Results courtesy of: Ben Bradley
Howdy folks...
The following is the results from the 1994 East of Indio Divisional PRO (stage) rally contested this past weekend near Palm Springs, California, along with a story from my perspective about the event. I hope you enjoy it; feedback is welcome (nay even encouraged!).
CRS Div
Pos Cls Cls Driver/Navigator Car Time
1 4WD 4WD Rui Brasil/Carlos Tavares Audi Quattro 1:05:48
2 2WD O2 Lon Peterson/Bill Gutzmann Plymouth Arrow 1:06:38
3 4WD 4WD Kurosh Jahromi/Scott Webb Audi Quattro 1:07:11
4 4WD 4WD Chris Weleff/Brian Paul Toyota Celica 1:08:45
5 2WD O2 Tony Shumaker/Ty Tipton Mitsu Eclipse 1:09:06
6 PSt O2 Chad Dykes/Paul Varhol Mitsu Pickup 1:09:58
7 4WD 4WD Jason Priestley/Kevin Caffrey Toyota Celica 1:11:51
8 2WD O2 Bill Malik/Roine Anderson Volvo 240 1:11:55
9 2WD U2 Dave White/David Hackett VW GTi 1:12:00
10 PSt O2 Roger Hull/Sean Gallagher Mitsu Pickup 1:12:39
11 4WD 4WD Paula Gibeault/Chris Bradshaw Subaru RX 1:13:49
12 PSt U2 Dennis Chizma/John Moore VW Rabbit 1:13:51
13 PSt U2 Jeff Hendricks/Noble Jones Jeep Pickup 1:13:53
14 St O2 Jeff Bruett/Terry Stonecipher Dodge Charger 1:16:46
15 PSt O2 Dave Turner/Ben Bradley Plymouth Arrow 1:18:07
16 St O2 Dan Hook/Larry Hook Toyota Celica 1:19:17
17 St U2 Steve Scott/Bob Scott Toyota Corolla 1:19:26
18 St U2 Tony DelaCuesta/Tino Alcances Toyota Corolla 1:22:24
19 PSt O2 Bill Nation/Ricardo Porta Mazda RX-7 1:23:09
20 2WD U2 George Plsek/Mark Rathsane Saab 99 1:45:03
21 4WD 4WD Tom Carter/Whitney Carter IH Scout SSII 1:47:00
DNF 2WD U2 Tony Chavez/John Elkin Datsun 510
DNF 2WD O2 Harris Done/Larry Scott Mazda RX-7
DNF 2WD U2 Rod Koch/Todd Bane VW Type 3
DNF 2WD O2 Cable Rhodes/Mike Taylor Mazda RX-7
DNF 2WD U2 Matt Sweeney/Lucinda Strub Toyota Pickup
DNF 2WD U2 Ron Wood/Kelly Walsh VW Scirocco
DNF PSt U2 Garnet Baril/Pam Baril VW Rabbit
DNF 4WD 4WD Ray Hocker/Lynette Allison Subaru RX
DNF 4WD 4WD Tony Tavares/Pat Teixeira Mazda 323 GTX
CRS Classes:
4WD - Four Wheel Drive Open
2WD - Two Wheel Drive Open
St - Stock
PSt - Performance Stock
It was with some trepidation that I found myself co-driving in the 1994 East of Indio Divisional PRO Rally. Buoyed by thoughts of the previous year's 100% finishing rate my worries about high speeds and "rockadillos" were kept under control. I was riding with Dave Turner, 1994 National Production champion, but instead of the class-winning Eclipse we were running a California Rally Series Stock Class Plymouth Arrow. To further complicate matters we had to run in the Performance Stock class, as that's where points had been scored earlier in the year with the Eclipse. Formidable opposition in Performance Stock was to come from the pickup trucks of Chad Dykes/Paul Varhol, Jeff Hendricks/Noble Jones and Roger Hull/Sean Gallagher. Not to mention the wickedly fast VW Rabbit of Dennis Chizma/John Moore. It was going to be an exciting race in our class, as well as overall.
The East of Indio XI rally followed last year's course, with eight stages totaling 73 miles of rallying. The desert terrain about twenty miles east of Palm Springs was pretty flat, and the roads were wide, generally smooth, but with big rocks to take out the suspension of rally cars making off-course excursions. Four stages were utilized twice each, two of which would be run in the opposite direction, with the first four run in the daylight and the latter four in darkness.
It was a short rally for numerous teams who retired during or following the first stage. The Tony Chavez/John Elkin Datsun 510 had its rear diff fall off a mile into the stage. The Harris Done/Larry Scott Mazda RX-7 lost a driveshaft on the second stage, the Tony Tavares/Pat Teixeira Mazda 323 looked to have blown a head gasket by the amount of billowing steam, and the Matt Sweeney/Lucinda Strub Toyota pickup toasted its engine. Ray Hocker and Lynette Allison retired their Subaru RX following the first stage; I'm not sure why. Cable Rhodes and Mike Taylor lost an apex seal in their rotary and retired very early on, and I can't vouch for what happened to the Rod Koch/Todd Bane (along with Rocky the Rally Bear) VW Type 3, but it was a fairly early retirement. Most of the 9 DNFs were in the first two stages.
The first stage started out fairly twisty and rocky, so I thought that maybe the tales of speed were unfounded. Silly me. I should have known better, since Lon Peterson and Bill Gutzmann were going to try and get their Plymouth Arrow through the 73 miles in less than an hour.
Indeed less than two miles into the first stage we hit a stretch where we went for three miles in fifth gear with Dave's gas pedal foot planted firmly on the floor. The speedometer needle was pointing straight down at the floor! The way the Arrow was geared that's only about 90 mph, but for three consecutive miles without lifting?! The road was so wide it just felt like we were doing about 40. Yeehaw! There were a couple of slower stretches that kept the average speed for the stage below ungodly fast.
Stage Two, Shaver's Well East, starts with the infamous three consecutive double caution dips. You do not want to catch much air off these, as they all have a significant drop. It was here where the infamous "Two Moons Over Indio" video was taken (a team, who shall remain nameless, broke here and were mooning every car that went by; they didn't reckon on a later car's in-car camera...).
We had an uneventful stage two; stage three was not to be so kind to us. The stage was late in starting due to the absence of the EMT. We checked into the ATC and were sitting in a control zone when we noticed the left rear tire slowly deflating over the twenty minutes we were sitting there. Since we couldn't change it we had to run the nine mile stage with a seriously reduced tire pressure in the left rear. And this stage had a *four* mile section with minimal lifting!
We got into a bit of trouble at Instruction 4, a seemingly innocuous bear left onto a sideroad. As it turned out it was a turn onto an inferior road that was hard to see until you got there. The main road also curved slightly to the left, so it was somewhat confusing. To help competitors see the turn, organizers had thoughtfully placed several piles of tires across the main road just past the turn. Do you know how far a Plymouth Arrow with four wheels locked up traveling at 50+ mph can scatter a pile of tires? Pretty damn far... Then we remembered we still had our lights on the front of the car, despite the fact it was daylight. Oops...Fortunately the rest of the stage was incident-free and we had not damaged any of the lights!
Stage Four, Eagle Mountain I, featured the only accident of the day. Ron Wood and Kelly Walsh got their VW Scirocco slightly off the road in a high-speed section and experienced a very violent rollover. Fortunately the occupants were not scratched, but the car is a write- off. I guess that will give Ron some impetus to finish the Audi Quattro they'll be running next year. This stage also features a little chicane out behind the General Patton museum to keep the average speed at a reasonable level. Following this stage was the mid-rally dinner break and service.
Rui Brasil and Carlos Tavares were picking off where they left off from Gorman and were running first in their Audi with CRS favorites Lon Peterson and Bill Gutzmann's Plymouth Arrow running second; it looked like their goal of a one-hour Indio was not going to happen this year. Running third, to the surprise and delight of many, was celebrity-in-residence Jason Priestley, along with Kevin Caffrey, in their Toyota Celica All-Trac. Unfortunately for this team they were to experience electrical problems later on that would eventually drop them to seventh overall and fourth in 4wd at the rally's end. Jason had a very animated story to tell after the rally about his reactions when, running at 105 mph at night, he suddenly lost *all* his headlights and driving lights.
At the mid-rally break we were running a disappointing fifth in Performance Stock. We would have been well in the lead of the Stock class, which gave us some confidence, but alas that wasn't worth much since that was not the class in which we were entered. There was a good battle in the Stock Class though, with the Dodge-mounted crew of Jeff Bruett and "Terrdog" Stonecipher battling the father/son team of Dan and Larry Hook. Season championship leaders Steve and Bob Scott had to finish fourth or better to clinch, so they were driving a well-paced and sensible rally in third.
Stage Five was a repeat of Stage Four, except this time it was run at night. Despite a four-wheels-off excursion over a berm and into the shrubbery, we still posted a time that was *faster* than our daylight running of the stage. Dave was starting to turn up the wick! Waiting to start SS 6 I had to take a whiz, so I got out of the car. I suddenly heard a sssssss noise, and since I had already concluded my business, I turned around to discover the right front tire deflating. A rapid tire change ensued, with the Chris Weleff/Brian Paul team displaying good sportsmanship by keeping their headlights on us so we had some light other than my little penlight. That was flat #2. Or was it #3?
Anyway, as the stage started we were forced to slow due to hanging dust. And we had a four minute window! We were smiling, as our closest competition, the Chizma/Moore VW, was only two minutes behind us and therefore must be hating life with our dust. A chance to move up, or so we thought until we missed a left-hander and slid off the road (co-driver's side, of course) bending a rim and a tie rod, as well picking up another two flats. We wobbled through what was left of the stage (about two miles) and had a very frantic service changing the two flats and the flat spare. Alas we picked up some road penalties as there were two miles between stages and ten minutes in which to cover them. I think we picked up another flat on SS 7, but by then I had lost count. Yes, we did, and thanks to the help of our service crew, as well as that of the Jeff Hendricks/Noble Jones Jeep, we got going pretty quickly and made it on time to the last stage. It was our last mounted tire, so we really did not want to have two more flats...
The last stage saw the retirement of one of the remaining Performance Stock cars, the VW Rabbit of Garnet and Pam Baril. They went wide on a corner, at some point in the proceedings (before or during) a half-shaft broke, and Garnet apparently had the choice of plunging into a big hole or spinning the car and getting stuck on a berm. That's what he did. The RX-7 of Bill Nation and Ricardo Porta had a flat at the end of the stage, and on one of the jumps at the end of the stage their gas tank fell out! Our service crew thought it was us, so they went running up the stage to help out. They pushed him out of the way as we came sailing up. The RX-7 was evidently driven to the final MTC with a gas jug lashed on the hood and a hose running to the motor (or something like that). Gotta love that rally creativity.
The car was behaving a little strangely on the final transit down I-10 and back to the hotel, but we chalked that up to the bent tie rod. When we checked into the final MTC people pointed at our car and started laughing. Even from inside the car I could hear the familiar ssssssss noise. BOTH right side tires were losing air. So that brought our grand total to seven (or was it eight?) flats for the rally. But we survived! Press On Regardless and all that.
Rui Brasil's winning time of 65 minutes certainly eclipsed a 60 mph average, but the goal of under an hour was not achieved. The results speak for themselves as far as the class victors go. Their fourth place class finish was more than enough to clinch the season Performance Stock championship for Jeff Hendricks and Noble Jones. The Hull/Gallagher team moved to second. I ended up third co-driver, and Turner ended up either third or fourth (his points tally is not in agreement with my source, so it will be interesting to re-check the results and calculations). Dennis Chizma may have pipped him for third. Missing the earlier Treeline event cost Turner dearly. The Scott brothers clinched the Stock Class championship. Peterson and Gutzmann had two-wheel-drive Open clinched going into the event, so they were out to have fun. I assume the Brasil/Tavares Audi team took the 4wd class honors, but I don't know for certain.
As has become tradition for a few of us, we had a pretty entertaining post-rally party. Once we closed the bar highlights included a CheezBall fight in a hotel room and dancing/slamming around the parking lot to the beat of a car alarm. East of Indio was a fun rally to close out an enjoyable season. The California Rally Series has a lot of very friendly people, and they certainly made this "outsider" feel quite welcome. I look forward to running some of their events next year (if not the whole season).
Ben Bradley -There are only two types of rally drivers: bradley@reed.edu Those who HAVE rolled and those who WILL Portland, Oregon, USA -Will co-drive for food...