The only thing that could possibly entice the Gravel-Spec Rallysport crew to the land of lutefisk, painfully slow internet connections and Brett Favre is a rally, and it figures that they have the best roads in the country, and host several spectacular events every year. Some say The Curse's mysterious origins lies with Gravel-Spec's driving and lifestyle coach, soon to be married, Wisconsin rally icon Dennis “Hollywood” Martin, all we know is theres a boulder off the road known as Dennis' Rock, and anytime we mention it he goes into a trance-like state and begins speaking in tongues with scattered mentions of 34mm restrictors and media vests. This weekend the car I was chasing a ride in managed to roll spectacularly, and while filling Piotr's service rig, the diesel pump hose burst. When the fuel stopped flowing at $66.60, the price of the beast. Our rally ended before we reached Friday's service park with an engine failure on the second stage after a spectacular showing on the Bemidji Speedway super special. Not even a spoonful of bacon bits makes that easy to swallow.
Despite our early exit from the rally good times were had accelerating the depreciation of my car, and new connections within the rally world were made working for the first time with co-driver Greg Dorman and crew chief Gary Grahn, professor of the Pacific Northwest school of mooning rally cars, and Matt Johnson's Subaru specialist Margarite Parker. Special thanks go out to Worldrallysport.com for their thorough coverage of our weekend, 103.7 The Mix FM in Bemidji for their rally coverage and an excellent interview with Piotr, The Super 8 and Hampton Inn of Bemidji and all other local businesses who put up with our attempts to spend the most cash possible.
Congrats to Adam Markut for representing the DSM clan with a 3rd overall finish in his Talon, to Damen Williams for finishing his first rally, and to Travis Pastrana for clinching his fourth consecutive Rally America national championship.
Check out worldrallysport.com's coverage here:
[url]http://www.worldrallysport.com/news_centre_all[/url]
Monday, August 31, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Ojibwe Forests - Pre-Rally Report
We've got 500 miles to go. No hotel reservations. The Jetta is jammed with tools. Its 11:46 PM and I haven't even started packing.
Hit it.
The Rally America national championship series makes its return to the midwest this weekend, as crews roll into Bemidji Minnesota for the Ojibwe Forests Rally. As is typical for us this time of year, we're out of cash, so the Datsun will not be making an appearance. However the Gravel-Spec crew will be lending their service expertise to PPD Motorsports for the weekend, to crew for Piotr Wiktorczyk and Greg Dorman, fresh from their appearance at X Games.
Winner of the 2004 Headwaters Rally, Piotr Wiktorczyk is a dark horse at Ojibwe, finishing a strong 4th overall at last year's event and had a podium finish the previous year stripped away by the stewards.
As your Co-Driver in Exile, I'll provide daily updates assuming I have access to the sweet, sweet nectar of the interweb, and that a certain un-named Japanese manufacturers glass transmissions don't go Carl Lewis on us.
Oh no, you won't make up for it now.
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