of Brad's house. I leave work early and head to
Brad's. Immediately I find that it's the fuel pump not pumping. Doh! All
wiring is good. Rush home and bring over my Dad's VW Vanagon, which I had
packed with tools and spares the night before. Plug in a new fuel pump,
and a-okay, it runs again!
I get on the phone to SDS, the manufacturerers of my engine management
system, used on the street car and the rally car. I want to know if the
fuel pump I had in the car had died because it was mounted external to the
fuel cell, as opposed to internally, as they came from the factory.
Shouldn't be a problem, they said. I also suspected foreign object damage
to the pump from when I had to drill into the fuel cell to mount a vent
line. Most likely the latter - a bit of plastic sucked into the pump,
killing it. I'll check it out later, but for the remainder of the weekend,
no fuel pump related problems! Still, after fixing the pump, I went home
and prepped four more spares, just in case. But back to the narrative...
At this point, I get back to the car and find that I had locked myself out
of it. DUMB! Fortunately, the door wasn't all the way closed. I eventually
managed to wedge a screwdriver into the passenger door and flick open the
locking pin. All the time, I figured Brad's mother would be fretting if
she saw this...and I was furtive with the screwdriver as there were some
people walking nearby!
That figured out, I then turn the area in front of Brad's house into a
mini-service area and swap out the brand new Nokian winter tires for a set
of 'transit' tires for the drive down to Cochrane.
Couple hours later, Chris and Helen and I set off for Cochrane. Chris is
my co-driver, and Helen a good friend who came down as the de facto
'hospitality manager' of our little crew, and to experience the rally
experience. Chris and I share rally car driving duties, as it's smelly and
noisy and generally not very comfortable for long journeys.
Fast forward to the next day, Saturday. Recce day, which means we drive
the car on the stages where the rally is actually run, and make notes.
Chris and I actually use the supplied notes and then make additions. Seems
reasonable for our first rally together. There are basically two stages,
Forest Loop and Powderface. The former is ~5km, the later 35km long. Each
would be run in both directions, multiple times.
Forest Loops is quite fun, I think. Spectators will be there, and it seems
nice and safe. Powderface is much more daunting, several very big
exposures (basically cliffs) that if a car goes off, one is toast.
We finish recce and head back to Cochrane. It's drizzily. The wipers had
been intermittent, and on the way back, they quit. Great! I make a couple
calls to Wayne and Ray, Saab guys in Calgary. Ray used to run a Saab/Jag
shop in Calgary. He's got a wiper motor, and he lives pretty near to
Cochrane. I'm off in the VW Van to Ray's while Chris works on the notes.
Get the wiper motor in the car, tidy up a few things, and then off to
technical inspection. New wiper motor is lovely, no problems, I breathe a
sigh of relief as it is technically a requirement for tech. It would later
transpire that on Sunday, we didn't even use the wipers at all...that's
racing irony for you I guess.
Anyway, technical inspection would be critical, as the car is brand new
and never before been inspected, and I would be issued my new logbook. We
pull into the Cambodian Tire service centre, and one of the other
competitors in my class is looking at the car for kicks, while the tech
inspector ponders over my work - which is more than a year in the making.
I'm relieved, no issues, car passes easily, log book issued. I'm quite
proud of the comment too - "Good prep for first event". My goal had always
been to not technical DNF out of this first event. I like to think I put
together a neat car.
That finished, we have dinner at the local steak joint, then rest.
Tomorrow would be the big day.
Sunday, "race day" in road racing terms; "beginning of Leg 1" in rally
terms. We sit through driver's meetings (safety safety safety!), and then
we're off. We're last to go in the field of 19, no big deal. I don't want
to get into anyone's way anyway. Transit to the first stage, Forest Loop.
Exciting. Helmet on, very trepiditious. "Drive to finish" reminds Chris.
Of course, that's always been the goal.
Marshal counts us down, Chris parallels and I can hear both in my
intercom. 5-4-3-2-1, go! I hit it, and we're off. The rally car's
acceleration isn't very good, especially compared to my street car, but
whatever. First gear, second gear, corner, we're okay so far...then we see
the red cross symhbol on the side of the road, someone's off. We slow,
marshal says stage is cancelled, drive out slowly. Anti-climatic! I honk
the horn at any spectators we pass by, some shrug arms, wondering why
we're not 'on it'. "Sorry! But thanks for coming out", I think.
Turns out three cars had binned it on the first stage. The driver of one
of them needed STARS air ambulance as a precaution. So...second and third
stages also cancelled. Never seen a chopper come in to land so closely. I
joke that it reminds me of the 'Nam...because watching so many movies
about the Vietnam War I figure I might as well have been
there...joking...Several hours later, we run the fourth stage, again
Forest Loop. We finish it, the adrenaline's nice, nice to run in front of
a crowd.
Into service area. The crew wave us in. Hood off, check the fluids, check
the lug nuts. I need food, Helen's got a cheddar dog ready, yum! Wayne
comes by to chat and drop off a cylinder head which I'm going to use on my
street car, rush rush rush. 20 minutes goes by quickly. I pose for pix in
front of the car for Wayne, these are the ones in the link. We refuel, and
head out to the first Powderface stage.
Last again to start, no biggie, but this time an RX7 is behind us after he
crashed off on the Forest Loop, then rejoined. We're off. A few minutes
later, the RX7 catches us and passes, no big deal. The rear end of the car
skirts and dances around the corners - I'm amazed at the commitment he
shows! My driving needs work!
We mind our own business and slowly make our way. Second and third gear
mostly. Many blind crests, not a lot of confidence in me yet to go over
them full throttle. We're slow. About 25km into the stage, I feel a
misfire, push on through, engine's quite hot, hope that's about it. Clutch
starts to slip too, because I'm down and up between second and third all
the time, very hot.
Soon the misfire becomes bad and the car dies. We off on the side of the
road. Damn! But it fires up again! Chris runs back to get the deployed
triangles, and we're off again. 200 metres later, it dies yet again. WTF?!
I open the hood while Chris redeploys the triangles. The course closing
car is now on us and see our problem. They can't touch the car in
assistance, but I borrow a tool from them. Something wrong with the crank
sensor, SDS is showing an RPM error. Sensor looks good, magnets are good,
plug to the ECU might be suspect though. I focus on the latter, but to no
avail. We maximum our time and are forced to DNF.
We push the car to the side of the stage and watch the other guys come
through again, doh. Chris and I jump and wave when Aaron and Brad pass
through, they give us a honk.
Turns out the crank sensor isn't seeing the trigger magnets that fire the
injectors and spark plugs. The sensor is supposed to be ultra reliable! Oh
well.
We pack it up, Chris and I have another journey behind a nylon tow rope
behind the marshal's truck. For 30km I'm hanging on the brakes, trying to
keep the line taut. Leave the car in Bragg Creek when there's too much
traffic on the highway to be safe to continue to Cochrane.
We get into Cochrane in Aaron's truck driven by Randy (another service
crewmember) and Helen to come get us. Head to the banquet at KK's Kitchen,
and feast on 'Chinese' smorg - true white person Chinese food. The Chinese
person in me is appalled at the rape of my culture, but I'm hungry, so we
eat.
Eventually we get the car back to Ray's house in Calgary. Ray's a good
sport about it, having raced Lotus (Loti?) and Fords back in the day. Then
to bed, long long day.
Monday, travel day back home. Original plan was to chill out in Calgary
with Helen and Brad, just hang out and relax after so much time for rally.
But we pack up and hop into the VW and head to SDS to show them the crank
sensor. They examine and indeed, the unbreakable sensor was broken. They
promise a new one in a couple hours.
We head for dim sum and bubble tea, cancelling out the KK's Kitchen rape
of my culture dinner from the night before. Head back to SDS, pick up the
new sensor. They don't charge me for it, which is nice. I've bought enough
stuff from them, and they're cool guys. Don't know for certain if the
sensor fault was their's or from my clutch. SOOO glad I went with SDS in
Calgary rather than another engine management system!
We head back to Ray's. There's a Lamborghini Gallardo dead on the side of
the road. Nuts! Get to Ray's, we plug the sensor into the car and try to
fire it up. Nada. Blown fuses? Yes, put in new ones. Still won't fire.
Check to be sure the magnets are being seen by the new sensor. Yep. I'm
puzzled!
Brad says I should turn on the ignition switches. Oh, yeah. DUH! Flick
them on and the car starts immediately. Whoop! We pack it in, I take a
gander at the '78 99 Turbo that Ray has and wants to sell as a resto
project. Hmmm....
And that's that. Get back to Edmonton about 7:00 and then a leisurely
dinner and watch a movie to chill out. Back to work Tuesday!
posted by 216.123.203...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
