Saturday morning we headed up to West Covina. North on the 57 from us, only about 45 minutes away. We walked up to the worker registration inside the hotel, caught up with some friends, found David, our stage captain, and headed out to stage 3 & 4 around 9:00AM.

On the way up we had to leave a rather long dust window from the people ahead of us. It was a long 8 miles to the top of the mountain and when we got to the top we had to stop to wait for David to setup some stage markers. It was already hot too. I had the AC in the Blazer cranked. When we pulled forward after sitting for 5 minutes, the truck pulled the steering wheel out of my hands taking a sharp left. “We have a flat.” I announced. Just before we got on stage, Christine mentioned “I hope we don’t need to use the spare, as it still has a big slash in it.” Jynx.

Driving 100 yards up to the parking area, I tried not to cause any more damage to the tire and get us off the stage. It had popped off the bead, was a little scuffed up, but looked to be salvageable. Over the next several hours while helping to get the rally control setup, I managed to get the tire back on the rim and locate some nice fellows with a tire plug kit. I found and plugged the hole. Filled it up with air – should be the end of the story. *hissss… The radio guys on stage told me that Paula Gibeault had a chevy van and she could send the spare up with the 00 car opening the stage. They got there and I tried the tire. Wrong size.

The first car blocked stage 2 and the organizers decided to transit them to our stage 3. Remove the 10 minute transit window and run them as soon as they got there. So we checked cars in and handed out ideal start times. So much for a complicated ATC. I grabbed another tire plug kit from one of the trucks working sweep. I jammed 2 more plugs in there to stop the leak for good. The tire was now holding steady at 30psi.

We setup the finish for stage 4. I moved the Blazer and parked it plug side down, just to put some additional pressure on it. After 10 or so cars I saw a yellow truck on the horizon. Jeff Rados / Guido Hamacher finished the stage and parked the truck way off to the right. Coolant spilling from the middle of the truck. Radiator hose blew off mid stage and Jeff drove it all the way to the end. Needle pegged at 250F. “This will be the true test of synthetic oil.” He said as I surveyed the damage. “This is a brand new motor, with less then 1,000 miles on it!” “It sucks, but we’re out. – and just when I was getting my rhythm with Guido.”

Sweep came through, but someone didn’t get the message that Jeff needed to be towed out. Now there were only a handful of people left on the mountain and Jeff’s truck was going nowhere. We weren’t entirely sure that his crew got the message and it was now dark. “You want to give it a shot?” Jeff asked looking over at the Blazer. “Sure, let’s do it.” I replied. The short tow strap tugged on the Ranger and we started down the hill. “I’ll be riding the brakes until they burn up!” Jeff shouted over the FRS radios. We trudged down the mountain. The Blazer had no problem pulling the load. There was another up and down section that caused the rope to slack then break about 2 miles down the 8 mile stage. The short tow strap just got shorter…

Up and down for another short bit. We got to a large downhill grade and Jeff suggested he try coasting down the hill. We untied the remaining tow strap (go letherman) and I got ahead of him and notated the course. “Tell me to get off the brakes when you come up to a big crest!” Jeff shouted over the radio. “- And you gotta tell me about the 1’s” (Refering to the hairpin turns on the road.) We continued this way close to 3 more miles. Then up a ridge and Jeff called me over the radio again. “Oh… Kris…” The Ranger rolled to a stop. We backed up to tow him up the next hill.

Jeff coasted the Ranger around 5 miles down the stage! When we got the bottom Jeff’s trailer was waiting for him. “Sweet! The trailer’s here!” I said as we reached the end of the 8 mile stage road. We started this morning with a flat tire and ended it by helping tow a truck off the mountain. It was a good test of the Blazer. I’ll be getting 2 new tires later this week.