2022 Show-Me Rally
- unamusedrallysport
- Feb 14, 2023
- 4 min read
The 2022 Show-Me Rally was off to a rocky start, but despite our initial setbacks, we were able to set what seemed like some of our fastest stage times both during the day and at night.
The car was just as we had left it from the Missouri Ozark Rally . With the new garage construction, the car has been buried in stuff from the old building while we disassembled it and prepped the site for the new garage. Luckily, the last rally was short and required maintenance was minimal. Weeks before the rally, we got word that our planned co-driver was unable to attend due to work commitments. Thankfully, Rachel stepped out of "retirement" to fill in. As we got gas on the way down to Potosi, we noticed that we never changed the co-driver name on the car. Ooops. Ty Crawford , who was showing up the next morning, came through for us with his vinyl plotter. Hopefully, this would be the last hiccup of the weekend.
Recce on Thursday was fairly uneventful. The roads for Friday were a mix of narrow and windy with some downhills and several cautions that we would run once in the daylight and again in darkness. The Saturday stages were fast! Some stages even had tarmac sections for some added excitement. We were anxious to get going. We finished a single pass on all stages and a second pass only on the Friday stages. The schedule allowed for additional recce Friday morning before racing officially started in the afternoon... But not for us.
During tech on Thursday night, it was discovered that our harnesses were out of date causing us to fail. Panic time! We quickly reached out to Dave Whitworth of Solo Performance Specialties to see if he had any harnesses in stock. We would have to wait until the morning for confirmation but he was extremely helpful and thought that he had 2 (unknown) harnesses. Friday morning, we left Potosi to drive back up to St. Louis in search of harnesses. On the way to SPS, we called other racing shops; none of which had what we were in need of. Amazingly, SPS had EXACTLY the harnesses that we were searching for... FIA certified to boot so we wouldn't have to worry about this issue again until 2027. We cannot recommend Dave and SPS enough for all of your racing gear.
We probably could have crammed in the remaining recce but we chose to sit it out to make sure we had adequate time to install our new harnesses. After being re-teched, we set up our service spot at Twin Eagle Lake Estates and Hideout . This location is one of the best all- inclusive service locations that we have ever been to complete with cabins, camping areas, bathrooms, a general store, large gravel areas for service, etc. The rally started from the service park and we started 7th on the road.
The first loop of stages was great. We were confident in our notes. Knowing that we would likely lose some time during the faster Saturday stages, we pushed hard; harder than we ever have, braking later, accelerating earlier, using the entire road. The first service was uneventful with only the windows to clean and the oil to be checked. We slapped the lights on for the second loop, which would be pitch dark. Night stages have historically been our Achilles heel, but not this weekend. We only lost 2 sec combined across the 3 stages of the second loop compared to the first pass in the light. We ended the day sitting second! Huge improvement from our starting position amongst some really fast teams.
Saturday started with parc expose on main street in #Potosi . We were locked in a tight battle with the cars around us. The competition was great and pushed us. Our performance on day 2 not only dictated our position for this rally, but also for the American Rally Association Central Region Overall and #NA4WD titles. We kept it clean and fast the whole day to maintain our 2nd place overall position. Unfortunately, we had to transit stage 13 due to a local getting out onto the road. The last stage was a super special through the industrial park for the fans. This was on concrete was basically a sprint with some unintentional sideways occurrences.
At the end of 3 long days, we finished 1st in class, 2nd in AWD, and 2nd overall! Super happy about this result! We not only learned to push harder and gain confidence in our setup but also made several new friends. Hopefully, we will be able to carry this momentum into 2023. (The pressure is on James Dallman )
We want to thank all of our sponsors for their continued support through 2022: EcoTECH Import Auto Service J-Spec Auto Sports Inc. Dyno Pro Technologies Diode Dynamics
Also, SPS for their help keeping us in the race because without them, our weekend would have been over before it even started. Potosi, Missouri for hosting, Misha Avrushenko for the continued use of Recce Riccardo (now with working lights!), and, last but not least, all of the organizer and volunteers.
Action Photos by: Rob Benowitz
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