Last night I got the rally car up from the shop and parked close. I had time to build my Byonics TinyTrak3 APRS tracker (see this post) and got it setup and firing location packets. This weekend will be a demo beta test of the system. So if you want to help me test it - Keep an eye on us and post a comment if you use it.

We’re leaving early tomorrow morning around 6:00AM-PST and heading up to Lancaster towing the Neon with the tracker active. So, the early birds in the East Coast can watch our boring tow out there. Saturday afternoon we’ll keep it running and you can watch us drive around the fairgrounds from 12:00PM-PST to 10:00PM-PST. Sunday we’ll be racing in the fairgrounds from 9:00AM-PST to 4:00PM-PST. The GPS signal looks accurate enough that I’ll bet you can tell when we’re in service and when we’re screwing around in the autocross lot. Look for the course and speed at the top of the page.

Watch for the live scores on rallydata.com - Rim of the World Rally Challenge Results

The forest roads may be off limits this year, but that’s not going to stop the Rim of the World organizers from putting on a great show in less then a week. The center of the action will be the Lancaster Fairgrounds for a unique format called ‘Rally Challenge.’ This event, which is part rally super special, part rallycross, all with a spectacular Rim of the World flavor, looks to be quite a show. Spectators will get to watch the action all day up close from the grandstands along with tons of other activities from an autocross to a car show. For more information on the event held this Saturday April 28th, go to http://rimoftheworldrally.com.

The team is pumped up to show off its skills. Just like the super stage at Laughlin last year, the competition is going to be fast and close. The Dodge Rally Neon is in great shape for an attack on the USRC Stock classes. “We excel at the super specials, usually with the fastest production car times. It’s a pumped up rallycross - and that’s what we do when we’re not running stage rallies,” said Driver Kristopher Marciniak. The team recently finished 2nd overall in a CRS rallycross at Glen Helen organized by formularallyx.com.

The team is going to benefit from their outstanding performance last year. Not just through experience, but financially as well. “For Rim, I’m really excited about the USRC Rookie of the Year Scholarship, which was so generously retro-acted for the 2006 season. This scholarship has made the 2007 USRC season, which was going to be hard to budget with our upcoming wedding, a lot easier to participate in,” exclaimed Co-Driver Christine Wittish. For more details on the URSC check out their website at: http://www.unitedstatesrallychampionship.com

We hope to see you at Rim!

Earlier last week I replaced the rear struts and checked for any other Desert Storm Rally damage. The right rear strut was fully compressed with the strut piston jammed all the way to the bump stop. This makes taking the spring off very difficult to say the least. I managed to hammer a spring compressor on and grab at least 2 coils on each side. Even with the compressor maxed out, the top hat was still mashed on there pretty good. I took a shop census of what I should do about it and the final vote was “take it outside - stand on it - and torque off the nut… It’s going to kick!” Safety goggles and gloves would at least be a good idea here - maybe a face shield. As another safety item to mention: Never, never, NEVER take a top hat off a strut without a spring compressor. Spring goes flying - you eat it… At least with the compressor grabbing 2 coils the spring would only kick about 1-2″ with 200+ Lbs of force. I work the top bolt off slowly and psych myself out a couple times. Then I finally go full force and air gun the top bolt off. CLANG! The strut disassembles itself in a 6 foot radius of parts. The spring remained 80% compressed and it still had enough force to scatter 20 pounds of parts in every direction. Be careful in the shop fellas!

Saturday was overcast drizzle all the way out to Glen Helen. We arrived and were excited to see our sister team - Way Too Fast Racing - setting up for their first rallycross with the Neon.

The course was a little confusing at first and I gave Mike Malsed (the organizer) some crap about it. Once I took a long look at how they setup the “crossover / wall” to reverse the course I was still anxious about having more then 1 car run at the same time. With a regular course - if communications goes to hell - you don’t have a dangerous crossover situation. With a crossover course - if you tell the starter “hold the start” and he hears “go ahead and start” - you have the potential for cars to go into each other. Matchbox racing style.

The fairly tight layout was great and had a great flow to it in both directions. It turned out to be one of Mike’s best designs. Probably because it was a rallycross where the FWD cars can shine. The rally 2WD group had the top times of the day. 1st overall was Mark Anton in his uncatchable 250HP Sentra SE-R Vspec. 2nd was myself in the 130HP overweight Rally Neon. Third was Bill Holmes, 12 seconds back in his monster open class desert truck. The Way Too Fast kids improved on their times all day while dealing with a burning power steering reservoir. Read more about that here. We had a great time and it was a good shakedown for Rim of the World - in two weeks!

We finally got our call signs: KI6IUC (Kris) and KI6IUE (Christine). It took longer then I expected and other radio folks were telling us that it should be like 5 days not 15 days. Nothing to do but wait for it. Now that we have them - let’s have some fun.

APRS - Automatic Position Reporting System, is used to transmit the exact location of an object (vehicle) over amateur radio frequencies. A data packet (see: packet radio) can contain a number of additional items, such as direction, speed, altitude, temperature, etc. Short text messages can also be attached. These messages are transmitted on 144.390MHz and re-transmitted by local repeaters called digipeaters.

The rally car has a ham radio, a TNC (Terminal Node Connector), and a GPS receiver. A TNC is a little data device that talks to the GPS and sends its information out over the ham radio. Every few minutes the TNC gets the position from the GPS receiver and transmits it over the airwaves with the ham radio. The TNC we’re looking at is the Byonics TinyTrak3.

Service has a scanner and a laptop. The audio from the scanner is hooked to the laptop sound card. The software, AGW Packet Engine + AGW Tracker, receives the data and converts it to a little icon on a map.

Key features: Service knows where we are at all times. There is a ham radio in the car for emergencies. The crew doesn’t have to be ham licensed. Our parents can watch the rally live on findU.com. I’m planning to have a toggle switch on the dash board that can send one of two messages out of the TNC:
1. Rally On!
2. Come get us at this location.

There won’t be much use for it at Rim of the World - as we’ll be 300 yards away in the stadium , but I may have it setup to demo and test. The first full scale test will be in Prescott later this year. I would like to thank Anders Green (Lina Racing / Sandblast Rally) for suggesting the idea for use in rally cars and I encourage you drivers and co-drivers out there to spend the week of study time and pick up your amateur radio license.

Class dismissed - KI6IUC clear and monitoring.