We headed out early on Thursday morning to arrive in time for the VIP / press stage. We warned Denise that we may be a little late getting out there, but we would do our best. As we pulled into Blythe, Christine received a call confirming that we were indeed on our way.

A quick stop at the tent to sign waivers and grab wrist bands and we headed down the road to Quartzsite. When we arrived I was a little surprised that we were only 1 of 2 teams there. A number of people were there taking pictures and waititng for rides. I know how tough it is to make it to one of these – extra day out of work, etc – but I would like to see more rally cars attend. I couldn’t really turn anyone away, and I’m glad to say that Jon Rea in the Datsun and I didn’t have to. Bill Malik arrived a little later with the Volvo to hand out a bunch of rides as well. There is nothing quite like a ride in a rally car to get people hooked on this sport.

On our way back to Blythe the sky opened up. We helped Doug get the sides of his awning set up and parked inside the tent as first for tech. It was a little late getting started, so I took the opportunity to re-clamp some stuff and convert to the stright pipe. Tech inspector arrived and we passed with flying colors.

Friday morning. First stage – Palomas 1. This is a fast, fast, fast stage with sharp corners, and leftover puddles from the night before. The only tricky part is judging where you are in the notes as there are lots of 6’s and 5’s and not a lot of distance to correct a missed 4 or 3. When you are linking turns and setup for a 5 and it turns out to be a 4 it’s not too bad. Dig the car in a bit to scrub off some speed and point it out. When you are at your cars top speed (about 110 btw) and you head into a 5 and it turns out to be a 4 – you’re going to have issues.

Then we go directly into one of the roughest stages of the rally – Palomas 2. This is fast in the begining and then just gets tighter and jumpy bumpy at the end. We slowed to a crawl for some of the washes and at one point, after we saw that George Doganis in his G2 car was off to the left, we just about came to a stop. We coaxed the car over the last wash and finished. We did not expect it to be quite that rough, and I can only blame myself for not being prepared.

Palomas 2 = Palomas 3. The cars all turn around and after a 30 minute break, we begin again. I take it easy as we head out and proof of that was in service. No dents, no dings, tires good, ready to finish Friday. Black Cat, Sore Finger and Harquahalla.

Sore Finger is a lot of fun and I would have to say – one of my new favorite stages. Harquahallla was a lot of fun as well and after the – long, long, LONG, wow I need 5th gear… Does it go any faster? – long straight, it goes into some flowing twisty bits that allow the cars that can turn and carry speed to make up some ground.

That night we wash the car off at the car wash next door for only $1.25 and check over a couple of things. Rotate some tires, re-clamp the dragging skid plate, and we’re ready for Saturday.

In the morning we started off with Ehrenberg Rd, Cibola West and one of the roughest transits I’ve ever driven on… Rim of the World style rough. We missed a right turn around “rocks” and almost got stuck in the mud. Getting lost on a tight time transit is no fun. Needless to say we had to keep a good pace going when we got back on the I-10 towards service.

We have a brand new Summit jack fold in service. It looks like the metal in one of the hinges was bad and the car lands with a thud, crushing the jack. We borrow another team’s jack (Thanks Jon Rood / Laengworks). Windows clean, waters filled, pre-flight checked. Judd, Vanessa, Brian, and Jake did a great job with all the little things that needed tending.

Palomas 1 – 4 again… Or should I say: Palomas 1 and most of Palomas 2… Car was feeling good after the fast stuff and I just muscled into a bumpy wash too fast. The car popped up and smacked down hard in the rear. I slowed for the finish, but it was too late. We dragged the ass of the car into the turnaround. I knew something was up and when Christine got out of the car practically on the ground, she knew it too. I inspected the damage and seemed to have folded (kinked) both rear strut tubes. The tires were close to rubbing, but no other damage was present. We prepared a message to send via the radio net back to service and contimplated our options.

Do we:
A. Start and finish two more stages? One of them being the one that caused the damage. Limp it out and back to service (50+ miles on the highway with +20 degrees of rear camber). We are then late to a short 30 minute service where we’ll need 2 new rear struts. Time barred and out even after killing the car and ourselves to keep in it…
B. DNF right there. Drive the car out to I-10 with no more issues and have the crew meet us with the dolly. We hear that the spectator stage is about 1 mile down the road over the highway and at least we can enjoy spectating the rest of the day.
C. Hire an Indian to help.

We chose C… I mean B! The crew met us at the spectator stage of Harquahalla.
Some of you are thinking – How did they get the Neon home if it couldn’t drive on its rear wheels? We’ve seen that tow dolly. The answer is – we backed it onto the dolly and towed it backwards. It actually started to be comical how many people suggested that I remember to lock the steering wheel straight. It was like – “Hey, how are you going to get home with the dolly?” “Oh – backwards – yeah… Don’t forget to lock the steering!” “Oh you backed it on – yeah… Did you put a strap around the steering wheel?!” “You are going to lock the wheels straight right?” One side effect of towing with it like that is 70% of the Neons weight is ALL the way back. Over 65MPH was sketchy! So we kept it at 60-65 and cruised home.

In summary: We had a great time. We did well on Friday and still managed to enjoy ourselves on Saturday. The car is back in the shop with no additional damage and we’ll be going over it well before Rim of the World next month.
Pictures are up here: Rallynotes.com Desert Storm Gallery