Last weekend, @mattlovell took me along as he volunteered for radio duty at the High Desert Trails rally race in Jawbone Canyon.
The race cars staged at the base of the hillclimb. Our convoy of the radio team continued up and over to the beautiful ranching valley tucked inside the Southeastern Sierras.
Matt and I took our position at the first station of this second stage: Dearborn Road. I tried my hand at capturing each car come around the bend at the cattleguard, then hit the straightaway.
The cars disappeared into the hills while we awaited their return. Being part of the radio team really made the race more exciting to an outsider like me. I learned a lot about how the lines of communication are established, and how sweep cars clear the route of lookyloos and locals. It goes "Hot", and then cars are released one every minute to tear down the dusty forest roads.
Upon their return, racers approached our station at full speed for a flying finish.
After all the excitement, we were excused to go make our camp upon Piute Mountain. We drove to our position for the next morning, then continued up a tiny track where we found the perfect spot to pitch our tent and enjoy the evening.
Bright and early the next morning, we packed up and went to our spot to close the road to traffic exiting the campground road. A racecar coming around a blind corner at 80 mph and encountering a dirtbike rider could only end in tragedy. Fortunately, the campers respected our boundaries, and piled safely on a boulder outcropping alongside me as I snapped portraits of each racecar completing the stage.
It was so exciting to see each racecar wind its way up the mountain road, then whoosh back down! As soon as each one had completed the stage and the sweep cleared it for reopening, we quickly made our way back to Dearborn for our initial position radiocasting at Flying Finish. Here is a gif of the openers:
The rally once more took competitors winding up into Dearborn Mining Trail, then back to us for another album of stage finishers.
From here, rally participants cruised to the intersection to begin the final stage of the race down Jawbone Road to the finish line, where everything began. What a wild good time of dust and speed!
It feels good to support my spouse in his racing passion. Although our circumstances curtail his participation in actual racing and/or codriving, as he has been able to access in the past, joining the ham radio crew opened up our joint participation in the behind the scenes racecraft. I gained so much appreciation for rally racing on our public forest roads by becoming a part of this fun event.
I welcome @mattlovell to comment and/or link us to a future writeup giving names, racing numbers, and finishing stats for this event. For me, just witnessing and flexing my cellphone photog muscles proved enough for my first foray into motor sportscasting.
Creation of Care means bending my interest into avenues that light up my beloved. While racing and cars are not on my own chosen menu of interests, joining him in them gave us a partnership bonding experience like none other.
Love,Cat
@creationofcare
Great camera work. Loved hearing the cars zip on by you, and couldn't help but feel bad for those that were a bit slower and sounded like they may have lost a cylinder along the way somewhere. The gif in there is awesome.
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Performance Rally is a game of attrition. I have observed a 30-40% attrition rate in most club level rallies; This event was right in there at about 33% (24 starters, 16 finishers). Its part of the adventure, even finishing is an accomplishment!
Wow, I am absolutely stunned, thank you! I will gather my thoughts and send you the info you ask for, and i give you the permissions you requested!
Hi again! I looked back to my #IntroduceYourself post made just over a year ago, and I think it is solid to this day. Feel free to link, quote, upload, share etc and thanks again and again!
https://steemit.com/compassion/@creationofcare/introducing-the-creation-of-care
Killer post, always wanted to race one of these rallies even though i am not qualified in the least. Just looks like a blast smashing through nature along dirt roads, etc. Great shots. Especially like the animation from the gate. Quality stuff, keep it up!
Thank you so much for getting into the spirit of things! My hubby has been passionate about this sport and i was always supportive, yet yhis was my first opportunity to be so up close and personal with the actual thing! It was breathtaking. As a hiker and equestrian, I thought I would be turned off by motorsports in the wilderness. The ephemeral whoosh!!! Really struck my imagination. Cheers!!!!
Your photos came out amazing (as always)! I especially loved the time lapse one with all the different cars coming through.
So..how does one sign up to be a racer on that track?! My first nonsense buy when I have extra spending money will be an old beater car I can start to race, LOL. A friend of ours goes on Friday nights in Riverside, and I'm dying to try it! Just don't want to risk the cars we need for real life, ha.
As far as getting into Rally goes, its relatively simple. I suggest going to the california rally series website, and checking out the rule book;specifically the "performance stock class" rules. This is a very popular class and has been designed to 'limit expenses' (spoiler alert, its still expensive).
The are real race cars; fully caged, racing seats and harnesses, fuel cells, etc...
When the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) sanctioned these events, their by-line was "Real cars, Real roads, Real fast..." Rally events are now sanctioned by the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) and more info (including rules relates to safety and building a car) can be found on the NASA Rally Sport website.
I've always dreamed of being a race car driver. Not nascar though, just going in a circle is tedious. Too bad SCCA isnt still in charge...sounds like Id have better luck breaking into the hobby with them lol. I'll start off at the public track for $25 a session for now hahaha. End goal would be to have a real race car though, not a street car that I can race. Unless you know of some good underground street racing? LMAO.
Yea, the SCCA put some real effort into the sport and we even had "Factory Teams" from Ford, Subaru, and even Hyundai for a while (and I think a semi-factory Mazda team)... Its a bummer that the factories are not still involved, but it didn't seem to trickle down to the club level people anyway... NASA Rally Sport does a good job, and the events are more for the competitors now (and less about the organization trying to chase sponsorship).
The events in Riverside look pretty cool... I think they do time attack and drift events there...
My friend goes regularly on Friday nights - said he saw an old toyota camry do a run LOL. Theyve got it lined in tires or something, so you cant damage your car too badly.
Yay, so happy you enjoyed! Doing things like gifs is new and fun for me, glad it hit the spot. I really appreciate your feedback!
@mattlovell knows all the things about that which you ask. I will nudge him to answer you here so that all may learn!
Hopefully one day you'll be making a GIF of me racing around somewhere!!! Keep it up, they're really fun to watch. And I can appreciate the time you're taking to create them. xoxo
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STOPWow great action shots! Congratulations and thank you for sharing 🙏🏼 I found your post filling the @curie trail 😊
I feel so honored to have been curated and to be gifted with an awesome new follower like you! Much appreciated!
Well deserved! 🙏🏼😊
Just a minor correction, the name of the event is High Desert Trails Rally. The event was first run in 1973, and this year was its 10th consecutive year since the rally was resurrected in 2008 :)
Thanks for the fact check darlin! BTW I want to take a moment and be supportive of corrections made overlaid on the indelible blockchain.