May 7, 2005 To make up for Thursday’s scare, it was sunny today, bright and beautiful. Leon and Mark sent us off once again, after they were sadly unable to find the one part they needed to fix Michele’s clutch. I kissed her carbon fiber hood, hoping she’d feel better soon. Prince was great and we made some really boring transit miles on our way to Gorman. I looked back at my memories of the stage- I’d done it three times before. The nice smooth one had washed away after Thursday’s shower, so we were left with the nasty one. Boy was it nasty! The start line was on sandy ground and as I pulled up to the start line, I could hear Prince bottoming out… I looked ahead at an open section that got more technical as it wound into the hills. When the lights went out, I was zooming along in third gear. I immediately knew I could go faster in that section and I realized that I’d lost time. As we neared the hill, that was the least of my worries. There was a huge water bar and even bigger ruts ahead. I slammed on the brakes then released them to drive over the obstacles. I pushed myself faster on straight and smooth parts. I had to slow down for the rough stuff. Prince’s poor little rear was flying in the air. I wanted to shift more but the lack of power steering left me with a death grip on the wheel that threatened to break loose at any moment. I had never driven anything this bad before and I didn’t know what to do. I knew I was losing time, but I was surviving and figuring out what to do next time. We finished the stage and stopped for fuel. I called Leon and he wasn’t happy with my times. I tried to tell him how bad it was and he tried to give me some tips. Between my helmet, the rough road, no power steering and the great drama that was unfolding, I was developing a migraine. I sat in my car, head in my hands, crying just to let things out. Casey gave me some Alieves and took a walk. I was so mad at myself for not driving better. I wished for better suspension and handling. This whole stage had felt like a roller coaster and I was just along for the ride. I wasn’t driving the car, he was driving me.Worse yet, the wolves were right at my door waiting to take my points away. We had so much time to kill before taking off again that I was able to chill out and regain some composure. When I got the crying out of the way, I stopped to think of the whole stage. Okay, where could I have been faster? The beginning. Between turns. Powering in and out of turns. Braking deeply. Pushing through the rough spots. With everything else pushed aside, things really became clear. There were a lot of things I could do to drive faster. Now all I would have to do was do them. Casey and I walked through a few things before we got to the start. But before we could even start racing, we’d have to survive the start. The line to the start was part of a Y junction and we’d make a sharp left turn before getting to the start. I saw that the ruts were terrible and made a move to get into position behind the start line so I could pick up some speed before charging through. However the stage workers had parked their vehicles so close to the start that when I went to turn in and back up to be behind the start line, I got caught in the ruts that I was trying to avoid! Despite never having gotten to the start line, the workers declared that we were on our time now. We were stuck so bad that five people couldn’t push us out. Someone got us hooked up to their truck and towed us backward. Then we were held up by the workers again before they let us go. Finally we left, throwing punches. I attacked the stupid stage like I had last night. Damn, I hate Gorman. I had the blinders on again and all of my anger simply fueled my drive to succeed. I was very fast and very aggressive. I liked what I was doing. The end was soon in sight and so was the car in front of me. Things were so rough. With less than a mile to go I could barely hold onto the wheel and shift at the same time. By this time it was all blood, sweat and tears. But things soon turned into just tears. Suddenly, as I went to accelerate in first gear, I found Prince spinning around in neutral. I popped the clutch and worked the gearbox. We had first and second, but not for long. Again, we were in neutral. I coasted, begging, coaxing Prince to be strong for me. Casey started yelling at me to stop, to call it quits. I yelled back at him. We’re getting out of here. The gears caught again, giving me a little hope. But not for long. Something was wrong with the drive train. Differential, axle, probably not the tranny… I finally had to park Prince in a little cove. Stranded on top of a birm, just like all of my championship dreams. Gone. Over. DNF. When all of the safety signs were in place, I climbed up the hill. I had to call Leon and I made it short. I didn’t want to talk to Casey or anyone for that matter. I needed a minute to clear things out. It took awhile to get towed out because so many cars had DNF’d on this stage. In less than 10 miles, something like 12 cars had broken. It was really obscene and I really couldn’t see why this stage had even been included in the rally. When I got out of Prince and was helping Leon and Aaron to load him up on the trailer, the problem became blazingly apparent- it was the terrible creaking and squealing noise of a differential. Unfortunately I became acquainted with the problem when I was with Leon at the Ojibwe Forest Rally last summer. He was leading the rally when he hit a bank, which caused the splines on Michele’s differential to break. He DNF’d only three miles from the finish. We went to fish him out and because I had always wanted to drive the nice Evo, I was given the task of driving her out to the trailer as she was in tow. She was hard to drive and it was hard to see Leon so upset. And thus I learned what heartbreak is and what a broken differential sounds like. Not that it made me feel any better. No, in fact it did not. On the way back everyone was saying things either to console me or to make me forget about what I had just lost. I just sat there, squeezed into the back seat, the cool leather of the Viper truck slowly dissipating the heat from the sun and my anger. I didn’t want to admit that anything was over that anything had been lost. I think that is one of the stages of mourning. Worse yet, I didn’t like what they were saying about Prince. The gist of it was that his days were numbered. At this time, I’d already lost so much- did they have to take my Prince Charming away? I looked back at his cute little Corolla nose bobbing up and down on the trailer. I think I cried. Not my baby. I feigned a nap. The worst part of DNFing is coming back to the service area. What happened? Are you out? Or the people who suddenly profit from your misfortunes… Okay, I will admit I’ve got a bit of pride. And it’s kinda bruised right now. Or the things I imagine people thinking, mostly related to ‘this happened because she’s a woman and can’t drive.’ I hope nobody thinks that. I really do. I changed and Leon and I had a hot dog with Rich, the cool cameraman/reporter who tapes Motorsport Mundial. He asked if I would go to New York. The answer seemed to be no, but after everything today I needed a yes. Yes, I am going to go to Rally New York. The impossibility of the task was blatantly apparent- where would $6,000 come from? But I looked to my good friend Bristol Keele who had spent three years doing rally crosses. She gave herself an ultimatum: do Rim this year or give everything up. Well, she got her rally cross car prepped in about a month with no budget and she made it a few stages farther than me before he car broke. But she did it. And I’m going to do it because I won’t give my dream of doing a national series up. Bring it on! I spent the rest of the day hanging out with my brother. My parents were working still and they thought that something had happened to me. I felt bad. I went around handing out beads, although my heart wasn’t in it. I talked to people about Hachi, who stuck out in the car show being still a work in progress. It’s always windy and very sunny in Lancaster and all of the weather and emotions were wearing me out. Mark gave me some funny pills that made my headache go away, so I eventually felt better. Mark is cool like that. We sadly saw him leave soon after. I waited out the rest of the day. All the other G5 competitors were doing fine. One of my competitors (and we’re all friends, too and share the same service area!) pointed out that it was quite amazing that I was nipping at their more powerful and experienced heels with my little 140 HP car. And they also pointed out that I had quite possibly pushed Prince way past his limits. The seeming misfortune somehow began to look like part of my natural evolution as a driver. That took the edge off of things. We stayed until everyone started coming back. Unfortunately Don’s excitement at overtaking my position was short-lived. He lost his engine! I felt bad for him. I like running with his light blue RX-7. In fact, more than half of the cars that started the rally didn’t finish. That made me feel better. It also made me feel better knowing that I had scored points for the California Rally Series on Friday, which with my Seed 9 results, has left me 10th overall in Open 2WD- and that’s missing a rally and the second day of Rim! Things can only get better. At around 11 P.M., we finally left back to the hotel after dinner with Casey and my parents. At dinner, we talked about moving into another car. I had to agree it was the right thing to do. Sadly, I was ready for it. Sleep couldn’t come fast enough. The migraine was back and I slept through the banquet the next morning. But I felt better riding back home with Leon. New thoughts for the future were already replacing the pain of the weekend. Back to Diary of a Driver.