Rally starts are early, and this rally was no exception. The trip started out with no sufficient travel vehicle. It was down to two Hyundai Accents. Luke’s Hyundai had no working brakes, while Steve’s shook like an unbalanced washing machine at highway speeds. With these two parts cars available we decided to combine them into one, hopefully functional Hyundai.

7AM service at Steve’s house with both cars jacked up was successful with swapping Steve’s used front pads and rotors on Luke’s car. The neighbors did not appreciate the impact gun at the early AM or the air compressor kicking in. It’s an alarm clock, they should be up making breakfast for somebody. The Rally Accent came off the floorjack and we were off to the races…

We head off to pick up Dave. Everything was going great until we reached the ghetto of Poughkeepsie NY. After passing the methadone clinic, half way house and Kennedy Fried Chicken, we arrived at Dave’s place.

We leave Poughkeepsie at around 9AM, with a full day of activities. Most of them involved barraging Dave with personal questions. Luke has known Dave since 2002 meeting at a Galant VR4 get together but have only hung out a handful of times while Steve met Dave only two or three times. Without a radio in the car Steve decides to start asking Dave questions of a personal nature that would get deeper and deeper. This is probably one of the easiest/quickest ways to get to know someone. (Sample questions at the end of the story…)

About an hour in Steve starts receiving a massive incoming of text messages. We weren’t sure which girlfriend it was, all we know is she wouldn’t leave us alone.

Its around 11am and Steve is already complaining about starving. It turns out Steve has an ex in the Albany area and she meets us at Chipotle. She is fully infected with the hippie disease. We finish our meals and suddenly Steve’s Ex decides she wants Five Guys fries and we MUST have some. So she walks next door, buys some fries and brings them back to where we were sitting. She then proceeds to eat two French fries, stops and basically forces Steve and Luke to finish an entire Five Guys Fries while they scream in pain from too much food. They were delicious.

We all stop off at the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Vermont. Big fan of the “Imagine Whirled Peace” flavor.

We decided to screw Steve over by skipping a meal. Starving Steve is similar to feeding a Mogwai after midnight. We finally arrived at Sunday River Inn the Rally Headquarters with our super rally Hyundai on Miata rims and borrowed brakes.

Friday:

Fresh start at 7:30AM has us Showered, out the door and paying for our VIP tickets. This year NEFR started a program of shuttling around Media/VIP people. This program included coach service from Sunday River, box meals, soda/wine/beer and Tim O’Neil’s ex-co-driver Martin Hedland as our tour guide and Rally America Liason.

We learned a few things from the Rally America VIP program:

1. They serve you red wine that tastes like it comes out of a box and gets Steve smashed quickly. It really wasn’t too bad, some of it actually had a cork and not all the beers were in cans.
2. Somehow only the oddest types of people sign up for the VIP program and there is a high rate of Galant VR4 ownership among them.
3. Not having to drive between stages or having stages closed for your transportation is very nice (for drunks).

However before we can get started being carted around in style by the bus we need breakfast. Steve hasn’t eaten since last night. A quick stop at the local convenience store (Note, Local in Maine could be up to one hour of driving each way) for Steve and the rest of us to stock up on muffins and coffee and head back for the first stage at Sunday River.

We had great seats on the grass except for the Subaru owners behind us going on and on about how great of drivers they are and how they could drift better than Pastrana. Oh how I wish sometimes that WRX’s would cause these type of owners rectal cancer. But I digress…

Link to full gallery of SS1-SundayRiver http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/8983579_XH3H6

Highlights:

After the Sunday River stage we travel we travel to the Mexico Recreation Park (Mexico as in Maine, not Taco Bell) for a Park Expose, service and stage with the famous NEFR jump which gets smaller and smaller each year. Once again due to a lack of communication and coordination the spectator schedule was different than the racer schedule. The “Parade” lap everyone viewed was actually the first stage and thanks to talking to some Rally Drivers (orange Golf, sorry forgot names!) we found out there wasn’t another stage.

Here is the complete gallery of SS2-Mexico: http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/8984040_FNVa6

Highlights:

Awkward!

Instead of standing around like idiots for a stage that was not going to happen we sat on our bus eating and resting, or in the case of Steve, drinking.

At some point our bus moved us to the Concord Pond Stage. Luckily Steve had moved from the cheap wine to Sam Adams beer. This however did not keep him from yelling at an 19 year old kid with braces about how he should drop out of college because he was a communications major. Or as Steve put it, barista in training. Steve ate another lunch.

Concord Pond was a great stage with spectators at what seemed like every corner. The stage was packed with people! There was a mixture of elevation changes, off camber turns and tricky rock formations. Luke and Dave were in two different view points, allowing completely different sets of photos. Overall it was a very fun stage, one to not miss.

Gallery of photo’s from SS5-ConcordPond http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/8987940_mp2Bz

Highlights:

And into the tree. Miraculously he was able to drive off!

Luke had been complaining about some ear issue most of the day. At some point during the downtime Luke offered $20 to Dave if he happened to have Q-Tips among his camera cleaning equipment (from a welding accident). As we found out, Luke’s ear is another discharge port for his bodily waste. He placed a Q-tip in his ear, moved it around and pulled out what looked like a dog turd. Steve stopped eating for awhile.

*Picture removed for safety of our readers*

We got back on the bus where we headed back to a wonderful buffet dinner at Sunday Driver with the VIP/Media personal plus Rally workers. With various pasta and meat dishes with cookies and brownies for desert it hit the spot. The cookies were varied and some of the best we’ve ever eaten. The brownies must have been cooked incorrectly as they were very mushy like fudge.

We sit down at a table situated between two leather couches and begin eating. Suddenly there it was. We almost missed it but only just a few feet we spotted what we previously thought was the unimaginable. At first we didn’t think it was true and we all simultaneously started rubbing our eyes and checking our glasses but it was there. One of the other patrons of the restaurant had the insight to take two of the cookies and scoop the brownie in between creating a sandwich of sin. Dave and Steve look up to find Luke missing but he shortly returns with brownie scraped out of the pan and placed in between two cookies. He goes to take a bite as the gentleman in the table next to us looks at Luke, looks at the cookie and nods. Luke nods back to his new blood brother and bites into his slice of heaven.

We went back to the room where we showered, downloaded the daily pictures, barraged Dave with personal questions and completely ignoring making any RallyAddict updates.

6am at Saturday morning in a daze we went to the VIP/Media room to get pastries and coffee for breakfast. We were quickly woken up by the antics of the odd but fun VIP crew. If they weren’t so nice, and the fear of being stabbed by them at future events we could dedicate many pages of material to these fine folks. I’ll leave it at that.

The bus brought us to the service and stage at the Papermill in Berlin, NH. We watched one stage which went through the papermill’s property and provided a great view of the course. This may have been one of the only times we saw a car racing for more than 5 seconds. Once again the stage was the packed, it really was a great turn out for NEFR.

Link to gallery with all the SS6-Berlin pictures: http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/8988081_zAL2a

Highlights:

Lifting a wheel

Lawndarting off of a hump on the inside.

And again (both cars finished)

After that we took a long trip in the bus to the ‘Something Fishy” stage in New Hampshire. We saw two passes where parts continually fell off cars and we had incident after incident with the volunteer for the stage. No matter what our badges said, the protests from that day’s Rally-America Liason had with him or the drunken screams from our compatriots, he wanted us out of the road or any good spectator spot. We took the high road and found relatively good spectator spots behind the yellow tape.

Link to gallery from SS9-SomethingsFishy http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/9000198_AHggZ

Highlights:

Front tire issue. Part of the fender area ripped off right in front our spectator area!

This points out the only issues we had with the VIP setup. It was great having someone driving you between stages, take care of food, provide needed answers when necessary (Is this stage canceled or should we sit here for 15 hours in the heat?), ex-rally car drivers to annoy with questions, a traveling bathroom, and constant amusement from the other VIPs. However compared to the VIP program at STPR it was twice the price and provided little additional access. We were disappointed a few times with the lack of coordination but we are aware this is a first time effort and hope things are improved in the future. Diet soda would have been appreciated. Luke described the box lunches as “amazing” and they need no further improvement.

After two stages the road was shut down just for us. In a few minutes a small old re-painted school bus coming down the road at rally racer speeds stopped at our spectator area to pick us up. We loaded onto the bus with only a few minor insults thrown at the volunteer in a red shirt and headed to the beginning of the stage. The bus driver, probably a descendant of Annie Oakley or Amelia Earhardt was tearing up the road quicker than some of the competitors. We flew down the road with every crowd in the woods screaming and hollering at us with their hands in the air waving at us. I’m now wondering if rally spectators are mindless idiots who get excited about anything that moves.

We arrived at the beginning of the stage where we watch the hole-shot starts to the third stage. After all the cars go we hop onto the bus for a second lunch and then head back to Sunday River.

Highlights:

25 mph? Really?

We make it back in time before any of the cars arrive to setup for picture taking. The typical champagne podium ceremony ensued with the expected canned responses from Pastrana/Block.

Pictures from the ceremony are in the Misc album here: http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/8983076_AiyFe

Highlights:

After the Open class awards Eric Burmeister from Mac Attack! fame asked Dave and Luke to stick around and take pictures of the Max Attack! winners. Very graciously Dave and Luke accepted. It was a great opportunity and hopefully they help Eric out.

Luke and Dave are taking the pictures while Steve meets up with his friend Chrissy who is living in Maine for the summer, who also happens to be a hippie. Dave noticed a pattern. Steve was cold so Chrissy brought him a Grateful Dead hoodie that has never been washed and has been doused with patroulie oil. Luke continues the rest of the trip. We all went to dinner at the Brewery where there was a lack of drivers or any cool teams. There were a few tables of Subaru owners…

Sunday had us wakeup/cleanup/leave. As we were packing the car we met two drivers (Andrew Havas and Aaron Crescenti) who were also getting ready and who said they had heard of RallyAddict. I’m sure they were lying but it felt nice.

We headed off in search of lobster before we left Maine. Trying to not get ripped off at a tourist trap we somehow drove an extra 50 miles through a bunch of tourist traps, arrived at and left 3 separate restaurants/lobster shacks until we gave in at a restaurant where we bought $16.99 lobster rolls. All we wanted was to eat Lobster in Maine, because you have to do that when in Maine. It worked out much better than last years NEFR where we wanted to eat ice cream in Vermont and somehow stopped at a shop 1 mile into New Hampshire. (It was good and I’m sure it was a freedom loving cow that produced the milk instead of some communist Vermont cow, but that’s not the point).

An hour later we stopped off for Lunch #2 at the Border Café right outside of Boston. The Border Café is a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants with only a few locations in Massachusetts, New Jersey and some state no one cares about. We found it highly amusing to stop off at a restaurant so similar to the one we commonly frequent in New Jersey with the exact same food however the quality of the soda was sub-par. I’m sure the employee in charge of the soda is making payments on an Impreza. Our Waitress was a bitch probably because she’s a Godless Red Sox fan and Dave was wearing a NY Yankees hat. Or possibly because she doesn’t like a strong woman in politics and Steve was wearing a Palin 2012 shirt.

2^nd lunch did not agree with Dave too well and one (yes, one) exit down the highway we proceeded to stop at a rest stop. Besides not frequenting a Wal-Mart this is one thing we nearly skipped on this trip. Ah rest-stops. No matter where in the country you stop at one it is continually bustling with the oddest and most varied types of people. Once Dave was finished, and we were finished with the antics we were playing while he was in the stall we left to return Dave to home.

Overall, it was an amazing trip. Great cars, great drivers, great people and no drama! We can’t wait to attend next years New England Forest Rally.

Questions asked of Dave:

1) When was the last time you cried uncontrollably?

2) What was the most embarrassing thing you ever had to tell your doctor?

3) Have you ever been arrested?

4) What was your best and worst car? (As a Mitsubishi owner he of course used the same car twice)

5) Do you have credit card debt?

6) WHY DO YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD DEBT?

7) Have you ever called your parents crying?

Have you ever adult shit your pants?

9) What’s the most you ever lost gambling?

10) Why do you smoke?

11) WHY DON’T YOU QUIT SMOKING?

12) What did they do when they hazed you?

13) Which girlfriend do you still have?

14) What was your worst breakup?

15) Have you had your thyroid checked for that?

We asked about 3 times these questions and more….sexual based questions that may not be suitable for this write-up. We got to know Dave well.

Statistics

1 Gigantic bucket of Party Mix

3 Cases Barq’s Diet Rootbeer

25+ Gigabytes of Pictures

1020 Miles Driven

1 Bottle Wine

29 Bottles of Beer

0 Cans of Beer

½ Bottle Bug Spray

4 Tanks of Gas

1 Pair Underwear (Dave)

26 Hours Driven (Not including to/from stages as we had VIP)

1 Shirt purchased by Steve and lost within 1 hour

1 Rockwall climbed by Steve and Luke

1 Datsun 510

1 Datsun 280Z

“Membership has its privileges”
That was the thought that ran through my mind while sitting comfortably in the shade, eating a delicious medley of fresh strawberries and dirt as Ken Block drifted less than ten feet from where I was sitting.
The summer of 2009 brings us to the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally or as it’s better known as, STPR.  STPR is the 5th race of the Rally America series held in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania.

The entire photo gallery of the event can be found here:
http://gtluke.smugmug.com/RallyAddict/805158

Click the Subaru to view my writeup on the 2008 Fall Rally New York

What a great weekend, with the excitement started on Thursday. For me that involved me waking up at 5am to drive to Wards/Randalls Island NY to give training on municipal pumps, how exciting (yawn). After my second class I high tailed it out of the city and back to my office where I swapped around my computer and photo equipment into my weekend bags and grabbing the last few things I needed (few cases of Diet Barq’s) and taking my pre-packed jeep over to Ryan’s apartment where the RallyAddict crew was meeting up at 3pm. I took my jeep because I don’t give a crap about it and I don’t like leaving my Galant VR4 abandoned in the open for days like that. But then Brian (Monkey) showed up and left his Evo9 there without caring. I guess I’m paranoid. We loaded up the AstroVan and cruised out of the Morristown NJ area and started off to our destination of the Villa Roma Hotel in the Callicoon area of upstate New York. A generally uneventful trip landed us at the hotel in about 2 hours. We checked into this remarkably beautiful hotel (way too nice for us dirtballs) and were stunned by the size and quality of our room. Many thanks to the organizers for getting us such a great rally discount at a quality place. Though Halloween weekend at the Nevele would have been awesome. We were totally going to bring proton packs for that. After finding our room and unpacking we went to find the registration table where I could pick up my press pass. I totally forgot to take any pictures of the hotel but it is as nice as implied on their website. http://www.villaroma.com/

We found the registration table after asking the hotel staff, conveniently it was located at the clubhouse where the ceremonial start was going to happen shortly. I picked up my press pass from the nicest lady on the face of the planet, we found the radio frequencies for the scanner to listen in on happenings, and we watched the ceremonial start.

Ceremonial start images

Highlights:

My favorite car, being flagged off by I think the mayor

At this point Dave showed up in sandals, I think it was about negative 900 deg out by then. Psycho hippie! After the Ceremony we went back to our hotel and I think I was inside for about 30 seconds before I was passed out for the night. Long day for me.

Eventually Stage 1 started right on schedule. I was armed with my Nikon d80 / 18-200 VR / SB800, Dave with his d40 / 12-24 and d90 70-200 VR (rented) and Brian armed with some Canon DSLR with some white lens. I know nothing about Canon camera’s other than they are popular with Subaru people. Here is the album with all of our pictures. I tagged Dave’s pictures Dave, and Brian’s Pictures Monkey.

Special Stage 1 Album

Highlights:

Here’s a great picture that Brian took oe me taking that last picture. Awesome catch of my flash going off.

Stage 2 was the reverse running of Stage 1, here’s a picture of the gang waiting for the 2nd stage to start. Brian on the left with the whtie lens, then Dave, then Ryan sitting behind the tree there.

Special Stage 2 Album

Here’s a great one Dave got of Stage 2

One of mine

Stage 3 was back to the original direction, and Stage 4 was again the reverse.

Special Stage 3 Album

During the 3rd stage, the Toyota overshot the turn and had to reverse and take off again. When they dropped the hammer to get up the hill I heard a distinctive ‘snap’ and jolt from the rear wheels. Then the car really wouldn’t move forward, they got it just out of sight and eventually put up their triangles and had to get pulled out of the stage. It was pretty obvious that they broke an axle and the car would slightly move using only the friction from the rear differential.

Special Stage 4 Album

One of Dave’s

We left this stage a few cars early to get a jump start to hit Stage 6-12 which was pretty far away. We stopped in the Monticello Walmart to refill our soda cooler, get some necessities and a few sub sandwiches to eat on the way.

We arrived at Stage 6 and had about a 1/4 mile hike to the spectator area. There was a table set up with a generator and they were selling desserts and coffee and someone supplied a port-a-pottie. The view from the spectator area was kind of poor. It was very straight and there was 2 large orange fences separating the spectators from the action, so it made for difficult pictures from my exiled friends behind the barrier. I walked up the course a little bit until I found an area without bright orange fencing and some room to move and some good scenery.

Special Stage 6-11 Album

My view:

I ran into some other media people I’ve seen at countless rally events whose name’s elude me right now. Nice guys, funny how their “crew” consists of Subaru’s and Canon Cameras and my gang is all Mitsubishi drivers and Nikon users (okay so we have to get that antique Canon away from Monkey).

I tried to move around for the 2nd pass (same direction) to get some different angles but that really didn’t work out well, this is about all I was able to get:

Here’s the gang in their pen

For the next stage they ran it backwards, as the sun set. I managed to climb out on a downed tree in the lake and got some pretty artsy pictures. If the cars had come through 15 minutes earlier they would have all turned out this nice, but better framed and faster. It got too dark to pull this off though with the race cars. This is a sweep car.

Here’s a race car, this one came out pretty good. I need a newer camera with better low light abilities

After this stage was over we walked back to the van (mental note, bring flashlight for afternoon stages) and used the Garmin to find a place to eat. We decided on Bubba’s BBQ since we passed it on the way in and it looked like a nice place from the outside.

It was a good place with a personable host (dressed as a dead padre for Halloween) Food was good too. The other photographers were also inside, guess they had the same idea we did. We got them to take our picture with the host.

We then drove back to the Villa Roma and met up with Sponge who had to work that day, and then we laughed ourselves to sleep.

Special Stage 15 Album

Dave’s pictures came out the best at this stage.

After the 1 passing we decided to head over to the fairgrounds to check out the Super Special Stages 17 & 18 which we knew would give us a great vantage point for action.

We got there early and bought some snacks from the local Boy Scouts. The cars made 2 passes around a 2 90 deg right hand turns. The first pass was SSS17 followed by a service, then SSS18 which was the 2nd pass.

Super Special Stage 17 Album

Check out the album for a great sequence of shots taken by Monkey of McCormack losing it in the 2nd turn.

Monkey and Dave really go the good shots again as I struggled to find an interesting vantage point with my smaller lens.

There are a lot of great shots, check out the album

This stage was followed by the service where we could walk around and see the tattered remains of the rally cars and the teams frantically trying to fix them for the final stages.

Super Special Stage 18 album

After the stage started I climbed on top of a huge dirt pile and tried to get some pictures from a different perspective.

It was a somewhat different

Dave and Monkey got some great pictures again at this spot. Those really fast lenses help here.

After this stage was over we decided to pack it up and head home. We said our goodbyes and climbed back into the van and pointed it towards Jersey.

I spent the entire ride home and next day sorting through these 1,000+ pictures from 4 different cameras. I hardly had any time to actually “fix” any of the images so they are mostly as shot. Dave was kind enough to go through his and get them looking nice and send them to me. His look very crisp because of his efforts.

I’m going to try and get back to this post and add some details where I can like GPS coordinates better descriptions of the stage locations.

Thanks for reading and rally on!

-Luke

Entire photo album:

2008 New England Forrest Rally

Click the image to view the whole story if you are on the home page

the journey begins on thursday. maria and i pack our crap into my hyundai and go meet up at steve’s house and pack up his hyundai. we discovered that there really isn’t enough room in a hatchback accent for 3 people and all their camping gear. we shed some of the useless crap back into my car and take off for ryan’s apartment across town. we meet up with the others there, make a stop at the quickstop for some road drinks and snacks and start heading north.

Collection of “transiting” pictures

what i basically stared at for 8 hours, the back of ryan’s car and my ancient t20 laptop with a gps receiver hooked to street & trips

here’s looking at us:

and somewhere in vermont steve proved that an accent can in fact do 100mph.

we make it to maine without event, find out campsite, set up our tent city, find a 1 gas station store with hot dogs, and another gas station store with hot dog buns. we cooked them up over the fire, and called it a night. big day tomorrow.

Friday:

We got up bright and early and headed over to mexico for breakfast. there is this pizza place just outside of the main town that has great breakfast so we stopped there again this year and had some.

here is us after we finished eating.

then we headed over to the mexico rec park in anticipation for the jump. we didn’t really know that there was a short stage before this one that we could have spectated over by our campsite, along with the expose at sunday river.

Collection of pictures from the Mexico rec park stage

we had a bunch of time to kill so we checked out the service and steve climbed this pole.

i FINALLY got a good look under the hyundai. i’ve been told its an entire evo drivetrain but i’ve never seen it in person.

sure looks like it to me.

we met up with kenny bartram and dennis hotson. they just bougt matt iorio’s subaru that prior tuesday and were racing it this weekend. dennis said this car had significantly more power, stiffer chassis and 500lbs lighter. awesome.

then some guy brought over some electric dirtbike and kenny started doing wheelies on it. pretty funny. he was trying to race dave mirra on the other eletric bike, and they stopped to pose for pictures and i snuck one in.

i’m not sure exactly what was going on here but steve decided to get freaking with this weird lion’s head

we also had to obtain our tickets for teh bus ride to the 2nd spectator spot of the day. there was limited seating so we had to make sure we got our tickets. the town provides 2 busses that take you to and from the 2nd spectator area, its totally worth it. if you ever go to this rally GET THE TICKETS.

we made our way back to the jump and the cars came around once for a practice pass, and then they came around a second time for a real stage.

this year most of the cars were laaaame over the jump. just 2 good ones.

going to the moooooon brb!

there are tons of pictures of the cars going over the jump, check them out in the galler. click on the one above and it brings you to that point in my gallery.

after all the cars made it through the track, we had to wait a few hours for the busses to pick us up. we went over to walmart and got some food and a game of horse balls, or ladder balls, or whatever they are called. its actually a pretty fun game.

the bus eventually came and we all piled in. philth makes faces as i try and take a picture inside the bus:

we get off the bus and walk about 1/2 mile up the road to the same spectator spot we had last year. i nice uphill sweeping right turn. we set up camp and maria was too afraid of ticks to join us so she wandered aimlessly and eventually settled in across the street.

while trying to find a place to take a leak, i found a dead body at the bottom of a ravine. right next to it were  a pair of work gloves. awesome

here is a link to all the pictures of the cars coming through this stage:

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/5466974_6urGR

highlights:

when this stage was over we walked back to the bus and took that back to where we left our cars. we packed up our junk and headed over to the brewery near sunday river for dinner. the menu changed a lot since last year and honestly none of us enjoyed our time there. i distinctly remember last year having great food and a great time. oh well.

we finished our meal and headed back to camp, bought a few bundles of wood and sat around the fire. good times

saturday:

we wake up bright and early again and head over into new hampshire for the first stage of the day:

SS7-8-Dillon-Success

this was an interesting stage. we had a stadium type view of the back lot of a paper mill. the locals were serving breakfast which was great since we didn’t have time to get any. i had a pretty good ham egg and cheese sandwich. serving that sandwich without taylor ham should be a crime though. it was filling none the less.

we hung and out watched 2 stages here.

highlights:

(click the image above to see the whole dillon-success album

i’d like to find out who this photographer is and get him this picture. its great

oh man on the way back when travis got caught up in the turn and wasted about 7 seconds, the irish mob next to us went NUTS. jumping up and down and screaming. i’m pretty sure they came out to see mcshea win, or were with his team.  i didn’t get any pictures of that.

coming back:

pfft i don’t need tires.

around this time is when my camera started acting funny. the last stage of the day before i really got a lot of dirt in my camera. i was shaking the camera upside down every time a car would pass to get the dirt off of it. i was covered, my camera was covered, and dirt and dust really packed itself into my lens. i ruined my lens last year at maine but it didn’t materialize until the following week when i was on vacation in balitmore. bummer! even worse now is that i have another stage to go after this one, which happens to be the coolest stage and my camera isn’t working properly.

i have a nikon 18-200vr lens which is a really wide range of zoom, causing the lens to move a LOT during different zooms. this makes for a lot of places for dirt to get. the ultimate result of this is that i lost my autofocus.

so, from here on out i’m doing my focus by hand. its HARD to do. i pulled all the tricks i could out of my ass to try and still capture good images, some came out usable thankfully.

okay so after that stage was coming to an end we decided to leave a bit early to miss the mad rush to the next stage.  we headed back into maine, and this time it was pretty far out there in maine, i think it was about an 80 mile drive too. we were greated by some fellow rally enthusiasts on the way over to the next stage. it was really cool being surrounded by these guys for so long just cruising for like an hour to the next stage.

we arrived at the next stage too late to make the first bus so we hiked about 1/4 mile into the woods to a pretty crappy spectator spot. after the cars passed once and i didn’t bother to take any pictures (too much tree coverage) rich and i decided to try and see if we could catch a bus between stages. we hiked back down, and found a line for another bus. we made it on the bus (just BARELY enough room for us) and took that about 3 or 4 miles into the stage where they dropped us off. as long as we were careful up there nobody cared really where we were standing so i was able again to get close to some awesome rally action and get some great shots. too bad my camera was half broken or i would really have been able to get some killer shots again. oh well.

check out the full album of this stage here:

SS9-10-MiddleDam

highlights:

here’s rich waiting for cars. we could hear the crowd behind us cheering some guy on who had climbed nearly to the top of one of those huge pine trees. the drunkards in the crowd were trying to throw him up some beer since he finished the one he brought with him. haha.

check out how dark the forest is, its CRAZY up there. you can NOT walk through the forest because its so dark and dense.

cars!

damn i wish my autofocus would work

after the cars came through, we had a break  until they came back out. rich and i decided to hike to the other side of the spectator spot to get a better angle from the other direction. we didn’t want the marshals to see us so we tried to hike through the woods. holy crap was it impossible! these woods are DENSE.

here’s rich looking like some kind of jewish outdoor terrorist

we finally emerged out of the woods and found a couple perched on top of some rocks on the inside of a turn. we joined them and they turned out to be really cool. we enjoyed our time with them.

cars coming through:

the bushes were really getting in the way of my shots so between cars (2 min) i was running down to the road to try and clear them from my angles.

rich thought it would be funny to take pics of me doing so

after all the cars came through rich and i started to hike down the road back to the spectator spot where our friends were. we figured it would be shorter if we walked the 3 miles than if we waited for multiple bus trips. but we got about 1/3 of the way down and the bus stopped and picked us up! standing room only but hell it was a free ride back down. awesome!

we all packed our crap back into the cars and we took off for the closing ceremony. we got there, a bit late but we did see a bit of the action and got to check out some of the cars again.

we left the ceremony area and went and got some dinner at a restaurant/pub on the way out of sunday river. they offered a lobster stew which was REALLY good. i really liked it a lot. the rest of the food and the service was good. hopefully i can remember the name of this place and take note of it so others can enjoy it.

we left dinner and went back to camp. we got a few more bundles of wood and hung out for the night. phil decided to throw one of my diet barq’s into the camp fire which promptly exploded into a HUGE root beer hot mess. pretty funny though, but i really could have gone for another barq’s on the way home haha.

sunday morning we get up, pack up and leave but not before taking a picture in front of this sign in front of the campsite.

we had lobster on our minds and ryan found a great spot for us to go. it was some buffet place near the shoreline. (again, i need to get the name of this place for everyone). lunch buffet was $12 i think, and we got a WHOLE lobster (1.5lbs) for $8 more! the place was interesting too, as it was a converted school.

after lunch we found a go cart place and i promptly kicked everyone’s ass by an entire lap. i’m in the red

w00t!

a few more hours in the car and eventually we convinced everyone to stop at cabella’s to check out the camping supplies and guns. we spent like 45 minutes there while poor phil waited in the car.

few more hours home and maria had some kind of pee attack and we had to pull off the highway really fast and run into the palisades park mall so she could relieve herself. haha it was a funny episode but we lost the other guys in the process. about another hour and we were home. maria and i had to pack our stuff out of steve’s car and put it in mine, then drive to my house and unpack again. i think i got to bed at like 1am and had to be in new york city at a sewer treatment plant by 7am for a system start up. uggg that week was rough.

thats the end of the NEFR story. please remember to look through the photo albums as there are hundreds of pictures. and they are for sale with reasonable prices. even though my broken lens should be under warrantee (its back at the nikon plant right now) any sales would be appreciated

STPR has made some changes from last year that proved to be an improvement for us spectators. Gone is the Subaru splash, a great place for media but a terrible view for spectators. Introduced are the Waste Management stages though it is worse for spectators as there is no spectator area, and also added is the Tioga County Fairgrounds Super Special Stage where spectators can enjoy seeing about a mile of rally action from the bleachers. Not true rally, but at least it is easy access for those non diehard fans.

This rally starts early for us, we pick up a friend and co-driver Jason Grahn from Newark Airport. He has flown in from Washington State to co-drive for Per Schroeder in his 1977 Saab 99. We get some food into Jason from a nice east coast Jewish Deli, pack the van and head out to scenic Wellsboro Pennsylvania for the rally. About 4 hours later we arrive at the Tioga County Fairgrounds (N41 46.086 W77 12.297) to drop Jason off for registration, snap a few pictures of the happenings there and we head out to our campsite at the Stony Fork Campground (N41 38.045 W77 22.047).

We have used this Campsite in the past for this rally, as well as a large portion of the other spectators. The rally party continues into the night at all the fan campsites, or you can select a quieter site up the hill like us to catch some easy sleep. We set up camp and head back out into town to meet up with some friends at a baseball field near the practice stage where some of team Subaru is staged. Our friend introduces us to his friends rally driver and freestyle motocross rider Kenny Bartram co-driver Dennis Hotson (Car #690). Dennis and Kenny were especially nice people, and surprisingly talkative for us being strangers and them being busy from getting ready for a serious rally. They even invited us out to grab some food and we graciously accepted. Fun times were had at the Wendy’s picnic table. We cruised back to the campsite and crashed out for the night.

Friday is a relaxed day, as first car out on stage 1 doesn’t happen until 2:01pm. It was very sunny and hot that day but we still managed to get some usable pictures out of our not so exciting vantage point. The Waste Management area hosted stages 1 and 2.

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/6328490_jzh64

After our hike back to the van we head over to the Tioga County Fairgrounds to see how our friend Grahn was doing and to spectate super special stage 3. The Super Special Stage was interesting to watch, you could really get a feel for the different style of driving from the different cars and drivers, something difficult to see when you can only see them accomplish a turn or two out in the regular stages. Kenny Bartram and a local named KC came out and set up dirt bike jumps and performed some awesome tricks for the crowd. Kenny even threw in some backflips!

Saturday was the big day of rally. We woke up early and headed over to Colton Point (N41 42.293 W77 29.544). Last year at this stage we sat with about a thousand other fans and waited for over 6 hours to find a giant debacle and cancelled stages. There was about ½ the spectators and 1/5 of the media at this year’s STPR and surely it is a result of the horrible mis-management, lies and cover-ups from the 2007 Colton Point stage. This year, things went as planned. The highlight of this stage was Matt Johnson coming within inches of rolling over his car as he cut a bit too hard on the setup turn. We sat right at the first turn with the cars driving away from us, causing us to get completely covered in rocks and dust as the cars came tearing past, but that is the excitement of rally!

http://gtluke.smugmug.com/gallery/6330572_RRGeK

After Colton Point we moved as fast as we could over to the 12-Mile spectator area (N41 30.956 W77 41.156). The hike to the area from our parking spot was one to remember, over a mile up a hill but we were pleased to find that the stage did not start yet and we were able to get a great spot and finally we were positioned near some fellow Mitsubishi owners. The 12-Mile spectator area was viewing for special stage 8 (Lebo) and special stage 9 (12 Mile). We had a great vantage point and got some fantastic pictures.

After both stages were over we sluggishly headed back over to the Tioga County Fairgrounds to watch the finish of the race, super special stage 13. The stage was at night so no pictures came out usable, but Kenny Bartram came out again and performed some more stunts. What a hard working driver, he drove in from SS12 and hopped right out of his car, ran through the crowd and hopped over the barriers to the ramp area. He took his bike out, got changed into his jump suit, performed his trick, dropped his bike and ran back up to his car to complete SS13. After the rally was over the results were:

1. Antoine L’Estage / Nathalie Richard

2. Tanner Foust / Christine Beavis

3. Matthew Johnson / Jeremy Wimpey

All the Subaru factory and fan support couldn’t keep a lone Hyundai off the top position of the podium. (Albeit an evo powered Hyundai) L’Estage is a spectacular yet smooth driver, definitely a RallyAddict favorite.

]]> http://gtluke.com/rally/2008-susquehanna-trail/feed/ 0 http://gtluke.com/rally/2007-black-river-stages-rally-2/ http://gtluke.com/rally/2007-black-river-stages-rally-2/#comments Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:00:42 +0000 gtluke http://gtluke.com/weblog/?p=38 Continue reading →]]> Black River Stages Rally – September 28-29, 2007 – Harrisville, New York

RallyAddict photo’s of the event can be found in our gallery or by clicking HERE.

This was a spectacular rally held in Harrisville New York which is only about 25 miles south of Canada. We planned our trip to this rally at the last minute as time became available to us, and managed to attend the entire rally without staying overnight. We left New Jersey at about 3:30 am and started driving north. We arrived in the quaint town of Harrisville just in time for breakfast at the local bakery. Breakfast was fantastic and cheap, and the bakery was packed fully of rally drivers and teams eating at the breakfast buffet. Around the side of the bakery was the rally expo where we went to check out the cars before they left to go rally. It was interesting to see the motorcycles ready for rally action also, as this rally included off road motorcycles!

The first spectator spot was Jayville road, a chicane that crosses some partially buried railroad tracks. The marshal there was an ex rally driver who kept all of us spectators entertained between stages, he and his wife were very friendly people as were the rest of the locals who joined in to watch the excitement. What I noticed during this rally was how welcoming the town was to the rally. It seemed like all the locals thoroughly enjoyed when rally came to town, which often is not the case when a rally takes over your town.

Jayville road was a dead end road, so we got to drive up the stage to find our parking spot near the end of the course, watch the cars come in and come back. Amazing how much different the cars look on their way back out, and how many didn’t make it back out. We passed several of the cars on the trip back down the road, as they were stranded in a ditch or broken.

Watching the bikes compete was very different. Sliding off the trail into a tree in a car with a roll cage is a lot different than hitting one on a motorcycle. I had a 35mph accident on my bandit400 motorcycle a few years ago and I’m still feeling it.

The next spectator area was a power line trail in the sand simply named “Powerline ”. This stage was excellent to spectate at also, because of the high hill on the inside of the turn. You could get very close to the action and remain entirely safe as well. A few close calls and excitement from the RWD cars and bikes provided excellent thrills. The cars passed 2 times in the same direction on this stage, the 2^nd time considerably quicker. There was talk about a series of jumps further down the road that we opted out of. The spectating area was great in the turn and we didn’t want to risk missing the action, even for rally jumps.

The last spectator stage was back at Jayville road, but in the dark. It was very exciting to watch, especially the bikes as they had fantastic lighting all over them. Unfortunately the darkness makes for poor pictures so you’ll have to use your imagination.

After this stage we packed our things, drove back down the course and tried to make it home. Diet Coke and a few rest stops enabled us to get home safely sometime in the early AM hours. Well worth the drive but unfortunately this rally has been discontinued due to the host’s lack of enthusiasm with the event.

The 2006 Fall rally had been cancelled due to lack of enrollment, and the 2007 Rally must have been a close call.

Starting on Friday, the morning stages had no spectating area so we elected to arrive in the afternoon at the single spectating point given on the fliers. This was hardly a spectating area; it was an intersection of a road where you could watch the cars fly by, in a totally straight line. Problems with securing land owners who would let spectators use their land ended up causing all the spectators (all 10 of us) to wear safety vests, so we would all look like rally marshals as this ended up not being a "spectator" area after the owner of the land pulled permission for spectating at the last minute. 

 The view was poor, the excitement was poor, and after the first stage most of the spectators left. I managed to grab a few decent pictures, talk to some rally fans and marshals and then we headed over to the spectating area for the late afternoon stages at the golf course.

This stage was rather interesting, $5 per person and $5 per car to park. a short hike through the golf course led to a wide open view of about half a mile of a tarmac stage. There was approximately 50 people spectating at this area, and the view was great. As the sun set the cars passed several times at a high rate of speed on this rather straight portion of the track. Nothing spectacular occurred here but it was rather interesting.

Saturday looked considerably more promising, as it is the gravel day and upon arriving at the one designated spectating area ($5 per person, $5 per car for parking) the view looked pretty good. Again, the road was rather straight, but we were right up against the road on a 4ft embankment. Rally officials decided that we were too close to the road and rocks would injure us and the trees acting as barriers were not large enough to stop a speeding car, so safety tape was put up backing us up about 5 feet from the road. After the cars passed the first time, some of the spectators left, going from about 30 spectators down to about 20. The cars passed again from the opposite direction which gave a much better view as you can see them exiting a mild left hand turn and entering the hill where the spectators are viewing. I had inched my way down towards the turn after each stage, and eventually there were so little spectators left that the marshals stopped checking on us. We carefully picked our viewing positions and I was able to take some great photos and enjoy some excellent rally action. unfortunately by this time there was only 12 cars left competing, but they had staggered the starts by 2 minutes keeping us busy for a while. ther wasn't much time between stages so even though we were there from 10am to 6pm, we had much to do the whole day.
During the last stage I moved my position down to the exit of the turn as the cars came down the hill. This was a very exciting view but the sun was setting so the pictures did not come out as great as I would have liked.

There was a chance to rush back to Ellensville and view 2 more stages from an unofficial site, but we elected not to rush over there as it had started to rain on and off and the sun was setting.

It was a rather enjoyable weekend, though I hope the planning and participation of this event are drastically improved. The spring New York Rally 2008 awaits!

They say that if you don’t like the weather in Maine, then just wait 5 minutes.  I never thought a ridiculous saying would be so true until I stared confusingly into the apocalyptic skies of Mexico, Maine.  In the four hours that I had been awake, I experienced three seasons.  The anemic umbrella attached to my folding camp chair was being used to not only to shield me from the blazing sun but also from the golf ball sized drops of rain that seemed to follow in torrents and then disappear as fast as it arrived.  I began to re consider my statement from earlier that morning in which I claimed that Maine is definitely a place I could live in.  Hmmmm.

    Aside from the weather, the forests of Maine are beautiful and the perfect place to host the 2007 New England Forest Rally.  The stages are mostly held on the rough logging roads owned by private logging and land companies in the area.  This was the 14th annual summer race originally known as the Maine Forest Rally, however in the recent years New Hampshire has been contributing, so the name has been updated (even though the website hasn’t changed).  This race was also round 6 of the popular American rally series, “Rally America National Rally Championship”. 

    The day starts off in Mexico, Maine in the Mexico Recreation Park.  This park is host to the most popular stage in the Rally America Series; the man-made jump located adjacent to the ball field and under the ever-present Red Bull rally archway.  Spectators arrive early to get the best view possible from the ballpark bleachers while others set up folding chairs as close the estimated landing area as possible.  While spectators are claiming their positions, there is a parc expose in the adjacent field.  The each team parks their “shinny” cars on display for this is the last time (this weekend) they will look this good.  Rally fans are having their pictures taken with their favorite cars and their favorite drivers are signing endless free posters.  It also just so happens that ESPN is there doing coverage on the #199 car driven by none other than the world famous freestyle champion, Travis Pastrana.

    Once the parc expose is finished, the spectators start to crowd the bleachers and temporary orange fencing that safely separates the public from the man-made jump.  Tacky rap music is playing thru a pair of DJ speakers and doesn’t quite fit with the motif of the rally.  Finally the “music” is cut and an announcer mans a wireless microphone to provide race information and series standings to the crowd just before the race starts.  He informs us that the “slower” cars will be starting the first stage and a few minutes later the #574 car, a 1999 Honda Civic piloted by Nick Lehner clears the crest with surprisingly impressive height. Following him are the remainder of the FWD Hondas, Volkswagens, and Ford Foci who put on an acceptable show until the #102 car, a 2004 WRX driven by George Georgakopoulos, launches off the crest with all the might of a small space shuttle proving that Subarus can fly. His landing is hard and bouncy but the crowd goes wild with applause and cheer.  Not even race leaders Pastrana, Block, or O’Neil can match the height set by Georgakopoulos.  Even with his impressive airtime, Stage 1 comes to an end with Pastrana/Edstrom in the lead and the cars prepare for stage 2. 

    Stage 2 is the exact same stage as the previous except the cars are organized in the traditional rally fashion with the race leader starting the stage.  The fans prepare their cameras because they know that the first car will be race favorite, Travis Pastrana.  Sure enough, his Red Bull sponsored Subaru STI emerges from the forest and clears the crest with a sense of mediocrity.  The cars that follow him also do not have the intensity they had in the earlier stage and an aura of confusion looms over the crowed.  It seems that the cars are braking early before the crest due to changes made in the approach surface and they can’t get the speed needed to catch any air.  Stage 2 ends with ho-hum feeling about it and Block/Gelsomino taking the #1 spot. 

    Stages 3 and 4 are located in South Arm, Maine and are run in opposite direction of each other.  These two stages however are spectator restricted and since yours truly does not have a media pass yet I only have results to post.  Stage 3 and 4 were both succeeded once again by Pastrana/Edstrom followed closely by the impressive L’Estage/Williams combo who seemed to pull out all the stops this weekend.

    Stage 5 is the last stage of the day and is held in Concord Pond, located a half-hour from the Mexico Recreation Park.  The spectators that got to the recreation park early enough for stages 1 & 2 were able to purchase bus tickets that would take them from the recreation park to the Concord Pond spectator area.  Unfortunately, one of the buses hired to transport the spectators broke down earlier that day and a few of the fans were asked to use their personal cars to help carpool the extra spectators.  Concord Pond is a relatively short stage that takes place on rough shale roads.  There are only are few designated spectator areas and this is one of the rare opportunities where you can actually pick your own spectating spot.  Of course, this is as long as the officials approve the spot you’ve selected and they deem it “safe”. 

Pastrana/Edstrom kicks off the stage followed by L’Estage/Williams and then Block/Gelsomino, all of who hold their own even as the temperature drops and sun starts to set.  L’Estage goes into stage 5 six tenths of a second behind Pastrana and comes out a whole 2 seconds behind the new stage leader, Ken Block.  Even with the growing gap, the driver of the 2003 Hyundai Tiburon has already impressed fans and media alike. Surprisingly by the end of the day, Pastrana has moved to 3rd, leaving stage 5 three seconds behind Block. 

Saturday starts off in the early morning with another parc expose hosted in the town of Berlin, New Hampshire and is sponsored by the energy drink “Go Fast”.   The town graciously sections off a block of their main street so that the cars can line up on either side for the spectators to enjoy.  The “Go Fast” girls are handing out free energy drinks and taking pictures with rally fans.  The people from Rally-America are selling t-shirts and other merchandise while CodeMasters has a demo set up and promoting their new video game, “DIRT”.  Across the street, a local organization has set up a tent and is selling homemade breakfasts and coffee next to where the #523 car is parked.  This 2002 WRX is apparently experiencing clutch or transmission problems and the team has decided to repair the car right there on the street.  Locals and fans look on with curiosity as they munch on their egg sandwiches and fresh home fries.  A little further up the street Travis Pastrana is sitting on the hood of his Red Bull sponsored STI, signing autographs and shaking the hands of many excited fans.  Ken Block, owner of DC shoes and current race leader is also signing autographs on free posters depicting his famous “longest rally jump ever” made famous by the TV series “Stunt Junkies”.  All the teams deserve credit for making it this far but a couple stand out and deserve special recognition.  Privateer Matthew Iorio is doing quite well with his #18 car, a 2001 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS converted to turbo.  He’s consistently impressed crowd and media alike with his “uniquely” decorated Subie.  Next, Amy BeberVanzo is holding her own in a race which seems to be flooded with testosterone and Subarus.  Her ’05 Mitsubishi EVO is the #14 car and just so you don’t forget it, “AMY” is proudly decaled on the front of the hood. 

After the autographs have been signed, and the fans are revved up on energy drink, the cars leave the expose and make their way over to the first stage of the day.  It’s stage 6 of the New England Forest Rally and it starts in Dillion, NH.  Stages 6 and 7 are both tarmac rallies and run in opposite directions of each other.  Spectating is only available in one spot and only for stage 6.  Stage 7 has been modified in order to reopen the public roads and allow regular traffic to claim its streets. One by one the cars make their way thru the stage and by the end of the morning its Antoine L’Estage that finally takes a stage win in his red ’03 Tiburon. 

Stages 8, 9, 10 and 11 are all based an hour away in the town of Middle Dam back in Maine.  All four stages share a single section of dirt road and then branch off onto unique logging trails, thus making each stage unique.  The spectators park their cars in the gravel lots located at the beginning of stage 8.  They then have the choice of either walking the 2 miles to the spectator area (to beat the crowds and get a good spot) or wait for the free bus that will eventually take them up the mountain.  Your truly had one too many egg sandwiches at the expose, so I decide to wait for the bus.  While waiting in the parking lot, it’s impossible not to notice how many rally enthusiasts own Subarus.  The lot is infested with WRX, RS, Legacy, Outback, Impreza, 2.5, and pink STI badges.  It’s almost overwhelming.  It almost makes a Mitsubishi fan (like me) embarrassed at our attendance numbers.  Luckily, before I can finish counting the Subarus, the bus arrives.

The bus ride is a short and bumpy one but it becomes apparent to us that we made the right decision when we can see the road to the spectator area is almost completely uphill. The spectator area is on a hill overlooking a long and fast sweeping turn that lets the drivers get decently sideways for the awaiting fans and their cameras.  Stage 8 starts in Middle Dam and winds its way to depths of the forest, where the cars will then turn around for stage 9. This is done once more for stages 10 and 11.  Stage 8 starts off with the L’Estage/Williams combo, as they are the first car to stir up the thick dust from the dry logging roads.  There surprisingly hasn’t been any rain since the day before so the forest is dry and the dust kicked up gets everywhere.  People, plants, the entire area is eventually coated in an even layer of road debris.  By the end of stage 11, it’s impossible to see down the road but it’s crystal clear that Pastrana is the winner.   Although L’Estage wins stages 10 and 11, he takes a very close and equally impressive overall 2nd place, leaving only 7 seconds behind him and #199 Red Bull car. 
With dust in our hair and a crunch in our mouths, we board the bus and returned to the gravel lot from whence we came.  Another rally had come to completion and it was time to leave Maine and it’s absurd weather behind us…. well at least until next year.

-Hinz - 
Co-Creator of RallyAddict.com