How I Got My Protege Stuck on a Rally Course (story)
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 1,660
Likes: 2
From: GTA, Ontario
How I Got My Protege Stuck on a Rally Course (story)
So I thought I’d share this story of how I got my Protégé stuck on a rally course…
The way media works at the rally is: with a stage access pass you have to select your own schedule for where you want to be throughout the day, and it then has to be pre-approved the day before by the media organizers. Obviously you can’t be at every stage so you have to pick which stages you’d like to shoot and then choose from predetermined media points along that stage . So let’s say I choose to shoot at A2 (leg A - daytime, stage 2) and park my car at M5 (media point 5) which is about 7 km from the start of stage A2. To get to this media point you have to drive THROUGH the rally stage in whatever vehicle you’ve got – my stock ’98 Protégé with Pirelli snow tires was a ******’ champ; didn’t get stuck, handled rocks and foot-deep dirt tracks at 60km/h without incident, even after the rally cars chewed up the stages. The sound of rocks pelting the floor of my car was a little bit disturbing to say the least, and my plastic undertray has seen better days, but all in all it was doing okay for a little stocker with less than 100hp and an engine light on.
Now the catch here is that you absolutely must be at your media point and clear of the stage before the ‘00’ sweeper SUV makes it rounds - usually private driveways are used for parking. From this point on you’re stuck at that spot for the entire 60+ minutes of the stage until the final sweep trucks have passed and cleared you for getting onto the course.
So at my second selected stage, we got stuck because of a car that ditched itself and needed a tow out. The sweep trucks stopped to help and we were therefore stuck twiddling our thumbs for half an hour until they’d finished up and passed by for us to follow off the stages. I left from this stage half an hour late and I needed to drive about 10km to my next media point. This meant I was haulin’ at 120 back down the highway to get where I need to be and as I slowed to turn off the highway, sure enough there was the ‘00’ car heading towards me going to the same place I was: the start of the next rally stage. Now I’m busting my *** in front of the leading sweep car trying to reach the stage entrance with enough time to find a parking spot (parking spot is a loose term here) at the media point.
So we pull up and I get waved through thanks to my windshield sticker that shows that I’m media and that, yes, I am intending to bring this Protégé on the rally stage. The ‘00’ car stops to talk to the marshals so I now have a bit of time but I really don’t know how much since the Mitsu 4x4 can speed through the course a lot quicker than I’m able to.
I get where I want to be - the protégé is now officially a rally car ( I even had people cheering me on! It was the greatest moment of my racing career) and the driveway I found was roughly 3 cars wide whereas the entrance to this driveway was about half-a-car wide with ditches on either side. Of course I’m rushing to reverse in and I didn’t notice that because of the slight incline at this point my car had slid about two feet to the left as I’m backing up. The rear end dips down and back up quite violently but it didn’t seem to be an issue and rather than pull forward again to straighten out I think “hmmm… that wasn’t so bad I can probably make it.” I hammer down and the wheels spin more this time so I slide even further to the left and I don’t get enough speed so my front bumper ends up perched on the rally course on the outside of a corner! I can clearly see where the tracks of the cars have been and let’s just say I’d have more room to stretch my legs in the back seat.
I already know the guys in the ‘00’ from chatting with them earlier and I can see them smiling and chuckling as they pull up. We can see that my one drive-wheel has no ground beneath it and they don’t have a tow-rope in the sweeper car so they have to radio the marshals at the stage entrance to get a truck with a tow-rope to haul me out. Now it’s made public to anyone with a radio that there is a dark blue Mazda that has "gone off the road" and is now potentially delaying one of the largest rallies in Canada.It’s a straight shot backwards up the driveway so neither of them seemed too worried about a delay. There is roughly a 30 minute gap from when the ‘00’ car makes its rounds and the ‘0’ car sweeps with the siren on to signal everyone around the stage that the next 60 vehicles will be dirt-spraying, rock-flinging rally cars. So the 4x4 pickup arrives and even HE has trouble backing in on the incline and almost takes off my mirror, so now the guys can see where I had issues and I don’t feel like a complete **** anymore. The truck pulls me out with ease and the ‘00’ is now back on its way to make sure the rest of the course is clear of any mishaps involving Protégés and ditches.
So this weekend, I got my car stuck on a rally course… by trying to park.
The way media works at the rally is: with a stage access pass you have to select your own schedule for where you want to be throughout the day, and it then has to be pre-approved the day before by the media organizers. Obviously you can’t be at every stage so you have to pick which stages you’d like to shoot and then choose from predetermined media points along that stage . So let’s say I choose to shoot at A2 (leg A - daytime, stage 2) and park my car at M5 (media point 5) which is about 7 km from the start of stage A2. To get to this media point you have to drive THROUGH the rally stage in whatever vehicle you’ve got – my stock ’98 Protégé with Pirelli snow tires was a ******’ champ; didn’t get stuck, handled rocks and foot-deep dirt tracks at 60km/h without incident, even after the rally cars chewed up the stages. The sound of rocks pelting the floor of my car was a little bit disturbing to say the least, and my plastic undertray has seen better days, but all in all it was doing okay for a little stocker with less than 100hp and an engine light on.
Now the catch here is that you absolutely must be at your media point and clear of the stage before the ‘00’ sweeper SUV makes it rounds - usually private driveways are used for parking. From this point on you’re stuck at that spot for the entire 60+ minutes of the stage until the final sweep trucks have passed and cleared you for getting onto the course.
So at my second selected stage, we got stuck because of a car that ditched itself and needed a tow out. The sweep trucks stopped to help and we were therefore stuck twiddling our thumbs for half an hour until they’d finished up and passed by for us to follow off the stages. I left from this stage half an hour late and I needed to drive about 10km to my next media point. This meant I was haulin’ at 120 back down the highway to get where I need to be and as I slowed to turn off the highway, sure enough there was the ‘00’ car heading towards me going to the same place I was: the start of the next rally stage. Now I’m busting my *** in front of the leading sweep car trying to reach the stage entrance with enough time to find a parking spot (parking spot is a loose term here) at the media point.
So we pull up and I get waved through thanks to my windshield sticker that shows that I’m media and that, yes, I am intending to bring this Protégé on the rally stage. The ‘00’ car stops to talk to the marshals so I now have a bit of time but I really don’t know how much since the Mitsu 4x4 can speed through the course a lot quicker than I’m able to.
I get where I want to be - the protégé is now officially a rally car ( I even had people cheering me on! It was the greatest moment of my racing career) and the driveway I found was roughly 3 cars wide whereas the entrance to this driveway was about half-a-car wide with ditches on either side. Of course I’m rushing to reverse in and I didn’t notice that because of the slight incline at this point my car had slid about two feet to the left as I’m backing up. The rear end dips down and back up quite violently but it didn’t seem to be an issue and rather than pull forward again to straighten out I think “hmmm… that wasn’t so bad I can probably make it.” I hammer down and the wheels spin more this time so I slide even further to the left and I don’t get enough speed so my front bumper ends up perched on the rally course on the outside of a corner! I can clearly see where the tracks of the cars have been and let’s just say I’d have more room to stretch my legs in the back seat.
I already know the guys in the ‘00’ from chatting with them earlier and I can see them smiling and chuckling as they pull up. We can see that my one drive-wheel has no ground beneath it and they don’t have a tow-rope in the sweeper car so they have to radio the marshals at the stage entrance to get a truck with a tow-rope to haul me out. Now it’s made public to anyone with a radio that there is a dark blue Mazda that has "gone off the road" and is now potentially delaying one of the largest rallies in Canada.It’s a straight shot backwards up the driveway so neither of them seemed too worried about a delay. There is roughly a 30 minute gap from when the ‘00’ car makes its rounds and the ‘0’ car sweeps with the siren on to signal everyone around the stage that the next 60 vehicles will be dirt-spraying, rock-flinging rally cars. So the 4x4 pickup arrives and even HE has trouble backing in on the incline and almost takes off my mirror, so now the guys can see where I had issues and I don’t feel like a complete **** anymore. The truck pulls me out with ease and the ‘00’ is now back on its way to make sure the rest of the course is clear of any mishaps involving Protégés and ditches.
So this weekend, I got my car stuck on a rally course… by trying to park.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
