But we're grateful for their offering to help. After some delays, Marcel and I head out from Staunton, VA at 7:30 on Tuesday evening and drive through the night. A brief lay-over at Marcel's sister in Nashua, NH on Wednesday morning and we arrive at Sunday River late afternoon to register and hook up with Angela and Tim.


On Thursday we head off early for a long day of recce. Tim is preparing the car for scrutineering while Angela joins us in recce to build her experience. Marcel and I make quite a few changes to the provided Jemba notes; mostly simplifying, streamlining, adding safety and performance notes based on my reading of the road and how it might change during competition. There are some really rough sections that I will have to treat with respect.


Tim reports that the car has passed its safety inspection and is approved for competition. We meet back at Sunday River and prepare for some runs through the shakedown stage. Unfortunately it is running very slowly and we only get three passes, the last one with the rally lights on and Angela reading the notes. Unfortunately our rally computer is beginning to glitch on the mileage and cruise control is disabled for some reason which is going to make the long transits more tedious and tiring.


Friday begins with a Parc Exposé at 10:00AM, there are a large number of spectators and we hand out posters and autographs. THe first three stages are Superspecial Stages: very short and mostly for the spectators. The first Superspecial is at Sunday River and there's a long transit to the Recreation Park in Mexico, Maine for the next two. We do adequately and I hold back a bit on the Red Bull jumps. Into service at Mexico and I spot that one of the two bolts supporting the passenger side motor mounts has sheared off leaving part of the bolt still in the block. No time to fix it - we secure the remaining bolt and add a piece of 2x4 wood to the skid plate to support the engine from beneath. I have to drive somewhat conservatively the remainder of the day to make sure we don't lose the engine entirely. I'm disappointed that I can't take on the famous Concord Pond stage at full bore and pull back a bit for some of the jumps. Many thanks to Emerson Huitt (one of the crew for Kieran and Garry Gill) for helping out with the fix.


The real stages on Friday are South Arm N (9.91 miles), South Arm Long S (16.28 miles) and Concord Pond (5.76 miles) with another service before Concord. We finish mostly unscathed and the car is feeling great - Marcel and I are working well together and I get through some of the rough sections with no damage to the car save for our usual breaking of the zip ties holding up the underbody protection. Angela and Tim do a great job in service.


Since we're only running the regional competition, the two days are two different rallies for us and we are able to keep the car overnight - national competitors must place their car into Parc Fermé after a 45 minute service. Marcel, Emerson, Tim and Tom Barton (thanks to all) stay up late fixing the broken motor mount. Thanks also to Broken Motorsports for the use of their facilities.


Up early on Saturday to begin day two with a first car out at 7:01AM. Stages 7 and 8 are Success-Dillon (8 miles) and its reverse Dillon-Success (8 miles) followed by service in Errol. Then two runs through the long (16.35 miles) and rough Sturtevant Pond. On our first run though we pass 5 or 6 disabled cars on stage, either from flat tires or mechanical problems so I renew my focus on picking the least damaging route through the very rough sections. It seems to pay off and we have no flats. But at service after the second pass we find one tire has in interior split that's causing a sidewall bubble and it has to be replaced. The Lassa tires we're running seem very tough though.


Final service and then stage 11, Fish Pond (13.64 miles) and stage 12, Middle Pond (10.69 miles). Alas we don’t make any position in MaxAttack that pays out prize money taking 9th in that overlay class. One day. We finish the Mexico Regional rally in 6th place and take 3rd in the L.L.Cote Regional rally for the Group 2 class. Angela and Tim did a fabulous job as our service crew - many thanks.