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.

SS4 starts off with some drama in the start control. Hakan in his white Eclipse, who I let go by us on SS3, backed up in the control (not sure why) and didn’t see us parked off to the right. *BAMN We traded some paint and and he punted my left headlight and bumper. Christine and I were so stunned when he was reversing up the road I don’t even think we got a horn honk out in time. I hop out to check if the car is okay, shout some choice expletives and get back in the car and try to get back in the zone. “Don’t drive angry!” Hakan later contacted us and offered to take care of the damage.

We start the transit back to rally headquarters and I hear some fresh clunking and squeaking from the right side of the car. We stop for fuel and I peek under the back of the car. The rod from the inverted strut is sticking out the bottom of the right strut housing. “Hmm…” I call the crew and tell them to get ready for us. When we arrive I do a quick damage assessment and bring Christine back to the hotel to start her Saturday notes. I return to find that we’re in a much worse situation. The stock housings were not quite strong enough to hold the inserts and they blew out of the bottom of three of them. Now that’s okay in the back where there’s nothing under them… In the front however, the rod was jammed into the front right CV. Destroying the boot and shearing the rod in half. It’s 2:00AM – I have complete suspension failure, I need a new front axel and I need to glue a headlight back together.

As our last hope I call Harry at 2:30 and he answers the phone. “You know where I live Harry – go get the four struts that are on my back porch.” Harry calls me at 7:00AM on Saturday. He’s in service and already started on the car. “We’re back in it!” I grab our time card at 7:30 and call Christine. “Are you ready to rally navigator? Good – the car’s back on the ground.” I don’t go into hard details like: The CV boot made from duct tape and zip ties holding the dirt and metal shavings in.

I settled in for a long day on Saturday. We start with Del Sur down and back (the turnaround stage). It was great to hang out with everyone, share stories and take pictures. From the front to the back of the pack the competitors are all genuine and professional.

Now it’s back into service for a new front axel. Harry and crew have figured out how to pull the axel without losing a drop of transmission fluid. They jack Ze’Neon all the way up on the right side – like a 30 degree angle! They pop the new axel in and make sure to replace and check the Brantz sensor. The front skidplate is having some major issues now that it’s taking a harder beating from the lack of suspension. Colton and Kaiser are drilling and bolting it like mad men. “We gotta go kids!” I look at my watch as Christine emerges from the pavilion. There is some more frantic action as nuts are tightened and the car is lowered. With about 30 seconds to spare we make it to the Super Special time control. I take the jump ‘kinda-easy’ and we come down hard. The car pops out of gear and I lose power steering. “Great…” I mutter.

No luck finding the spare belt in the tool bag. It was ransacked for tools to get the suspension fixed on time. With the LSD the car is difficult to steer. I move the seat up and get ready for a fight. Thirty miles of tight 3’s and 2’s follow and my arms are still sore days later.

We pull into the last service. We get a new belt and some more skidplate work. Just two more stages to go. SS12 I pick up the pace a little as we’ve done this stage before. Christine is on the notes and the stage is smooth enough to abuse the car a little. We were rewarded by beating our production rival Patric Rodi by a few seconds. I wish we could have been more of a challenge on Saturday and it’s apparent how much the Bilsteins help us go fast.

Waiting for the time control, Dean and Chip pull in behind us and hop out trying to fix something on the car. I ask what they need and Chip says that their floodlights won’t light up. He’s shouting for pliers and before they tear the whole car apart looking for them I run and grab my Leatherman out of the Neon’s glove box. “Are the floods hooked to the high beams?” I ask Dean. “Yeah – they’re on!” He replies. “Click them off and on a couple times.” I place my fingers on the front relays. I can feel them clicking which means they just need to fix their power wire. We look at the fuse and it’s all melted and couldn’t take the load. As I’ve seen this exact same thing happen to us I start pulling it apart. “What are you, an electrical engineer or something?!” Chip asks. “Jump this right to the battery!” I’m now being asked by control workers to pull forward so I run back to the Neon. When I get there, the floodlights on the Suzuki light up. “Sweet!”

We start down Maxwell Road. In one of the rougher sections, where the sides of the road are like some huge half pipe and the deep ruts in the road are topped with head sized boulders, the back end comes around. We go nose in, front left buried, front right in the air. I’m completely blocking the stage. We jump out and Christine goes running up with the triangle. We’re stuck pretty good and I try rocking the car out a few times. I see headlights and Dean and Chip come around the bend. We hook up the tow strap and the Suzuki backs me out of the berm and we move under our own power again. I pull right and wave them by. “Let’s go, Tine!!!” I yell up the road and another car passes by us.

We get moving again, belted up, and finish the stage. We stop to thank Dean and Chip and make sure Bristol and Scott in their Subaru are all right. We begin the transit home. A few miles out we get a sputter. Then we’re down on power. Now we’re on 3 cylinders. Ze’Neon dies and I roll to the side of the road.

I hear gravel tires on the highway. Bris and Scott come around the corner and I flag them down. I ask them to tow us. “I’ll keep tension on us with my brakes – you just GO!” We hook up the strap and start out on the road. We take the hard right hander onto ‘H Ave’ and the steering wheel locks. I jam on the brakes and manage to stop both the Neon and the Impreza while taking a big detour into the ditch on the right of the road. The keys are still in my pocket. DOH! I announce the fact that I am a moron and we continue on our way.

The co-driver to co-driver phone call was priceless.
Scott: “Rally car towing a rally car… This is so sketchy.”
Christine: “Tell me about it!”
Scott: “Here comes the stop sign tell Kris to brake.”

We arrive and they take our time card. Only 0.60 road points. We’ve finished, but are exhausted and elated just to be back at rally HQ. One of the workers comes up to us. “Okay, class winners head into the pavilion!” Christine and I look at each other stunned. “What?!” we both say. “Yeah – they’re waiting for you in there.” We push the Neon around the corner and over to the pavilion. Inside about 100 people are standing around the winners circle. As they see us push the car in – everyone begins to cheer. What an amazing experience! I mean – yeah we were 1st of one in the USRC, but this shows the commitment the USRC has made to the 2WD cars. We were interviewed and I got to do something I said I would never be able to do.

I stood on my car and poured champagne on it.
We finished the Rim of the World Rally!

I want to personally thank Harry Bushling, Kaiser Chen, Colten Becker, and Susan Rand for their outstanding teamwork this weekend. Saturday could not have happened without you guys! Also I’d like to thank all the organizers and volunteers that make this rally happen! Thanks to Bilstein and rallydecals.com! We’ll see you in Washington!