Ok, ok, so it’s not a race. And for the most part we didn’t even go all that fast. But we did rally, yessiree bob.

This past weekend was the 2005 No Alibi, which we did not come even close to winning, but I’m pretty sure we had more fun than any of the winning teams did. So there. Neener neener.

Squagel turned out to be a DAMN fine rally partner, and did DAMN well for having never rallied before EVER IN HIS WHOLE LIFE. We put his poooor 2002 Jetta to more of a test than I think the engineers at Volkswagon had ever intended it to be put through, and it did pretty damn well. Other than the end of the day Saturday, when the air filter was so clogged with dust that we had precious little in the way of acceleration.

There were some VERY hairy roads, including one road that drops about 3000 feet in .8 mile. It was REALLY narrow, had frightening exposure on both sides, and is, apparently, used by school busses during the winter, and was made of nicely potholed dirt and loose gravel. Serious as a heart attack.

This year there’s been a LOT more rain than in previous years, so most of the route was unbelievably lush and green (it was still dusty like you wouldn’t believe though).

I think the best, though, was during one of the last legs, we were totally running sooo close to perfect time, and were coming down a hill on a wide gravel road with a speed limit of 50. We were going 46 or so, and about 100 yards ahead of us three little kids on quad runners pull out into the middle of the road. One of them stopped on the far side of the road, the other two jumped off their quad and started PULLING it backwards all the way across the road. We slowed to almost a stop not knowing what they were doing or if they were going to be out of the way by the time we got there. The two on the right finally got their quad pulled far enough off the road for us to pass. Which we did. Slow like, with the kids waving at us.
Now. These kids? The oldest of the three couldn’t have been more than 6. SIX. The other two? Four or so. Parents? Nowhere to be seen. So thee kids under the age of 7 on fucking quad runners playing in TRAFFIC. Public road, speed limit 50.
I didn’t think too much more about it until we got to the end and found out that the mother of said kids BITCHED OUT THE RALLY MASTER about the incident. The hell? Parental responsibility? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? The rallymaster seemed amused by it, and ‘talked’ to us about it, as he had promised the Stupid Woman he would, and we all agreed that we had slowed to a reasonable point and not endangered the stupid little unsupervised children, but COME ON! If you’re letting your kids play on motor vehicles in traffic, you have NO right to get upset when cars come down that road. None. It’s almost as bad as this one.

Want some pictures of the whole weekend? Of course you do! Too bad! No, there are a few… But only a few:
The dust on our car at the end of day 1:

The dust tracks we were leaving behind when we were going slow:

One of the GREEN green fields we drove through:

And, last but not least, my favorite of all the stickers on any of the rally cars. There is one of these on each side of the roof, right above the doors on another of the Team D cars.

Click on the picture to read the text

In: General | | #