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The weekend started well last Friday for Turbo Troll Racing and their performance rally prepared SAAB 99. We had a smooth tow up to Harrisville NY for the 2006 running of the Black River Stages. This event has an excellent reputation for its laid-back atmosphere and great roads. We arrived in the afternoon, unloaded the car, registered, and flew through tech inspection. Everything was going quite well. Saturday morning started off a bit chilly with a heavy frost on the ground, but with abundant sunshine, soon blossomed into a spectacular warm fall day. The first 4 stages challenged us to stay on the road with difficult to read crests hiding loose off camber corners. On stage 2 we came hot into a chicane outlined by boulders and ditches on both sides. While avoiding the boulders we went into a tail wagging rail-slide over ditches on both sides of the road, which eventually culminated into a complete spin. Although a bit shaken, we had managed to keep the car on the road and lost only about 30 seconds or so. As the rally continued we started to get into our groove and were gaining time on every stage we repeated. After a lunch break the Rally moved to a new series of roads, including the infamous “Jayville” and “goose pond”. Jayville started with loose sweeping corners around rock outcroppings and steep embankments and finished in a high speed drag on a straight but extremely narrow forest road. While waiting for the next stage to start a fellow rallyist notified us that our car was steaming out of the engine bay and leaking fluid. We immediately popped the hood and found a coolant hose had burst at the junction of the water pump. Having only a matter of minutes before we had to start the next stage, we removed the hose and another hose that prevented access to the problem area. We shortened the hose a few inches, re-clamped it and filled the coolant system with swamp water we were able to find nearby. We fired the car up and pulled into the control zone to start the next stage just in time. On the way out we were really flying. Seth was becoming very comfortable with the stage notes and we were drifting and linking corners flawlessly. Another loose off-camber right 3 caught us by surprise and we slid into the bank, teetering up on two wheels but settling back down and taking off immediately. We later learned that this hit had bent our rear axle, giving us huge negative camber and toe-in. The next stage was goose pond. We had heard the rumors of the massive jumps on the otherwise smooth packed roads. Less than a mile in Seth called for a Big Jump but somehow Luke only heard small jump in his head and didn’t lift for a second. We launched into the air, flying 65 feet before landing with a thump. A photographer at the jump told us our air was rivaled only by the number 1 car, an open class EVO. The stage continued with jump after jump after jump. At the end of the stage we checked the car over for any signs of damage and everything was intact. The next stage was same just run in the opposite direction. We both agreed that on way out we would back off for the jumps to avoid any damage. On the way out we rolled all the crests accelerating hard on the down slopes and barely loosing any time this way. However, while coming down a straight at about 65 miles per hour a sudden crest took us by surprise when the earth just seemed to disappear underneath us. We landed so hard that our intestines hurt inside. We continued on seemingly unscathed and finished the stage in excellent time, beating the time of several very fast cars in front of us. The car was running great when we returned for a quick service. While doing a once over on the car Seth noticed an oil puddle on our service tarp. Upon close inspection oil was dripping very quickly from around the drain plug area. We removed the skid plate for a close inspection and found cracks in the aluminum casting of the oil sump. The hard landing had bent the reinforced skid plate up and into the drain plug, causing several small cracks. Unfortunately, the oil was leaking just a little too fast to be able to safely finish the rally even with topping up and we were forced to retire with only a few stages remaining; A disappointing end to a great day of rallying that could have crowned us the 2006 Eastern States Rally Championship in our class. The good news is that the engine was not run dry and the cracks should be able to be welded in place after a thorough cleaning. We will throw on a new rear axle and the car should be up and running in a matter of days. A redesign for the skid plate was already in the works but now has become a priority. We’d like to thank everyone that made the event such a great Rally and the SAAB fans that came out to cheer us on.
More infomation on our team and car can be found at http://www.saabrally.com
-Luke
posted by 71.242.70...
, Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:55:59
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