Here is (most of) what’s left. I don’t expect this to be whipped together in a month. Even if daytime jobs and money were no object. It’s going to take some quality time at the garage. I’m watching the rallycross schedule carefully for a good block of weeks to park the Dodge Neon up in L.A. and get some work done. Klicken unten für die vollständige Liste…
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Our weekend in Vegas turned out pretty good. It’s not often you get to chill out in a hot tub after a rallycross. It was certainly a dusty event, that only a handful of ‘hardcore’ people showed up for. I think we did quite well against those there, but I’ll hold out until the results are posted. The Las Vegas Region SCCA could have done a better job with timing and scoring the event. They didn’t want the novice rental cars to interfere with our CRS points event, but I think it ended up alienating us. Course design was also lacking.

It was an interesting experience driving on a dry lake. Very similar to a frozen lake; flat for miles; small bumps in the surface where tracks have been made; extreme temperature; visibility problems; the odd ATV stopping by to see what we’re up to. The dry lake does however have friction. It does a number on tires.

I was able to get outside video this time thanks to some help from Jay Farina.
Las Vegas Region Rallycross Run
I also have a few shots in the gallery!
Las Vegas Region Rallycross Gallery

Update: We took first in class!

Ze’Neon has been plagued with an ‘intake air temp’ sensor problem for the last year. I unplugged the sensor, plugged it back in. It would seem to work for a while, then the check engine light would pop up. In order to pass the dreaded SMOG test out here in CA, I would have to have it working.

So last weekend we went to the junk yard – no luck. I called up a dealership and they had no idea what I was talking about. IAT? Intake what? It turns out that the IAT and the MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure) sensor is in the same package on the Dodge Neon. I had to take it off the car in order to get the correct part number. When I put it back on, it was worse. She stumbled and wouldn’t idle. The rev limiter moved down to 4,000RPM’s. I just took a guess that the ‘lightbulb’ finally burned out. Welcome to limp mode.
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I took a ride up to Huntington Beach during lunch. Ron Wood from VW Specialties took some time out of his busy day to look at ze’Neon. He confirmed the following: Small pipe gussets from the halo to the main hoop, metal fire extinguisher heads, environment friendly coolant, aluminum skid plate around gas tank, tow hooks, seat belts re-webbed (FIA). After this has been completed, I get handed a logbook for the car. w00t!

We attended our first rallycross put on by the ostentatious Gravel Crew. A start delay meant that we would be doing runs #2 and #3 in the dark. This is the first time I’ve run an event at night and it was a thrill. We had some drama on our first run, as a pallet got knocked down onto the course from a previous competitor. I had to make quite a manuver around it. Later, Scott (from the Gravel Crew) graciously offered a re-run to us.

We placed 2nd in class with lucky number 13! There was some strong competition out there and I’m pleased with how well we did. I will be following the CRS points race closely. I’ll update the post with the official results when they become available.

Once again Christine did a great job of calling the notes out. It’s less of an importance in rallycross to have notes, but very important that we get in-car experience together. I told her that I was going to ‘haul ass’ by the barn on my last run and she didn’t flinch. I’m on the lookout for any spectator pictures or video that may be posted to the forums. If you have anything please contact us. I once again encoded all three in-car runs as .wmv files.
Rally Air II Run #1 Day
Rally Air II Run #2 Night
Rally Air II Run #3 Night +infravision (best run)

Update 4/20/2005: We placed 11th overall! The results are posted. Speaking of competition, the name George Doganis who took first in our class, sounded familiar to me. So I googled him. It turns out George is a several time national autocross champion and no stranger to rally. Some very strong competition indeed.

We were supposed to head to Vegas last weekend for a rallycross in Jean, NV. We had planned it with a free 2 night stay (with dinner and a show) we had at the Paris hotel. Turns out that they had a conflict and canceled it. At the last minute Christine managed to reschedule.

I just asked Tine if anything else has changed and it looks like they moved several things around. Apparently THIS weekend there is a rallycross for points in Corona, CA. They start at 3:00pm… A night rallycross. Okay, I have lights.

Well, that changes things. I’d like to get the exhaust tightened up this week. It’s been hanging down below the center of the car. It’s preventing me from installing the full size skidplate. At the very least I’ll have to make a weekday trip up to the shop to pick up the front plate. You don’t just slide a 32″X 48″ 3/16″ aluminum plate into the back seat when not using it. Oh, and the Kumho rally tires would be nice.

Rims, rims, rims! I have rally tires mounted on OEM Dodge R/T rims. I just received another 4 R/T’s and the steelies that the street tires are on makes 3 sets (12 rims). I will probably pick up another set used. I’m going to need to order 2 more Kumhos before August. As of right now, I only have 4 rally tires.

The site upgrade is complete. I got the motorsports gallery sorted out and back online. According to the logs – images.google.com will be happy too. I have about 1.4GB remaining for videos and pictures.

A small update: I moved rallynotes.com onto dedicated hosting (BlueHost). I’m now running WordPress. The gallery is currently empty, but it’s up and on my ‘to-do’ list. With the new found bandwidth I will be able to host a lot more pictures and video. This was my goal.

Ridgecrest Videos: Here are the three ‘in-car’ runs from the Ridgecrest rallycross. Christine and I notated the course and it was great co-driver practice. They are all 10MB WMV files. Enjoy!
Ridgecrest Run #1
Ridgecrest Run #2
Ridgecrest Run #3

We had an awesome time this weekend. The California Rally Series (CRS) Ridgecrest Rally School was great! We drove the Dodge Neon to it’s limits to take 2nd in class in “2WD Rally Prep” at the rallycross on Sunday! (That’s 17th overall – out of 103 entries ) They have the results up already!

We got back around 8:30 after fighting the I-15 for the second time. We took the 60 down to the 57 (Thanks Donna Hocker!) and zipped down the HOV lanes. Avoiding the 91, the 10 and the remainder of the I-15. 6 hours up… 3 hours back.

The school answered a lot of questions about how rally works. Team management, route books, advanced co-driving, etc, etc. It’s packed into a day long class. I feel that it was a little more geared to co-drivers then drivers – which was good as there are lots of driving schools out there, but very few “co-driving” schools. Christine has a much clearer picture of exactly what the co-drivers responsibilities are. She knows what equipment she needs (rally computer, gear, map lights) and not just suggestions that I’ve made. Sometimes as a driver you tend to worry more about the suspension on your car then the footplate keeping your co-driver comfortable. I have much more confidence in my driving abilities and knowing “what to do / where to go” while at a rally.

On Sunday at the rallycross Christine and I made notes and she called them for our three runs. She has a lot more confidence inside the car, which makes me go all that faster. Look for video of our three runs soon…

Answers:
The cage just needs a plate gusset welded to the top of the main hoop. This will keep the halo firmly attached to the main hoop in an “off”. They also suggested tying the front “A pillars” into the roll cage with a long plate. Something I will certainly do.
The front skidplate worked great! It wasn’t too low to cause any clearance issues. After the warm up on Saturday, I had no worries going over yumps and big ruts.
The list is down to actually only a few key items. Spill kit, tow hooks, suits, gloves, shoes, rally computer, headsets. Some spare tires, rims, and a crew – and we’re going to a rally!
The tires are great! I spoke with Craig Hollingsworth, who has been running the Kumho R700’s for 3 seasons on his Group 2 VW Jetta. He suggested 38 to 40 psi for rallycross and 28 to 30psi for stage rally. I had tons of grip in the sloppy stuff.

So, the school was great! The rallycross was fun! We’re setting our sights on our first rally this summer. You will see us out at CRS Rallycross events all this year!

This weekend I’m hoping to put together Neon skid plate version 1.0. It’s going to be aluminum and UHDP (plastic). Here are some of my scribbles regarding the design. I’m not sure this can help anyone, but I’d like to document it here for future reference.

Page 1: This is an underside overview with some arbitrary measurements.
Page 2: The dimensions of the finished design. Some of my ideas for what should be plastic and what should be metal.
Page 3: Side view detailing the issues with the engine clearance and the front plate.
Page 4: Possible attachment methods using a metal C channel.