You know, it was a beautiful day for a motorcar race. I have to say that (tradition) but for this rally I really mean it. The temp was in the 50s. The wind was light so dust was not a problem. It had rained the day before so the roads were in fine shape. Superb even. But, as usual I'm getting ahead of myself...

So, late last fall, Wild Bill Westrick and Tim Maskus and others decide they'll put on a regional rally in and around Newberry, Michigan. The 'Moose Capital of Michigan' is one hour past the Mackinaw Bridge, the gateway to the promised land, 5 hours door to door for us. The boys tell us it will be a simple, laid back single day rally, no stage notes, in short an old school rally like we used to enjoy 25 years ago. We decide we're in. John Atsma as co-driver and I that is. So as online registration opens I call Rally America to renew my competition license and enter the Magnum Opus Rally, making sure my 555 number is still available. It is.

Early this spring, I decide I'd better get the 555 car out and see what needs fettled before it's too late. It's not been used, not even driven since last May at Rally Minnesota. Turns out not too much is needed, a good thing, as I'm busy with lots of other equally important stuff. About 10 days before the rally the car becomes the most important thing I have to do. Eric Burmeister sorts out and orders me some parts to allow different shocks to be fitted to the rear of the car. I'd been told to 'soften the rear up to help rear bite' so that's what I did, changing springs and shocks. I think the changes worked. Read on about that. Also I decided to put our Pikes Peak front spoiler on. I love the way it looks, however it hangs about 4" lower on the leading edge so I wonder how long the thin and light fiberglass will last (one jump gone wrong? Even one off course excursion? Curb in the hotel parking lot?) but decide it's going on. If it's destroyed I have the mold to make more! I have enough old hard Pirelli rally tyres left to run this rally. I've got to get better tires...

Now it's the week of. Car prep is mostly complete, the only remaining item some air in the rear brakes that we can't seem to get bled out. Will need to be 100% fixed before the start. Onto the trailer she goes Friday at noon, we (Nancy, Greg Mankin and I) head off up the road about 1:30 pm. We'll meet John and June Atsma at the rally. We're 12 miles up the road, all the way to Hudsonville when David Allan calls...

"Say, where are you Colin? I've forgotten some vinyl we all need on my kitchen counter, any chance you could get it ?"

We detour to David and Tammy's house and pick the vinyl up. And then notice the trailer wiring adapter is not there. Forgotten at home. Duane Bailey's shop is 2 miles away so off we go. We get there, the door's open but Duane's not there. As we wait for him I get Greg the 2 cent tour of Duanes treasure trove of British car goodness. After a few minutes Duane's there, loans us a wiring adapter and then we really are off north. It's 2:30 now. So much for getting to the HQ hotel where we're staying by 6 pm. Travelling north we have no drama, other than there's snow along the road and it's 37 deg and falling near Gaylord. You know rally tires are not designed to work below about 40 deg...

Well, we cross the bridge and enter the promised land at 6:30 pm. The clouds part, the skies are a magnificent blue, the temperature a warming 47 deg. Perfection. One hour to go. Tick tock. I remember Newberry being 'just across the bridge'.

7:30 we are at the hotel and greeted by Sam and some others wanting to see our old rallycar. As it rumbles off the trailer I'm stoked for the weekend. Yes I just said that. Dood. Registration is a breeze, John's already got the routebook, so we head right to tech inspection which is also a breeze. This rally brought out some old rally friends I'd not seen in a long time. Very good. So the only thing STILL to do is bleed the rear brakes properly. We've tried any number of tricks with no joy. We've tried Greg's pressure bleeder, better but still no joy. We decide dinner is in order, and after soliciting a local we select a local restaurant. The whitefish was excellent.

Race day, we're up and at 'em having a lousy continental breakfast at the Comfort INN in Newberry, the rally HQ. The rooms were great, the food, not so much. Hey, back to rally. I've decided that the air is trapped in the rear calipers where the banjo fitting enters at virtually the same level as the bleeder, so the solution is to index the caliper so the bleeder is well above the banjo fitting - success, finally. Brakes are 100%, a must. There's a 'park expose' at 11:30 am so we get there about 10:45 so we have a choice spot in the service area next to the Huebbe's Beetle, near Matt's Mustang and near an electrical outlet. All's well. We check out the super special (stages 1 & 2) and wait for out start time. John and I get interviewed for TV6 news out of Marquette. Wow. Have some thing to eat. All's well. Sunny. Almost 50 deg.

Our time approaches so John and I put helmets and HANS on, climb in the car to find all's not well anymore. The car has a dead battery?! Now what. We pile out, and see what's happened....I've left the side lights on. Duh! So we have some guys help push start the car and run stage one (6th fastest, fastest two wheel drive, best rooster tail we're told) and back to service....Huebbes offer to loan us a new Optima they carry in their service truck to replace out stone dead Optima. Quickly the battery's swapped and we're good to go. Stage 2 is another run at the soooper special so we hit it even harder, trying some different lines to get a better time....and end up 4 seconds slower. No worries, we're still in great shape. Out to the forests!

Stage 3 & 4 are and in and out 'turnaround' stage. We all race in, once everyone's in we race back out. We're to use this road 4 time total so we know we need to take some time now as it will be tough later. It's a great road, flowing, fairly smooth, wide and with no surprises so we can push hard. Another good time and we're really enjoying ourselves now. Stage 4, at the end I'm hearing a thumping from the right rear under hard acceleration but we keep going, finish the stage and then drive a longish transit to the stage 5. Once there I get out to investigate the noise. And find the rear suspension beam mounting had been pulled completely through the boxed section of the unibody and the suspension is literally falling out on the ground, only being help by the shock...Oh dear. Not safe at all. John and I discuss. Pull out now? We could, however we need to get back to service/Newberry somehow and we'd be driving as far as we could anyhow.....so why not drive through the 2 stages before service and id we make it we can keep going. How could this go wrong? Hehehe. Press On Regardless.

Well, we drove conservatively on those 2 stages (still had OK stage times) and we were careful on the rough sections. The problem seemed to not be getting worse so we're thinking about what we need to fix this and call Greg's cell phone, tell him what's happened and make a plan. We're making good progress and about 3 miles from Service and The Fix when......we run out of gas. That's right. I said it. What idiot runs out of fuel in a rallycar? Seriously. Now John and my mood and language has taken a turn for the worse. Yikes. We run out in front of a house just outside Newberry that has a motorcycle trailer next to it. The owner comes out and agrees to look for some gas in his garage, and since we're not sure he's got any we hook up the tow strap and the next car (My Main Man Matt Westveld) stops and hooks up to pull us in. But wait! The motorcycle doood tells us he tipped over his generator and has a half gallon for us. John pours it in. I try to pay him but he won't take any cash, he's a former bike racer!! And we're on the road again.......we make it to service IN OUR MINUTE. Ha!

All righty then. Here's the cool part. I jack up the car and then jack the subframe (bolts, nuts and all) back up through where it pulled out. Jerry Brownell climbs inside the car and back off the captive nut (factory) and we put a washer under that captive nut and tighten the whole thing back up again. An extra locknut on top and we're good to go. So a washer that used to hold a helium balloon from the flower shop from floating away is now retaining 300 lb ft of torque. Ha! On the road again.

The last few stages were a blur. Literally, since they were so fast. I saw 115 mph on one stage, not sure I've ever gone that fast on a stage before. Ultimately we finish a rewarding 12th overall, and do beat Matt for 1st in G5. A good result considering all that happened during the rally. As John said it was an adventure. Not all rallies are fun or adventures, this one was both.

A thought: If we hadn't had partial suspension failure we'd have been 'on the gas' more and would have run out on stage instead of on in front of a house where petrol was available? Things, good and bad, happen for a reason. It's all part of a plan.

Thanks to Nancy and June, Greg, Jerry, Matt, K, Huebbes, Brian Burroughs, others I'm forgetting.

See you all in the stages soon.