Casey's Rally Blog

2005 Thunderbird

2005-03-02T23:49:00.000-08:00

Kathryn and I decide to make another run together, this time at one of the best rally's in all of North America: Thunderbird. This time the car is all sorted and we didn't need to call on Steve to patch us up. Kathryn re-acquainted herself to Mr. Curta and off we went. More awesome driving. We saw all sorts of treacherous driving from foggy twisties to mud and thin powder over sheet ice. We had the pleasure of planting the car twice into the snow bank, but both times the car just bounced back onto the road. No harm, no foul I say. Team Fugawi didn't have nearly the luck as in '04. Our last minute random novice team selection proved to be not so lucky. They were good, but went off the road in one stage collecting a max penalty. It was their first rally, and their FWD car was a bit of risk on those roads. But this was actually not our biggest disappointment. Our fearless leaders had a tough go as well and collected some unneeded points which left us out of the trophies as a team. No worries - we had a great time anyway at the BEST rally I've been to. If you get a chance, go to Thunderbird it's a great event!

2004 Totem

2004-11-30T23:49:00.000-08:00

The fall B.C. classic Totem calls me north once again. This year I'm without my trusty navigator Benson, but find a very suitable replacement in Kathryn Hasnsen. Kathryne spends nearly every weekend participating in some form of motorsport from autocross to TSD and stage rally. Kathryn meets me at the rally start in Cache Creek, B.C. Everything's a go except my auxiliary driving lights - critical to a rally this late in the season. Fortunatly Kathryn's husband Steve is a very capable mechanic and we work up a nice jury rig that will get us through the rally with out incident. This is Kathryn's first rally using the Curta which adds a a new twist (pun intended) to the event for her. Kathryn catches on quick and we are off to running. Our scores were a bit scattered the first day but we do well in the second day and gain back some needed points. We finished out of the trophies. Considering this was a last minute effort and we have never run together this was a good result, plus we got to spend two whole days exploring the back roads of British Columbia! Great times, great friends and thanks to Kathryn - we stayed on course and on time!

2004 Wild West

2004-09-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

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!!

2004 Dryad/Shitepoke Club Rally

2004-06-30T23:48:00.001-07:00

I was asked to volunteer at the '04 Dryad ClubRally by some rally friends of mine. This was my first time working an event since the previous year's fateful OTPR. This time my job was to help work at the Arrival Time Control - this being the stop just before the actual stage start. It was fun as I was able to talk to each competitor and check their time cards in, as well as offer them any last minute advice about the stage. I didn't have my HAM radio yet, but sure wished I did. The high point was having a chance to drive the stage to deliver hamburgers to hungry workers down-stage. This was also a great opportunity to see what the competitors were bringing to a "small" ClubRally. I saw all sorts of cars - and since our stage was run twice, I could see first hand the damage and problems they encountered during the event. Only a few cars were knocked out of the event early, and all seemed to be having a great time.

2004 No Alibi

2004-06-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

I didn't have a navigator lined up for this one, so I volunteered to work the event as a checkpoint worker. This was my first working a TSD event, and therefore my first time as checkpoint. I got my worker's route book and took off ahead of the rally by about 30 minutes and drove the event until I got to my prescribed location. I did the same on both days which worked well. Working the event was also fun and interesting. Fun because I got a lot of great roads to myself, and interesting to see how much work goes into running and designing a TSD. My worker routebooks were amazing - with special notes on how to shortcut the rally to make it to the next checkpoint ahead of the competitors. On top of that - the roads were amazing and the weather was excellent. Our overnight stop was in Clarkston, and we had some great roads on SE Washington. It was a bit tricky reading the notes on the passenger seat and operating the Odo myself, but I think I learned a lot too so it was well worth it.

2004 Raindrop

2004-04-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

This was where we started last year, so this was the beginning of our second season. Raindrop is a nice tidy little rally held on one day usually just a hour's drive from Seattle. Unfortunately neither Benson or I was on our game, both of us were feeling under the weather a bit. We ran with the Curta and the Rally Odo but that didn't help much. We salvaged a third but really weren't too happy about it.

2004 Thunderbird

2004-03-01T23:47:00.000-08:00

Finally....Thunderbird, the rally I've heard so much about. Thunderbird is one of the oldest rallies in north America, held in British Columbia in the middle of winter. The rally covers approximately 400 miles of snow-covered backroads. This event was one of the most challenging and most fun rallies I've done. We had a little of everything, deep snow, steep grades, fog, snow, and ice. If you ever want to really perfect your snow driving this is a great way to do it. I'm proud to say we only had one "off" with no damage. One stage was actually on a ice-racing course on a frozen lake. I can't recommend this event enough - go do it if you can!

2003 Totem

2003-11-26T23:16:00.000-08:00

2003 Totem was the last event for the PCC. We had a solid second place in the championship, but needed to consolidate and not screw anything up. Totem has become the first of two great snow rallies in the PNW. It's held in November in the British Columbia interior, east of Vancouver.

2003 Night on Bald Mountain

2003-10-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

In October, we were back to the fall classic: Night on Bald Mountain. As this years event was not part of the PCC, we opted to run in the equipped class and run the Curta. NoBM is a gravel event, starting in the early evening near Olympia. The rally finishes around 11pm after traversing various back country dirt roads. This time however we were not the only ones out there, as this was during the beginning of hunting season there were lots of hunters driving and camped along the roads. Combine this with pea-soup like fog and rain it was a challenging event. The Curta proved to be a strong ally, as our penalties per checkpoint were more than halved. It was not long before Benson could have entire stages pre-calc'd to all the NRI's. From there it was up to me to drove to the times. The only flaw was that we were still using the stock odometer, so we still had the navigation dificulties this offers like "when is the turn?" "in...uggg..aaa...pretty soon?!?". Benson and I really enjoyed NoBM as it was not far from home and felt like the right length. Since it was at night, we didn't feel like we were giving up our entire weekend for an event. With the night's challenges we were plenty glad to go home too! We also got some hardware for our effort as we took 2nd in equipped class.

2003 Wild West ProRally cont.

2003-09-15T17:12:00.000-07:00

This is Mark Nelson in the Team Dynamics car - he did a helluva job on it! Mark was one of my instructors at the CRS Rally School.

2003 Wild West ProRally cont.

2003-09-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Glenn Wallace's Historic class Ford Cortina mkII sure is nice!

2003 Wild West ProRally cont.

2003-09-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

This is Bruce and Lee's car.

2003 Wild West ProRally

2003-09-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

My friend Lee was attempting to win the PGT ProRally national championship this year as a navigator and called on me to join the service crew for car #60. This was my first time working as a rally team member and it was a great learning experience. The amount of preparation, supplies and work and money that goes into running a rally car is staggering. Like most rally novices I thought the production classes would be simple: add cage and go rally. The #60 car was campaigned nationally that year, and had a full sized pick up full of spares, plus the trailer to tow the car. With only myself and one other to do the service (plus Lee and his driver Bruce) we had our hands full getting the car out on time in the FIA mandated 20min services. My job was typically to take the tires off and either change them or inspect them for cuts and then mount them. We used a Snap-On cordless impact drill - it's a MUST HAVE for a rally car. The logistics can be crazy for the teams as well. We had a park expose at a local college Friday night, followed by a parc ferme at another location over-night. We had a early morning start, with the last timed service before the park ferme at 10pm. I learned to take naps during the stages and be prepared for anything during service. I really have to thank Lee again for this awesome opportunity to see how a top flight PGT team is run. The car took second in class and Lee secured the national championship that weekend too!

2003 The Road Not Taken

2003-08-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

This year, I reunited with my good friend Jon to repeat our performance from the previous year's running of TRNT. This year however we did it in my car, and Jon navigated for me, and TRNT was run in it's usual nighttime format. I picked Jon up at the Portland airport, and we headed down to the Rally HQ at the Spirit Lake casino in Grande Rhonde, OR. We change tires in the parking lot and took off into the mountains. OTPR is known for it's twisty, narrow and often steep roads over the mountainous coastal region of Oregon. We had no difficulties, but still the rally beat us bad. We only took away one point, which kept me in good standings for the PCC, but some of my competitors did well and extended their lead. This was unfortunately the last running of OTPR. It's was a great rally and I'll miss it. Both times I've run it, it's kicked my butt, but I wanted to get back and do it again as soon as possible!

#4 - we'll miss you!

2003-07-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

I can't mention the '03 OTPR with out mentioning the tragedy that came to the #4 car. On the first stage on Saturday, the stage I was working on, Mark Lovell and Roger Freeman were the first cars out. Less than a mile in, they lost their lives in an awful shunt. There were no witnesses but it's understood both died instantly. Both men were in their 40's and had 20+ years of rally experience. Both were well respected and enjoying the new turn their careers had taken as team leaders for the Subaru Rally Team USA. The event was quite a shock for me, as this was only my second ProRally event, and my first as volunteer. The scene back at the next service was a somber one, the entire Subaru team packed up to go home. Several competitors did the same, citing a lack of commitment and concentration after such a horrible accident. The rally scene in the States hasn't been the same since. Although Subaru remained in the series for the season duration, they pulled out along with the archrivals, Mitsubishi. It was terrible timing for the sport, as it was just gaining momentum with increased television coverage and interest in the sport with the release of the US-Spec Impreza WRX and Lancer Evolution. That said, the rally community is a hardy lot and have shown to continue on regardless of the circumstances all to pursue the sport they love. Mark & Roger- we'll miss you!

2003 Oregon Trail ProRally

2003-07-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

2003 Oregon Trail ProRally - After going to RIM, I decided to volunteer to be a Crowd Marshal at OTPR. It was great fun, as the spectators varied in experience with rallying but shared the enthusiasm. I also got to see my friend Lee, this time he was navigator in the #66 PGT car. Lee gave me a tour of the car and a review of his stage and the pace notes. The shear speed of the top factory cars was amazing. In the picture above, the top teams were doing nearly 90mph into that "easy left". I had a rock from their tires hit me from that position! OTPR is run by the Oregon Rally Association, check out their site for more information abut the Stage, TSD and Rally-X events they host.

2003 Coast to Coast Rally Cont.

2003-07-01T00:28:00.000-07:00

The event was sponsored by Yokohama. We took first in our class (Paper) and won credit for two new tires of our choosing!

2003 Coast to Coast Rally Cont.

2003-07-01T00:25:00.000-07:00

What a day - this late on Saturday - only four more hours to go! We finished at around 9pm - neither of us could barely speak we were so tired!

2003 Coast to Coast Rally

2003-07-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Oh Canada! The second event in the 2003 PCC series was the Island Rally Club's Coast to Coast Rally held on Vancouver Island, B.C. The event started in Courtney, returning there saturday night and finishing at Nanaimo on sunday. We drove over 400mi of smooth gravel roads all over the island. It was an amazing journey to say the least. If you ever get a chance to do C2C as it's called or even just go to the island for a drive - I highly reccomend it. For more information about rallying in British Columbia - take a look at www.rallybc.com

Gravel tires!!!

2003-06-19T00:22:00.000-07:00

To get the gravel rally season started right - I purchased a set of Michelin FB80 competition rally tires. This was the best investment I could make. I justified it as "fun insurance". Less chance of cut tires and visits with the ditch!

2003 No Alibi Rally cont.

2003-06-18T00:36:00.000-07:00

Water splash! No Alibi had lots of photographers on hand, combined with the great weather we had some great photos to shar with each other afterward. The event was good for us, but unfortunatly Benson and I were off the podium with a 4th in class and 22nd over all in SOP class. But it was a good start for the PCC.

2003 No Alibi Rally cont.

2003-06-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

Sho' is!

2003 No Alibi Rally cont.

2003-06-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

Is that a twister?

2003 No Alibi Rally

2003-06-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

Now the Pacific Coast Championship begins in earnest with the Rainier Autosport Club's season opener - No Alibi. This is a great event, running all over central Washington on gravel back roads. Benson and I saw all sorts of animals, roads and weather conditions, including the squall infront of us in this pic. This stage lead us up and over a ridge that had just had at least an inch of rain fall on it in the previous hour. The mud pits were especially exciting. Have you ever driven through a chocolate milkshake? I have! No Alibi also re-united me with my friend Lee who was one of the first people to get me in to Rally. Lee has been rallying for many years in both TSD and Stage rallies and has given me all sorts of advice that has no doubt kept me out of trouble.

2003 Rim of the World Rally cont.

2003-05-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

David Higgins wins again - on his way to a convincing win for the season.

2003 Rim of the World Rally cont.

2003-05-18T00:18:00.000-07:00

Through a friend I was a guest of the Mitsubishi Rally Team - full access to the team, and and all the schwag and food I could snag!

2003 Rim of the World Rally

2003-05-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

Rim of the World is the premier rally in the U.S. Held in desert and mountains northeast of Los Angeles, CA, Rim draws competitors from all over North America. This was my first time I had gone to a stage rally and when I got an invite to take my seat in a brand new Evo VIII and drive to the event from San Francisco as a guest of the Mitsubish Rally team, I couldn't resist. Rim runs friday night, and all day Saturday, ending early Sunday morning. Friday night we used our parking passes and got nice and close to the first stage start. Held in the mountains, we got on stage around 7pm, with a nice breeze blowing in the fog, and light rain. At 3000ft, it was pretty cold. This stage started on worn tarmac, and once darkeness fell it was an amazing sight to first hear the cars comming, then get blinded by their lights as they blasted past. This was the last year for the big factory teams from Subaru and Mitsubishi. It was really amazing to see the level of sophistication they bring to the sport with a full service crew. Watching them swap all four struts, and any other items inside a 20min service was pretty impressive.

2003 Raindrop Rally

2003-04-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

Our first trophies - 2003 Raindrop Rally 2nd Place Novice Class. That's my navigator Benson, on the left. This was our first rally together and the beginning of a great season. PCC Championship – here we come!

TSD Gravel Rally Preparation

2003-04-05T00:50:00.000-08:00

Before I could do my first gravel TSD, I had to get the car fully prepared to meet the safety and practical requirements of the events. Items installed include:

Aluminum front skid plate
Aluminum rear differential protector
Auxiliary driving lights - Hella FF200 w/custom mounts
Fire extinguisher - 10BC (5lb) with aviation horizontal mount
Navigator reading light - Hella with red lens
Competition gravel tires - 16" Michelin FB80 on OEM WRX wheels
First Aid kit
Safety Triangle
Tow Rope
Flashlights

Rally heaven in the Pacific Northwest!

2003-04-01T22:02:00.000-08:00

In March, I moved to Seattle, one of the mecca’s of rallying in North America. I surfed the web to find out about every event I could find and vowed to attend as many as possible. It was then that I discovered the Pacific Coast Challenge – a four event series, consisting of brisk gravel TSD events in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. I had to do this. A quick glance at the scores from 2002 showed that nobody competed in all four events. I figure that if I compete in all four I should at the least do reasonably well. But first I had to recruit a navigator, and my good friend and co-worker, Benson, was all over it. We identified our first event, the Raindrop Rally, a one day tarmac affair as a place to cut our teeth.

2002-11-25T22:01:00.000-08:00

SCCA RallyCross at Thunderhill, November 2002

Dirty lessons, dirt cheap

2002-11-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

This fall, I purchased skid plates front and rear for my subie and looked for more dirty events to enter. In November, the folks from the California Rally Series were going to host their first Rally School at Thunderhill, followed by a RallyCross on the second day. The school was an intense six hours of classroom instruction followed by two hours of driving on dirt obstacle courses. The class room sessions had one hour lectures on everything from car prep, to rally timing, to rules and car classifications. The instructors were all seasoned rallyist including Ben Bradley and veteran navvie John Dillon. The driving was great too. They had a fully rally prepped Mitsubishi Evo VI on display as well as three gravel courses – slalom, skid-pad and figure-eight. Each course had instructors, seasoned rallyists like Mark Nelson and Lauchlin O’Sullivan, whom would jump in your car and coach you through the obstacles. I learned more than would ever imagine, even though I never got out of first gear. Lauchlin was awesome – his enthusiasm was infectious, and it was so great to have a someone of his caliber in MY car telling me what to do! The class was only $180, and I highly recommend it. The second day at the RallyCross my scores improved to the top ten in my class.

2002 The Road Not Taken Rally Cont.

2002-08-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

From the navvie seat of Jon's WRX

2002 The Road Not Taken Rally

2002-08-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

Later in the summer of ’02, I attend the third event in the i-Club Rally series, a map style Monte Carlo rally. This time, I’m navvie for my buddy Jon. With some luck, we take first place. At the bar after the event the organizers, Pete and Lee, have a talk with Jon and I and convince us to go up to Oregon in August and compete in The Road Not Taken SCCA touring rally. It’ll be a all day affair, on dirt logging roads west of Salem. Jon and I take the challenge, and I agree to navvie. We drive up all day Friday, meet up with the rest of the competitors at the Rally HQ. Some 40+ cars show up, including four curious newbies from the SF Bay Area. Pete and Lee give us some tips, and off we go. Granted this was more gravel driving than either of had ever done, it could have been the Dakar Rally to us. The 250 mile event kept us on our toes, with lots of very narrow and twisty roads up and over all sorts of mountains. Since we are running dead last in the run-order, we end up finishing well after dark around 9pm, long after the winners (Lee and his brother Rod) had have showers and drink or two. We were totally exhausted. The drive home had us both nodding off on the way to our hotel in Salem. The event was awesome, and hooked us both on gravel rallies.

2002-08-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

More Dirty fun at Thunderhill

2002-08-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

SCCA RallyCross at Thunderhill, July 2002

More dirty fun: RallyCross

2002-08-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

It wasn't long before I got wind of the first ever SCCA RallyCross event in northern California. Rally-X as it's called, is much like AutoCross, but on gravel. The idea is cars compete one at a time, on a course set on gravel and defined by cones. Courses are typically about 30 seconds long, each competitor gets three runs and the times are added up for your daily score. This was a LOT of fun!! About 60 cars came ranging from stock street cars to stage rally prepared 400hp monsters. I didn't do so well, but I had a hell of a good time. The one thing I did learn was that I still had no idea what I was doing on loose surfaces, but it was fun nonetheless!

2002-02-17T21:15:00.000-08:00

And later, I wrote a book about it...

2002-02-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

On the Beach

An Introduction to Dirt

2002-02-15T18:45:00.000-08:00

So with my new exhaust and my new skills, I'm chomping at the bit to fulfill my car's destiny and do everything imaginable with it. A post on the i-Club invites fellow subie owners to a day of dirt at the Hollister Hills off-road park. Some guys say it will be fun, because not all of the trails are too tough for our subies, and there are maps with color coded trails like lift maps at ski resorts. I can't wait. My fellow subie owners, Brian, Jon and Ashley all caravan down to meet our fellow i-Clubbers. The day goes fine, we find some great roads and have no worries in our AWD steeds. After a while we find a short bit of road that takes a hard left, then an easy right-left "S". With good visibility, and radios, we block it off rally style and start taking turns. We all went a couple times. Then some of the more experienced of us, start taking it faster, with no issues. I think, "I gotta try this". So I hammer it and take the first left while braking from 35-20, lose the tail, counter steer and brake some more. The car goes into a permanent dirt-plow mode, and goes nose first over a dirt embankment and parks in a bush. My lovely subie is beached on its bottom teetering with two wheels off the ground. I grab reverse - quickly to avoid embarrassment, one flick of the throttle with no momentum and I know I'm stuck. I hear on the radio "we have an accident!" followed by "bring in the Durango!". We pulled my car back to terra firma and found that I took out my left fog light, pushed in the bumper and flared out the LF fender. A quick look at the car and off we went. I spent the next day with my buddy Ashley taking my bumper off, straightening the support members, pushing in the fender and zip-tying my bumper back together. My car is still in this condition check it out sometime!

Track Day No. 2: Thunderhill

2002-01-18T18:38:00.000-08:00

After my excellent experience at Infineon Raceway, I sign up for a SCCA sponsored HPDE at Thunderhill. For Christmas, my dad splits the cost of new exhaust for my subie. I shop furiously, and settle on the stainless MRT turbo-back model. It arrives the week of my HPDE, and I take Friday off to install it. Dad and I work all day putting it on, but it was worth it! My other mods at this time include a Kartboy short-throw shifter with a Momo Race Airleather Aluminum knob, and Whiteline adjustable rear sway bar with end links and every ricers' fav, a 50-50 atmospheric blow-off valve from Go-Fast Bits. Since the WRX was only about 6 months old, my car caught a lot of attention from the other students and instructors. One instructor begs me to let me ride with him. He later explains that he is a former stage rallyist from the U.K and has done events all over Great Britain and Europe. The day was great, the track superb. I learned TONS about the handling of my car, and how much it could be pushed. Although I never lost grip, I gained a lot of confidence in my driving. This was an excellent event, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

NASA HPDE at Infineon Raceway cont.

2001-11-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

NASA HPDE at Infineon Raceway

2001-11-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

After getting the subie, I decided I had to attempt to everything possible with this car in terms of competitive motorsport (on my budget). Two months after buying it, I quickly learned that I needed to re-learn how to drive as the AWD system reacted very differently to throttle and brake at the threshold of grip. I signed up for my first "High-Performance Driving Event" (HPDE) sponsored by NASA and held at Infineon Raceway. The day of the event, it's pouring rain, and showered frequently through the day. After the first meeting, we were assigned our volunteer instructors. His first question: "uggggh what kind of car do you have?"he said nervously, while eyeing the sky and the now partially muddy (read: slicker than snot) track. "WRX" I replied happily. "Thank GOD!!" was his reply. He was a Kiwi and avid racer of his near M3 spec E36 Bimmer. He knew the track well, and gave me tons of advice. As it turns out, it was great that it was wet, as you can learn things at slower speeds on a wet track. My confidence went up bunches that day. My recommendation though is to avoid Infineon - it's not a forgiving track with very little runoff, and NASA runs a "loose" event with not a lot of discipline. One M5 went into the barrier trunk first and was allowed to continue, this after being warned of passing in no passing zones (he passed me on the outside of turn 6!). Much was learned and I was really thankful for taking the course!

How it all got started

2001-10-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

In September of 2001, I bought a brand new Subaru Impreza WRX. I had never driven in one, but riding in my friend Jon's convinced me that I needed to trade in my 328is ASAP for my own personal rally car. I know I said I hadn't driven one, but I had driven the WRX STi in Gran Turismo 3 on my Playstation2, and I knew it couldn't suck. From there I started searching for info about rallies, I started watching the WRC on SpeedVision and reading all the websites I could find. Then in December, I see a post on i-Club (now called the NASIOC) for a Bay Area Four Seasons rally. This was a TSD rally for Subaru's, run by a local rallyist and a new WRX owner. The first event was really hard, I remember going home dog tired after spending the entire day confused out of my mind. My good friend Rudy who volunteered to be my navigator was even more tired and frustrated. But oddly it was fun. I came back for all four events and took second in the series.