Yup, so we signed up in advance to help out at the Treeline Rally, since this is our first season and it would have been too much money to buy both a Rally America AND NASA license.
We got up early to drive to West Covina, approximately 30 minutes away. Kris and I quickly checked in, found our stage captain, and caught up with some familiar faces from both the CRS Rally School, and Rim of the World. We wished luck to the competitors we knew (Lisa Klassen and Jeff Rados) and left for the time controls.
Something I didn’t realize at Rim (and even from going to WRC Mexico) is that to get to some of the timing controls, you need to drive the entire stage to get there. Well, this was no exception. To get to the arrival/start control for stage 3 (which would become the finish time control for turn-around stage 4), we had to drive up a bit of a rough road, and the entire stage. I accidentally jinxed us by commenting, “Oh, I hope we don’t get a flat!” - since our actual spare was on the Blazer, and the original tire had a slash in it. 
So obviously, we DID get a flat. After we stopped near the start of the stage while David, our stage captain, was securing some of the signs, Kris annouced it. Luckily we were close enough to the “parking area/transit” that Kris was able to drive up the hill. Unfortunately, the bead of the tire popped off. I’m not sure exactly what happened in the beginning of Kris’s attempts to fix it, as I was having some stomach issues and needed to run off in the woods. Unfortunately for me, there were no easy concealing areas to get to, as the rally was more “above the treeline” than “at the treeline.”
As far as the flat was concerned, Kris tried every single other vehicle’s spare in the area he could. None had the right lug pattern, including a spare that Paula Gibeault kindly sent up with the “00″ car. Kris was able to locate a plug kit, and the HAM radio operator, John, had a great battery-charged air-pump that was able to re-inflate the tire once it was back on the rim and plugged. Having taken care of both of our crises, we gathered under the small amount of cover John had set up. (Kris and I are still wondering why the heck we didn’t take our brand new EZ-UP tent!) David, our stage captain, went over how to do the ATC. “We’re going to give the competitors a 2-minute dust window, so as the cars pull up on their minute, you’ll give them two minutes to get to stage start (slightly up the road) as thier ‘ideal start time’.” He explained the new “sequence number” part of the time card, but unfortunately did not have any example to show us. This is the only reason I preferred the timing at Rim vs. Treeline - that the timing controls had the timecards (at Rim) vs. the competitors (at Treeline). It was very confusing when the competitors showed up - especially when the stage prior to ours had become a transit. I’ll come back to this in a second.
Thanks to John, we knew all the details of what was happening throughout the day. There was some confusion about the location of one of the EMTs - turned out they were helping a car that died during the transit to the first stage. I feel bad when stuff like that happens - you paid all this money to compete, you prepped your car, and then it just dies right before the first stage. Eventually the EMT got into position, and the course opening cars started. The next problem happened when Leon Styles (running the “0″ car) got a rock stuck in his tire on the second stage. Since the competitors can’t start the stage until it has been cleared by the 0 car, there was another huge delay. Soon enough, though, we saw the dust of Leon’s Evo, and before we knew it, he was at our control, explaining to us what happened. We thought they’d have a timecard for us to practice, since the pre-rally info said this was how they’d pick the best time control for the day. No dice - they left from the ATC, sped right past the STC, and down the stage.
By this time most of the competitors had finished stage 1. Stage 2 was open, but the very first car down the road had a problem, and they were stuck blocking the stage. That sucked because I had really wanted to see the actual rally car, a Ford Focus SVT (of course it sucked for them too!). This is why stage 2 became a transit. At this point most of us just decided to eat lunch, rather than wait until we were done with our ATC. With info from the HAM operator, we found out that once the cars arrived from stage 2’s transit, we would be starting them down stage 3 right away (and with no transit penalty for not arriving on their minute). When the cars started arriving, there was a massive huge confusion. Our stage captain got a bit stressed, running back and forth. Kris and I pretty much had the ATC under control, except I take personal responsibilty for skipping a sequence number, and messing up the “sequence order.” I think if there wasn’t so much rushing, and if we’d had an example timecard, I would not have gotten confused and skipped a number. (Eventually we found out that particular car had ALSO gotten stuck on stage 2 - I thought I’d seen it, so it became my “ghost car.”) In any case, the control went pretty smoothly. The main “problems” were that the competitors were also confused, and some of them came into the actual arrival time control without their suits and helmets on, without their harnesses affixed, and some of them just stopped up the road. When Chrissy Beavis asked me if they needed to come in on their minute, (like a good co-driver, I might add!), I should not have just said, “No,” I should have instead said, “No, but you do need to come in ASAP in the correct starting order.” I realized this once I saw that everyone was kind of “taking a break” up the road, instead of getting their gear on, and coming into the time control. I was going to go make an annoucement to the teams that they should be coming in, but David told me not to - instead we waved frantically for them to come over. The final confusion was with the timecards. As I said, I skipped a sequence number. Additionally, because the previous stage had become a transit, the competitors had no stage time because there was no real FTC for stage 2. Then we had no idea what their correct minute should be, and the timecards were not numbered as stages, but rather had their own numbering scheme. Eventually we figured out that the timecard for stage 3 was actually timecard #4, which I’m sure would be confusing to other people as well.
Other than these things, the ATC went ok. Once done, we switched all the signs and got set up for the stage to be run in reverse and for us to become the FTC after a short service. By this time the flat we’d gotten was completely taken care of, thanks to everyone that helped. Kris moved the car to do the flying finish timing, while I stood at the table taking timecards and giving stage times. The FTC truely went a lot better than the ATC, except that the ATC for stage 4 had not given the competitors any sequence numbers, so we did not know if there were cars missing (as was the idea). About halfway through, we saw Jeff Rados/Guido Hamacher in their yellow and black Line-X Ford Ranger. They pulled off to the side, after telling me, ‘it’s over.’ Jeff came back to ask me how he might be able to get in touch with his service crew, and I directed him to John. John was a huge help on the radio, going back and forth, but we eventually figured out that Jeff’s service vehicle could not come up the mountain, so they’d definately need a tow down.
I would have offered right off the bat to help them, but 1) we don’t have the tow hitch yet, and 2) we had gotten a flat coming up the hill. What if we got one going back down? With no other help available until hours later, we decided to give it a try. Kris and Jeff hooked the tow rope to the Blazer and the Ranger, Guido gave me the route book, and we started down the stage. Jeff told us that he’d stay on the brakes until they burned out. The short tow rope broke about 1.5 miles down the stage. We re-attached it, and got a little further until it broke again. The Ranger’s brakes were completely gone by now, and we risked making the rope too short to tow. “Why don’t we try coasting down the hill?” Jeff and Guido suggested. Once we reached a downhill area, we detached the rope. We made it down most of the stage with the Ranger right behind us, just coasting! Kris joked with me, “Tine, this guy’s been on my ass for the last 5 miles!” 
Once we reached a bit of an uphill, the Ranger lost momentum. “Oh, Kris!” Jeff called on the radio, “We need a tow!” We repeated the procedure, towing them uphill a bit, then unhooking the rope, and letting them follow. We had to stay fairly close, with the “daylight” foglights of the Ranger right behind us, to keep the dust down, and so they could see how the road went. We also gave them info when there was a slight hill so Jeff would stay off the hand-brake, and gave them notice of the tight hairpin turns. I still can’t believe we got them down the stage! It was truely a great test of the Blazer as our tow vehicle. We know it can easily get up a stage, and it’s towing abilities, even without the tow package. However, the route book was completely useless. I don’t understand why Rally America does not let new teams use notes, as the route book doesn’t even have info about the tight turns. It is my personal opinion that driving with only the route book and not with notes is WAY more dangerous than having the notes in the first place. I’m excited that our first event will be a NASA one and we will be able to use notes! 
It was a huge relief when we got to the main road and Jeff and Guido’s service crew were waiting for them! Our story was an amazing one which we share with others at the awards ceremony/Mexican buffet. I met Jamie “Subiegal” Thomas, whom I’ve heard lots about. We also got a chance to say hi to Eric and Amy: “We’re not the fastest, but we have fun!” They drew awards for HAM operator prizes, and for two books for David Sutton’s book, “The Choice of Champions.” They also had awards (which they said they’d send out later) for best controls, and for a Rally America shirt and worker license - which I commented was the “only thing we couldn’t use,” as we will hopefully be competing at future events, not working at them.
Overall I think we had a good time. We definately should have brought our tent, and need to get a couple new tires. I hope Jeff can get the Ranger fixed in time for Gorman, and we hope to see a lot of other people there as well. I’m really excited about our first rally, so it’s time to buckle down, and get the car finished! 
