Pale Rider

Well, we went to the Cherokee Trails Rally in Tennessee this past weekend. I think it's safe to say that Hamp and I both achieved some rally racing rights of passage.

We drove down there last Thursday (actually started Wednesday night...trip takes 14 hours). Got the car tech-ed, registered, ready to go. The boys at QuattroHaus had the car well prepared with a new motor after the old one blew up at the Sandblast Rally in SC a few months ago.

This rally was a two day event with 4 stages on Friday and another 8 scheduled for Saturday. Now, I'm not sure what caused this really, but I would like to think it was the beginning of the onset of a cold/flu-ish type bug that I have/had. I hope this isn't a new trend on how my body will react to being in the race car (even though I DID take Bonine). Long story short; I puked in the race car...a lot...on stages 2 and 4 on Friday. It was AWFUL. I had plastic bags...and I made it into them...mostly.

Throwing up sucks in general (I don't know how you bulimics do it), but barfing your brains out in car that's doing 80 mph through a twisty road in backwoods Chattanooga sucks 10-fold. However, this is apparently a co-driver "thing" that happens to many competitors, especially on these twisty roads (or at least that's what people were telling me to make me feel better). I felt so terrible that I asked the officials if it was possible for Hamp to take another co-driver on Saturday. They said it was but he would not get any points for the stages run on Friday. We reluctantly agreed.

As Hamp left the hotel room Saturday morning, Jose's (of QuattroHaus) words from a conversation the day before echoed in my head: "there are two types of rally drivers, those who have flipped a car...and those that will."

I hung around the hotel room all day moping and blowing my nose. I finally decided to leave Hamp a message on his cell phone that he could pick up when he came into service for lunch. I dialed the number and...he picked up. "What are you doing picking up the phone, aren't you supposed to be driving?" I asked. "Oh we rolled halfway through the first stage of the day," he replied casually.

So it was a great weekend all around. The car isn't actually in that bad shape and hopefully it will be repaired pretty quickly. In our 14-hour trip home Hampton told me that Luis (also of QuattroHaus) said I looked like a ghost when we came off the stages on Friday. I was so pale from barfing that they were calling me "Casper" and "Powder." Very funny fellas. However Hampton came up the nickname that I actually like...

"Pale Rider"

I think it works.

Next race: Rally New York, April 15 - 16, 2005