Let’s start with all the awesome pictures the crew took. These are from Erik, Matt, and Christine’s camera we keep in the Neon. 2006 Olympus Rally Pictures from rallynotes.com.
For video – I was able to snag the ORV park stage (with the jump) SS3. I overlayed video from the crew. There is a lot more to come, I just have to get through it.
Video of SS3 – ORV Park – 8.6MB WMV
Sunday: We did it! Today we settled in for some long stages and took the USRC stock class win! The crew kept the car together and Christine and I kept the Neon on the road. This is our fourth finish and we did well on these roads which moved my speed factor up. (no more starting in the back) The in-car looks awesome with the trees going by at 70. 
We’ll have lots of pictures and video soon! We’re on our way back to So-Cal tomorrow.
Saturday: We got the rougher stages out of the way in the morning. It took its toll on the right front subframe and we started to notice it was moving under braking. The Kosmides crew lent us a hand and a welder. You know it’s a good time in service when welding becomes your only option. We set some fast stage times and ran a clean / smooth first day. I’m trying to make sense of the online scores. Our USRC competition – Kris & Ed Dahl went out with rear suspension problems. 
I hope they can restart tomorrow. We’re in second place in production amidst a whole pack of Tabor cars. Long day – need sleep…
Friday: It was a long day of recce. Christine will be burning the midnight oil writing her notes for tomorrow. At first she was going to mark up the stage notes prepared by Pat Richard but his notes are just not what we’re accustomed to. She opted to re-write the whole book and notate it exactly how we want it. The crew is here and the car is ready to go.
Thursday: We arrived at 4:30 to the Red Lion Hotel in Olympia, Washington. The last 30 miles seemed to take forever! I was mentally done with driving once we were out of Portland. Christine did drive a litte bit yesterday and today which let me nap and recharge. The press stage was fun and was a good ‘warm up’ for what to expect here. We’ll be out all tomorrow doing recce.
Photographer Jim Culp captured us at the press stage – check out his other photos here.
Today we knocked out 684 miles on our way up to Olympus. We’re getting better then expected gas mileage and making good time. We should arrive tommorow in time for the press stage. Our only 2 crew members convinced friends to come along last minute and we’ll have lots of help in service.
I’m not sure if we’ll get another update up during the rally – so keep an eye on the scores as they come in at: Olympus Rally Results.
We’re in great shape for the Olympus Rally in Washington this weekend. The front end has been welded back on. 
*hehe No, seriously, the sub-frame broke all the robot welds and was hanging on by the automotive equivalent of a paper clip. The front skis (as we call them) were warped and bent and also needed to be replaced.
Harry’s buddies Todd and Mike told me that they were up to the task of rebuilding the front skidplate mounts (seen on the right zapping some steel together), but not able to weld the front subframe bits. I went to another local shop and had the work done. I’m still having some issues with one of the control arm bolts as the nut is welded INSIDE the unibody and is starting to break free of its mounting point. I’m not entirely sure how to go about fixing that one, but it’s strong and safe for now as I managed to thread it and get it tight one last time.
Crisis averted #381: The car was leaking oil pretty good after Rim of the World and Harry and I both had a good look at it and determined that it was coming out the oil sender plumbing. Yesterday I reached up and felt that it was actually a little loose. I twisted it to see how loose it was and it sheared off in my hand. Easy as that and I’m holding the dummy light sensor, the Autometer sender and the brass T. Oil shooting out the back of the motor = bad. This brings me to my next point…
Ground School: When you learn to fly aircraft (I flew a little after High School, maybe 20 hours. It got too expensive.) one of the first things you learn is how to do a ‘walkaround inspection.’ You don’t just hop in the Cessna, crank the prop, and go! You spend 30 minutes looking over the craft. Really looking! Is that grease coming out of the rudder? Are the tries worn too much? Is that a crack in the engine cover? Can I move the flaps without any resistance? Fuel status, oil status, instrumentation check, etc. You do this because any sort of failure in the air is a problem. A big problem. A rallycar should be treated the same. Are the lugs tight? Do I have fuel? Is the suspension making noise? Is that a new rattle? Are the hood pins in? Are they in? The pins are IN right?? Oil pressure, engine status, rally computer, etc. We use a check list that I created for our first rally and it works pretty well. Pre-Flight Checklist.xls Some of the information is Dodge Neon specific, but good to have on hand, like capacities and torque settings. Let me know if you use it!
There was a huge sigh of relief from Christine and I when we primed the fuel pump a couple times and turned the engine over. She returned to life with no sign of other damage to the engine. After taking the skidplates off and the fuel pump out, it looks as if the following happened: Big fresh dent in the gas tank. Fresh crack in the plastic fittings inside the pump housing. The 10 gallon tank is now a 9 gallon tank. The in-tank pump housing got a good knock and came loose. So, Saturday night at Rim, we effectively ran out of gas. 
Good to know as we’re prepping for Olympus and the heat is on. We need some cosmetic pieces, and fresh skidplate material. The re-engineered struts need to be on the car by next weekend. Tires good, engine good, driver crazy. 
I’ve been told that the roads in Washington are a lot like Maine. This means hard packed, tough on tires, roads with ‘rock-a-dillos’ popping up to claim car parts. It will be weird to see trees again…
The motto “To finish first, first you must finish” was more evident for the Rallynotes.com team then any other this weekend at the Rim of the World Rally in Lancaster, CA. This is only their 3rd full stage rally and they are proving that they have what it takes to be a national team.
The all volunteer crew pushed hard to keep car 761 in it. “We just kept taking stuff off the car and finding more broken. Everyone was up until 3:00AM,” said driver Kristopher Marciniak. “I called Harry who was coming up on Saturday morning. I can’t believe he answered his phone. I said – you know where I live, Harry. Pick up the four struts off my porch – and at 7:00AM he was waiting for us at service. He had already started on the front right!” The crew of four: Harry Bushling, Kaiser Chen, Colten Becker, and Susan Rand, continued to work throughout the day to see that the car finished the rally.
Setting fast times on Friday the team was 1st in Production and 4th in the very competitive regional P-Stock class. They finished the night in 17th overall, very respectable for a production Dodge Neon. “The Bilstiens were amazing on the rough stuff, I know that’s what allowed us to move up so fast. We went from 33rd to 17th in 4 stages!” exclaimed Kris. “I was heartbroken when we discovered the housings we had made were broken and we had to pull the struts Saturday morning.”
The only goal at this point was to finish the rally. The team would drive smooth throughout the afternoon into the final two night stages. A small mistake on the rougher section of Maxwell Road got the car stuck nose first into loose gravel. A gracious tug from car 632 driven by Dean Schlingmann & Chip Doeden got the Dodge Rally Neon back on the road to finish the last stage.
On the final transit back to headquarters the engine died. Disappointed, the team pulled over and tried to get the Neon going again. “The car was not getting fuel. The oil light was on… I have no idea what was wrong,” said Kris. They flagged down the next rally car driven by Bristol Keele & George Scott. They graciously offered a tow back to the finish pavilion. “That is what rally is all about!”
At the finish, the time control workers told the team to head into the pavilion, where the winner’s circle was located. “I was stunned. I asked if he was serious,” said co-driver Christine Wittish. “It was amazing – as we pushed the car inside everyone was cheering and applauding. Getting to participate in the champagne ceremony was something I had no idea we would be taking part in so soon in our rally career.” The team will be looking for its next win in less then a month at the Olympus International Rally in Olympia, Washington.
Kristopher is a computer technician and support analyst working for the Alteer Corporation in Irvine, CA. Christine is a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine in the field of molecular biology and the lab of Dr. Douglas Wallace.
We would like to thank the following for their support!
Bilstein
RallyDecals.com
The Southern California Neon America Club
Hankook Tires
Friday morning I learned never to load a car on a trailer yourself. I overshot the tow dolly, jacked the car up and off the trailer, and proceeded to do it again. I could only stand there and laugh at myself. The skidplates protected the car from damage and after some loose strap drama – we learned how to use our new tow dolly. A weekend of lessons had begun.
We pushed the car into tech and was out in time to test the super special jump before it closed up at 5:00. I hit it at like 45MPH and nosed the car pretty hard. I tried again at a reasonable 30MPH and found it to be a little more of a controlled landing. It’s tough to jump a car with 70% of the weight over the front wheels.
We start with a confident win at the super special. The first three stages set the tone for the rally. They are rough and tight with lots of instructions. Christine gets lost a couple of times, but we’re still moving right along. Then we get into the fog on SS3 and a panic sets in. Christine keeps looking up to see where we are and all she sees is nothing. I’m still moving at a good pace and relying heavily on the notes. She knows there’s a hairpin left coming up but is worried that we haven’t gotten to it yet. I settle off the throttle a bit and assure her that we’ll find it together. When we get back on the notes I provide verbal feedback of every turn to substitute what Christine can’t see in the fog.
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As I finished up last minute “house” things, I could not believe it when Kris came in to tell me he had driven OVER the tow dolly. Tow dolly lesson #1 – Do NOT try to load your car on a trailer by yourself! We jacked the car up, took the tires off the tow dolly, and got it set up to try again. I could only laugh as the car went right over once again. Tow dolly lesson #2 – Make sure you secure the trailer BEFORE you attempt to load the car onto it!
Finally packed up and ready, we just needed to make a stop at the bank to pick up some cash. “What was that?” I asked as we pulled to a stop. “It’s just the tow dolly braking forward with us,” Kris replied. Not exactly – one of the tow straps had come unhooked. Tow dolly lesson #3 – Make sure your straps are hooked and tightened down as much as possible!!! Wow – it was a good thing we went to the bank – much better than trying to do that on the side of the highway. However, we were much luckier this time and didn’t have to undo the entire tow dolly – we just drove the car backwards and it booped itself right back on the dolly!
Two hours later (and two hours late) we finally made it up to Lancaster. At least there was no line for registration, but now I had no time to get to the hotel and lock myself in to highlight my notes. Instead I sat down in the Lilac Pavilion where tech inspection was going on. Once again, luckily there were only minor things that needed to be taken care of on the car before it could be inspected. Also luckily, there weren’t many people in the pavilion, and I had mostly quiet to work on my notes (except for a nice lady who tried her best not to chat me up).
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We got home and headed right for a nap. What a weekend! There’s too much to even start to go into now, but we will post a complete story soon. If you didn’t see the standings, we fnished, thus taking a USRC win. We came in 4th in the regional P-Stock (Both the Friday and Saturday Rallies)
Huge thanks to our crew! Without them this would not have happened. We received a lot of comments from other competitors on how well you guys did and how busy our service area was at all times.
The picture is the back of Bristol Keele’s car towing us back to headquarters after the last stage of the rally. Huge thanks to both her and Scott for that – We congratulate them on their first finish!
Check out our pictures from the turnaround stage here.
Lots more pictures and stories to follow!
