Finally put the rest of my pictures up, so here they are.
Oh look, Burnsie just showed up. I talked to Jamie and her co-driver for a bit while they were doing a bit of work Friday night. I even moved some jackstands for them, so it's like, I was sort of on Subie Gal's service team:
Tech inspection Friday evening:
Chris (rally370) showed up a bit after that, and I talked to him for a bit before my worker meeting (which was really boring).
I was supposed to meet my team at the hotel in West Covina at 9am. For some reason I woke up at 10. Damn. I tried calling my captain, but he must have already been up there, so no cell phone service. I didn't know how to get to the start, where I was supposed to be, so after trying a road that I thought might work, I went over to then end of stage 3 where the service would be to ask. It ended up being pretty far away. I finally got to the right road. I knew it was the right road because I caught up to rally cars. Angeles crest highway is awesome.
Then I stopped to give some water to a broken down car. It really sucked that they didn't even make it to the start. Cooling problems of some sort, I think.
Wooo... Open road. The STi take-offs are quite the improvement over stock, even with the need for an alignment and bald RE92s.
Damnit. I caught up to the rally car (truck) again.
Oh, make that three.
We all rolled into the start in a nice line. I would have liked to get to the bottom, but cars were in the way.
Awww...
The actual start line is down at the bottom of the hill there. I was working up top, writing down the car number, ideal start times, and sequence number on a clip board. Once they got to the bottom, the actual start time is written on the car (it's different if there is a crash or something), and they take off on their minute.
Cars lined up again:
Subie Gal. Chris wouldn't have finished the rally without her, which makes her alright in my book, even after the things people say about her:
NOW THAT IS AN AWESOME CAR RIGHT THERE:
After the start, we had a few hours to kill before the finish. It was a turn around rally, so the cars raced three stages, did service, and then turned around and came back down the course, so the start of stage 1 (where I was), became the finish of stage 6. I decided to cruise back down the road to town and pick up some water for myself and my captian. I was kind of thirsty because it was hot and I gave my nice cold gallon of water to the stranded rally car, which was still on the side of the road as I went down. I stopped and asked if they needed anything, and they said their tow truck was on the way, but they would appreciate it if I got them some gatoraid, which I did.
This jackass wouldn't pull over on the way down, and was riding his brakes the whole time. I could even smell them they so were cooked.
I passed that service truck on the way up the hill, and he got there just before I left after dropping off the gatoraid. I was pretty surprised, actually, because he must have been driving like a maniac to get there so soon after me.
Here's a nice view of the mountains and crap at where I was working. I have so many damn mosquito bites. At least I can pull the west nile excuse if I don't feel like going to work some day this week.
I got to work the flying finish. That means I was the guy who stands there at the finish line with a stopwatch. So, rally cars were flying past me around a tight 180, which a lot of cars overshot. It was awesome.
here's the finish line:
The first car across was Subie gal. I had to take pictures and time the cars at the same time, so they mostly turned out a little blurry. Oh, and there are two of us timing, so it's not a big deal if one of us screws up. there were only two discrepencies, but they were only a second and I'm not saying which cars or what times we used.
Here's a blurry SRT-4. LOL FWD rally car LOL.
This impreza missed the corner. heh. I wish I had a picture of the EVO that was car 0 sliding past it.
He had to back up. I took a step back as he came sliding past me.
Some other car coming around the corner:
Rally370 coming around the corner:
