Mt. Hood Club Rally 2004

Odell, OR-October 23-24, 2004

After a year or so of absence from involvement in SCCA rally in any capicity, Simon asked me to help with the Mt. Hood event, and I was happy to oblige. The second year for this event also marks the end of SCCA involvement in American performance rally. Working as a stage captain on Saturday was a bit hectic and a bit stressful, but ended up being a lot of fun. In some ways I had forgotten how the Northwest rally scene is filled with so many good-natured, fun-loving, always smiling crews, workers, and fans...but it really isn't surprising considering the nature of the sport.

The roads were muddy, snow fell for a while, the air felt cold, and the sunlight on the trees was beautiful. The Forest Service was concerned about road conditions, so we had to make do with a revised schedule of shortened stages, as well as the need to turn the cars around after each run either up or down the hill. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves anyway, everyone made it past the exposure without incident, and everyone made it off the hill at the end of the evening. I'm sorry that I didn't have more than a couple of seconds to snap an occasional picture here and there.


Thanks to Simon for being the main force behind this wonderful event! Thanks to the Forest Service for allowing us to use the roads! Thanks to the other volunteers for helping to make the event a success! Thanks to Subaru for the chili dogs, and thanks to the competitors for putting up with last-minute changes and still managing to have a good time!


Pace car at the start. Some dude named Mark drives it, and some other dude named Ben was co-driving.


Doesn't Simon look fashionable in green?


My start crew had quite the setup on the bank.


Carl and Amity are as fast as ever.


Rodzinskis in their Mitsu Galant.


James Unger and Jeff Price in the Celica All-Trac produced some very impressive launches at the start.


KA-powered 210! As impressive as the Audi can be, deep in his heart, Todd knows that RWD really is more fun!


Bill spent the better part of Saturday waving cars off at the start. Nice to see the AW11 MR2 still competing, this time with some new faces.


RX-7 heads up a line of cars waiting to start.


MR2 Blastoff! My HAM brought his Jeep right up to the start to keep me plugged into the radio network.


This overworked, overacheiving, charismatic Sprint Turbo has spent the better part of its life as a racecar of one sort of another. This weekend was the straw that broke the camel's (bottom end's) back!


The Northwest is pretty, isn't it?


Service had to be moved to a section of road with the condensed course. Bill and I check it out.


Seeing the cramped roadside service area made me a bit glad I wasn't on that side of the fence for this event.


Fall colors.


Fall weather.


ST165 Celica in service.


A moment of sun in Mt. Hood Forest.


Cold and muddy! At least it wasn't dumping rain at this particular moment.


My poor abused Corolla. I have another Corolla with taller ride height, some underbody protection, and knobby tires, but bringing that car would have required actually working on it.


Fall in the Oregon woods.


Start-area vehicles. Thanks to Gloria, Simon, Matt, Brandon, and everyone else who helped mentor me in my first event as a stage captain.



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