October, 2001: The Prescott Forest Rally

The 2001 Prescott Forest Rally

Thursday, October 4th, 2001

Thursday started off just right.. the rally car had a dead battery.
The very heavily loaded Passat Wagon support vehicle arrives in Prescott in fine form
The monster rally shocks on a Ford Focus

A view of Prescott from the rally hotel
The turbocharged, 4WD Hyundai's
A trio of Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions

A closer view of one of the Evo's
Team WhoopAss. Whoop-Ass is actually some sort of canned energy drink
Rear view of one of an Evolution VI

The dash of one of the Evo VI's
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
The same VW from the commercials, although a different guy owns it now

Brady on the phone trying to find an RX7 driveshaft. There is a story here. Really, there is, I just don't have time to tell it right now.
The donor RX7 about to give up it's driveshaft
Brady swaps driveshafts for the 3rd time today; this time in the dark.

Friday, October 5th, 2001

Brady snagged 4 used rally tires for $10 each. That's about 8% of new retail
Talk about an unfair advantage. It's FWD, but still has 3 feet of ground clearance
Use number 741 for duct tape: Light pod reinforcement

It's not every day you see a Prodrive WRX cruising around town
More shameless WRX pictures
The coolguy rear wing

So later in the day we go to tech and behind us pulls up a Lancer Evo VI Tommi Makinen edition. This just keeps getting better and better
Even better, it's Rhys Millen's car! Brady notes that Rhys Millen is using the exact same wheels that Brady has on his RX7
Can you believe Mitsubishi still won't give us any version of the Evolution?

A few hours later, we start the rally, run Stage 1 and 2 which are incredibly rough. We make it back to service and put the car on jack stands to inspect everything
Brady's shocks look tiny compared to the Focus shocks, but they work

Saturday, October 6th, 2001

Some time after midnight (now Saturday) we finish stages 3 and 4. On the way back to the hotel we stop at a gas station to inspect the car. Amazingly it looks fine and is hardly even that dirty.
We get back to the hotel and Brady and Brian check out the car while I drink Gatorade and eat chocolate chip cookies and Pringles. We get to sleep around 3am or so.
We're up by 7am the next morning and haul out to the county fairgrounds for a Parc Expose and the Super Special Stage, which is a rallycross.

Paul Timmerman's Datsun 510 had a rollover Friday night, but they got the car back together again for Saturday.
It's a little bashed up, but still going
We leave the rallycross and proceed to Stage 6 aka the cliff stage.

Unfortunately there were major problems with the sweep vehicle and the rally was delayed about 90 minutes. Brady seen here next to his car and a line of other waiting cars.
We're just in time to watch the Subaru take off
The Subaru launches with a chopper about 150 feet away recording it. Coming soon to Speedvision!

One of the Tiburons launches
One of the Lancer Evolution VI's takes off
We do awesome on Stage 6 and upon finishing Stage 6 discover that the car is 240 degrees. The fan/waterpump belt snapped. We attempt to make a temporary belt since the backup belt is with Brian Peters 25 miles away.

The temporary belt brakes right away and we limp to the start of Stage 7. Brady calls Brian Peters with the bad news. Brian gets us the backup belt about an hour later but by then we're out of the rally.
The Passat gets honorable mention for making it through the weekend as our trusty service vehicle.
We get back early enough to catch the top finishers and the victory celebration

Subaru first, Hyundai takes second, and Mitsubishi third.
It is cold and wet for the drive home Sunday morning.
Some truck towing a 5th wheel wipes out and apparently goes off the mountain. Our drive home is much less eventful.

Both Brady and I have plans to do a more complete writeup of the weekend. A LOT went on in those 4 days and it's already getting hard to remember everything. Hopefully one of us will write something about it before we both forget and have to look at all the pictures just to remember what all we did.

Page created: 10-9-2001
This site maintained by Brandon Smith
Return to Autocrossing.com

Thursday, October 4th, 2001
Thursday started off just right.. the rally car had a dead battery.	The very heavily loaded Passat Wagon support vehicle arrives in Prescott in fine form	The monster rally shocks on a Ford Focus
A view of Prescott from the rally hotel	The turbocharged, 4WD Hyundai's	A trio of Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions
A closer view of one of the Evo's	Team WhoopAss. Whoop-Ass is actually some sort of canned energy drink	Rear view of one of an Evolution VI
The dash of one of the Evo VI's	The price of freedom is eternal vigilance	The same VW from the commercials, although a different guy owns it now
Brady on the phone trying to find an RX7 driveshaft. There is a story here. Really, there is, I just don't have time to tell it right now.	The donor RX7 about to give up it's driveshaft	Brady swaps driveshafts for the 3rd time today; this time in the dark.
Friday, October 5th, 2001
Brady snagged 4 used rally tires for $10 each. That's about 8% of new retail	Talk about an unfair advantage. It's FWD, but still has 3 feet of ground clearance	Use number 741 for duct tape: Light pod reinforcement
It's not every day you see a Prodrive WRX cruising around town	More shameless WRX pictures	The coolguy rear wing
So later in the day we go to tech and behind us pulls up a Lancer Evo VI Tommi Makinen edition. This just keeps getting better and better	Even better, it's Rhys Millen's car! Brady notes that Rhys Millen is using the exact same wheels that Brady has on his RX7	Can you believe Mitsubishi still won't give us any version of the Evolution?
A few hours later, we start the rally, run Stage 1 and 2 which are incredibly rough. We make it back to service and put the car on jack stands to inspect everything	Brady's shocks look tiny compared to the Focus shocks, but they work
Saturday, October 6th, 2001
Some time after midnight (now Saturday) we finish stages 3 and 4. On the way back to the hotel we stop at a gas station to inspect the car. Amazingly it looks fine and is hardly even that dirty.	We get back to the hotel and Brady and Brian check out the car while I drink Gatorade and eat chocolate chip cookies and Pringles. We get to sleep around 3am or so.	We're up by 7am the next morning and haul out to the county fairgrounds for a Parc Expose and the Super Special Stage, which is a rallycross.
Paul Timmerman's Datsun 510 had a rollover Friday night, but they got the car back together again for Saturday.	It's a little bashed up, but still going	We leave the rallycross and proceed to Stage 6 aka the cliff stage.
Unfortunately there were major problems with the sweep vehicle and the rally was delayed about 90 minutes. Brady seen here next to his car and a line of other waiting cars.	We're just in time to watch the Subaru take off	The Subaru launches with a chopper about 150 feet away recording it. Coming soon to Speedvision!
One of the Tiburons launches	One of the Lancer Evolution VI's takes off	We do awesome on Stage 6 and upon finishing Stage 6 discover that the car is 240 degrees. The fan/waterpump belt snapped. We attempt to make a temporary belt since the backup belt is with Brian Peters 25 miles away.
The temporary belt brakes right away and we limp to the start of Stage 7. Brady calls Brian Peters with the bad news. Brian gets us the backup belt about an hour later but by then we're out of the rally.	The Passat gets honorable mention for making it through the weekend as our trusty service vehicle.	We get back early enough to catch the top finishers and the victory celebration
Subaru first, Hyundai takes second, and Mitsubishi third.	It is cold and wet for the drive home Sunday morning.	Some truck towing a 5th wheel wipes out and apparently goes off the mountain. Our drive home is much less eventful.