Oregon Trail 2005
The debut of the Rally Integra was this weekend at the 2005 Oregon Trail Rally in northwest Oregon State.
We had a bit of a rough outing. We bowed out of Friday’s spectator stages in order to gain additional preperation time for the bulk of the rally which took place on Saturday and Sunday. A mistake on Saturday put us off the road, and due to circumstances beyond our control weren’t able to compete in Sunday’s stages.
We were behind schedule getting the car finished due to a number of factors including supply issues from vendors. Seems like no matter when we order parts, they show up the day after we really needed them. Many of of vendors really dragged their feet, with the notable exception of Cobalt Friction and Hotbits. Due to the fact that we ordered our custom-built rally suspension from Hotbits less then two weeks from the rally, we weren’t expecting to get it in time for this rally. We were right, however the crew at Hotbits and Motorsports Distributing really impressed and shocked us when we received it the day after the rally. This was custom built for us in Malaysia and shipped in a span of less then 2 weeks. So we’ll have it for the next rally, which should be great. For this rally we essentially used a modified stock setup, which was far from ideal but we figured would be okay for this rally.
We decided that we would bow out of the Friday Night Super Special Stages so that we could finish up some detail work (identity package, mud flaps, etc.) and be ready for the start of the real rally on Saturday.
Things started off okay, although on the first transit stage we realized that we were down on power for some reason… The jolt of going up the rally start ramp was unsettled the distributor and retarded the ignition timing. Normally we double-check items like that before the start of the rally but with everything going it was overlooked. We were able to fix the problem before the first Special Stage, so no harm, no foul. Some confidence was lost as it got us wondering what other items we may have overlooked.
The first stage (SS6) went well–was the first time we’d driven the Integra on gravel, so we were just feeling the car out. The car’s felt great–stopping power was impressive, and acceleration with the Acura 1.8L VTEC, KAAZ LSD and Kumho tires was outstanding.
We were suprised when at the end of the stage we were 6th of 8 in our class, and if we had of been just 4% quicker we would have been 3rd of 8. With the new suspension and some seat time we have no doubt that we’ll be at the front and fighting for the lead.
Unfortunately, our shortage of preperation, lack of seat time and a treacherously slippy roads caught up with us on our second stage (SS7). We turned a bit later then was ideal and slide a couple of feet off-line, put two wheels into the grass. Were on our way back to the road when part of the shoulder dropped quickly and yanked us off the road where we slid to a stop. We were only a foot or two from the road, right side of the car was at a 45 degree angle from the left.
It should have been a standard extraction but due to some communication issues, and a unprofessional wrecking company we were forced to abandon the car on stage overnight, which prevented us from being able to run the next day’s rally, which we’d normally have been able to do. It was a shame because no real damage was done to the car, and we were ready to get some more seat time and compete
More information forthcoming shortly
Having a tough outing was ironically somewhat healthy for us, as it provided us some time to really think about how we can improve our overall competition processes beyond pure car preperation.
Our next event is Rim of the World in Lancaster, CA. Check back for more updates!
