My Weekend

[Dmulder]

My weekend started bright and early Saturday morning.  I spent the afternoon Friday getting my mini (Skidittle) cleaned up and final rally prepped.  Saturday morning at 4:00 am my alarm went off and I finished loading up the mini and headed off to Cedar  Springs, Michigan to meet up with my Co-driver, Nic.
We met at about 5:00 am, got him and his things in the car and took off again for West Branch, Michigan in the Northeastern Lower Peninsula for the oldest, toughest, longest running car rally in North America, Press On Regardless.  Arriving about 9:30 we got registered, received our route book and then did the final touches of making sure the car was ready to go.  Nic and I both have family members who have or are currently suffering from Alzheimer's.  This is such a terrible disease.  We decided to use the rally as an opportunity to do a fundraiser and for every $5 donated we placed a purple sticker on the car.
The rally started promptly at 11:30 and our out time was 11:30 plus our car # which was 7.  It was during the tire warm up and odo (odometer) check that we had a dog try to end its own life or take out the mini (you decide).  After the brief scare we continued on excited for what was to come.  The rally is run in three sections consisting of a total of 24 stages.  This is a TSD rally which means the roads are open to public use and we must obey all traffic laws.  No roll cage or helmets are required.  That being said many of the CAST (read speed) were set high enough that to maintain proper time is/was a challenge.
The first section of the rally was a day time section.  We ran this section with no glitches or problems.  The car became dusty and dirty and looked like a true rally car.  As the day wore on we begin to get intermittent rain.  This made for some fun and exciting tight, twisty, two track, and seasonal dirt roads.
The second section of the rally started in the late afternoon and ran into the evening.  This is where things really started to get exciting.  The first stage of this section required that we turn on the driving lights just as a pre-check to relying on them during the complete night stages.  It was a good thing we did.  One of the lights had a broken cup which allowed it to bounce up and down like crazy driving me nuts as the light shifted all over the road.  At one of the control points we made some quick duct tape repairs that would at least get us through the end of the second section of the rally.  The rain started coming harder which made for some rather deep water holes.  It was at this point that the mini started to become covered in mud and water.  Again it began to look more and more like a true rally car.  During one of our transits it began to rain pretty heavy.  We were running behind a civilian traffic car on the transit and enough water was being kicked up that the dizzy started to get wet and give us some troubles.  Thankfully by the time we arrived at the start of the next stage all problems seemed to disappear.  From here we finished the rest of the second section with no problems (besides me leaving my phone at a gas station 45 minutes from the end of the rally).
At the service stop before the third and final section of the rally my co-driver, Nic, and I were furiously busy around the car.  I was checking tire air pressures, and getting the front grill of the car off so we could make some minor adjustments.  The lights made and extra draw on the alternator which caused the belt to squeal like a stuck pig.  Nic adjusted the alternator, I made some more adjustments to our broken driving light by creating a zip tie contraption back to the grill and then taking some paper towel duct taping it up and wedging it between the light and the bumper so we could get it aimed just right.  Then we duct taped the whole deal so that it would all stay in place.  We fueled up and off we went into the night feeling very good about how we were doing.  We hadn't had any need yet to use the emergency shovel, the floor jack, the spare tire, the extra oil, or the two strap. 
The third sections started in complete dark.  We waited for our out time and we were off.  In about 2 miles we came upon the car on stage in front of us just sitting on the side of the road with flashers on.  As we approached we slowed down in good competitive fashion to make sure everything was okay.  They shouted at us that they were fine and to keep going.  So we did.  About another 2 miles into that stage we came across another car coming at us on road.  They had their brights on which caused us not to be able to see.  As we slowed to a safe passing speed I did my best to stay on the 6 foot wide road.  Right as they passed we realized that we had the car about 2 inches from going into a two foot wash out.  On the 4th stage of the 3rd section we were coming into a fast downhill 90 degree hard right turn.  It had been raining and the road had turned into one big muddy marble mess.  We were casting 41 mph, which may not seem fast but in a 10'X4' car on a 5' wide road at night it feels fast.  As I approached the corner and began to slow down the car decided it didn't want to go where I was pointing the wheels.  Instinct kicked in and I slammed the brakes cranked the wheel and tried to let debris build up in front of the wheels, let off the brake and get the car to turn.  No such luck.  I looked at Nic and said, "This could be bad."  We slid off the road and I thought for sure this was going to be our opportunity to have to use the emergency shovel or tow strap.  I quickly grabbed reverse, gave her some gas and she backed right out onto the road.  Off we went to continue our adventure into the night.
This little excursion plus some deep rutted sandy, muddy roads had cost us some time and we were behind by about 30 seconds.  So, Nic and I decided to drive over cast to make up some time.  Mind you the roads are narrow, two track, twisty, bumpy, and muddy.  We were flying along at about 55 mph when Nic called out a caution ahead.  Nic said "Caution rough ORV crossing in 30."  I said, "I'm going to keep my foot in it, they haven't been that bad all night."  This was a mistake.  As Nic was counting it down little did we know that we would soon regret our decision.  I heard, "30, 20, 10, 5" and then we hit the rough ORV crossing.  I truly believe we got a little air born.  As soon as we landed all the lights went out.  We had no driving lights, no dash lights, no running lights, no tail lights, no headlights.  All we had were Nic's navigator's reading light, brake lights, and turn lights.  In the pitch black I began to get the car stopped, hoping I wouldn't go off road or hit a tree.  Nic jumped out and helped guide me to the side of the road.  As Nic raced to the front of the car I ran around to the back to shine my flash light and let fellow competitors know we were sitting on the side of the road with no lights (next rally the car will have emergency flashing triangles in the trunk).  Nic checked the Lucas fuse panel only to discover that we were not missing any fuses and all fuses were good.  We decided to make it quick and just hard wire the lights into the positive battery cable coming from the back of the car so that they would be always on.  With no headlights, no high beams, no dash lights, and no tail lights we soldiered on through the next 3 stages to finish the rally.  We pulled in to the parking lot and went in to turn in our score card.
While the rally master was totaling scores Nic and I did some more diagnosing under the hood.  Originally we had planned on trailering the mini to the rally in case something like this happened.  However when I was bringing the trailer home from a friends house on Friday night it shredded a tire and caused the other tire on the same side to have some damage.  So I decided we would just do the old Patty Hopkirk thing (He drove from London to Monte Carlo and then proceeded to run the rally in his mini) and drive to the rally.  We finally discovered that when the bright switch on the column broke we must have been running the brights and regular lights at the same time drawing too much amperage through the little old spade connector on the fuse box.  The plastic melted and when we hit the rough ORV crossing the wire fell out of the spade connector.  A new spade connector and that problem was solved.
Instead of waiting around for awards (we knew we didn't win anything with our little no light issue causing us about 9 minutes) we decided to head the 45 minutes back to Tawas and get my phone before driving the 45 minutes back to where we currently where to head home.  On the way back from Tawas old skidettle decided to start acting up.  Every time we decelerated she would loose power and shut off.  At one point about an hour from our meet up point in Cedar Springs she shut off and wouldn't restart.  So we pushed her off to the side of the road and sat there for about 30 minutes with the hazards on.  We were confused and couldn't figure out what would cause such a thing to happen.  Granted she had been running for about 24 hours straight at this point, except for the occasional service point here and there.  After a while we tried to start her up again and the battery just wouldn't do it.  Finally somebody drove by and we convinced them to give us a jump start.  She fired up and we took off hoping to make it home without any more issues.  We arrived in Cedar Springs and as we pulled into the park and ride she died again.  By this time I began to think that maybe we had a vacuum line issue.  I popped the bonnet and began looking around and discovered that through the night some of the vacuum lines had become so hot they had weakened and were allowing extra air to be sucked in.  So we taped them up with the fix all of everything, silver duct tape, and she started running like a top again.  It wasn't until about 7 am that I finally pulled in the driveway.  27 hours, 370 stage miles, 30+ transit miles, 340 miles of driving to and from the rally and to and from the rally over to Tawas to get my phone, and I was finally home.
It was a great weekend.  We had lots of fun.  I will do it again, next time I will be even more ready, with a few extra things. and a reliable trailer to get skidettel back and forth to the rally on.

Needless to say we carried on the old tradition of rally, and especially this rally.  We "Pressed On Regardless!"
Thank you for reading this.  I will add pictures or a link to pictures in a little bit.

Devin Mulder

[Willie_B]

Very cool story. Great job.

[Dmulder]

https://goo.gl/photos/FVdbERnGbxzSwb2L6  - link to a picture of my co-driver and I standing by the car before the start of the first stage.  Nic in front, me in back.

https://goo.gl/photos/ujvjjKU563VDYvyW9  - link to a video google made of my photo album

[Jims5543]

I saw this yesterday and decided to wait until this morning to read with my coffee.  I have to get to work just wanted to say kudo's for the fundraising.  More later after I get rained out today by the tropical crap.



Photo embeded for Dmulder.

[John Gervais]

Fantastic adventure!  Well done!   77.gif