2004 Wild West

My rally buddy from TSD rallying, Ron Sorem invited me to navigate him as the Slow Pace car for the Wild West ProRally. Ron has a late 80's Subaru RX hatch back, fully prepared for stage rally. As we were slow pace, we would be required to wear helmets but no firesuits, with that and my SCCA membership I was good to go. Ron and I drove over early in the morning and I soon realized how much effort goes into a ProRally. at 7am, 3hrs before the start the HAM radio was full of rally traffic by various folks pre-running and setting up the event. As slow pace, Ron and I's job was to be the first car to run the stage after Advance. Once we run, the stage is deemed "hot". We are followed by the Fast Pace car which runs 10 minutes behind us. As we are slow pace, we are to keep any eye out for stray spectators, and bad signage and banner tape marking off route areas. We are supposed to run at 70% rally speed. My job is to operate the Odo and call out the stage notes. Fast Pace runs at full rally speed behind us. Both cars carry Ham radios to alert each other and the rally organizers to any flaws or updates in the notes. This in turn can be given to the competitors to aid in their safe passage.

As this was my first time in the navigator seat in two years, and my first stage rally event I was pretty nervous. Calling the stage notes was not that hard as the notes were very similar to what we see in TSD rallies. The hard part was staying focused, and helping Ron stay focused as we had lots of Ham radio traffic to distract us. We had a mostly uneventful time both days and again I learned a LOT. Running as a slow or fast pace car is a great way to shakedown your car, or a new navigator as this was non-competitive, yet on the same roads as the rally but with out the entrance fee. There were actually two fast pace cars this year, both using it as a shakedown for the car and themselves. After running this event, I could see that I could navigate in a stage rally with more practice. I owe Ron a big thanks for this opportunity!!