TAKE NOTE: The Gallery is a "stand-alone" software product. This means that YOU HAVE TO "LOGIN" AGAIN on the page this link goes to. (upper left corner)
You will get "approved" for membership inside a day or two. After that you will be able to see ALL of the photo directories that are currently there.
To return here, "logout" of the gallery software and close the window.
Calendar
There are no upcoming events
Poll
Is there a need for pre-season meeting this year?2 votes | 0 comments
About GeekLog
Welcome to GeekLog!
If you're already familiar with GeekLog - and especially if you're not: There have been many improvements to GeekLog since earlier versions that you might want to read up on. Please read the release notes. If you need help, please see the support options.
Monday, March 08 2010 @ 10:30 AM CST
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 1
I hope you are sitting down when you read this:
After sending the message about the new date for Ojibwe I got this reply from Chris Schnabel:
oh sure after a two year break i planned on going this year, and it gets moved to the week of my wedding. oh yeah by the way im getting married on aug 21st!!
That was the WOW of the month for me. He did consent to that being made public.
I hope that this article finds you warm and snug and out of the snow. I have had more than my far share of that weather and I'd really like to see spring and dry pavement. A couple of things for this month.
First I got a message from our friend Becky (Former North Paramedic) With her new PA title she has found work in a clinic about 40 miles east of Houston TX. I have her e-mail if you are interested in contacting her. I and the rest of us wish her well in the new warmer climate.
Second A reminder that the annual party is scheduled for Saturday 3/20. Please mark your calendars and look this week for details in your email. Stay warm and see you in March.
First: Annual RLR party is scheduled for 3/20/10. Mark your calendars.
Second The Rally Fest Chilli cook-off was 12/5. IT was a really good time at a new venue.
Third: the PDS has posted their dates for the 2010 season and they have been added to the calendar. BUT, I fielded a call today from Gary and the long and short of it is that there is a second rescue company out there that has been selected to handle the BIR-PDS schools for the 2010 season. Both Gary and I feel that this does not close the door on future options, but for now the other company will be handling the school rescue and corner staffing.
Change is inevitable, and sometimes a fresh perspective is a good thing. I wish them well. For now, RLR is still staffing the rest of the events that we have in the past, sans the BIR owned schools. If you want additional info feel free to call me.
For Anyone with interest in the Future of Rally in MN, The Ojibwe committee met recently and the decision was made at the meeting that Ojibwe WILL be a rally in MN in 2010. As of right now there are a couple of dates being bounced around. Those being the normal weekend in August and the possibility of one of the last 2 weekends in June. Stay tuned for further details.
LSPR closed the rally season last weekend with a fairly uneventful race. With a few new changes the event went as planned. The Really big news came after the event with Rally America announcing plans for next year. More on that later....
The HQ building was moved to a new hotel, abet a little smaller and the awards banquet was also shifted to a lodge in Copper Harbor so the last stage ended up being Delaware instead of Gratiot Lake. In my opinion the new awards hall was nicer than the Franklin and Campus sites, but I did miss the trip down Gratiot on the way home.
Rescue was kept busy on the front end of tow straps mostly on Friday, helping out the sweep folks in a couple of ways. A couple of rescues were put to use on competitor vehicles and one rescue was also called into play to get Safety Sweep to an open premium petrochemical dealer. One of the tows came after the rally when a competitor broke an engine mount at the end of the last stage and shorted the coil wire into the firewall. Rescue One assisted with a tow from L'anse back into Houghton. The Casey/Kelly crew brought up the back end of the tow as the car was without any power and thus did not have tail lights.
The real news was came Sunday with Rally America announcing that the 2010 season for the national series will be 6 events long ending in July. This effectively removes Ojibwe, CO Cog, and LSPR from the national series. In their place Rally America is planning on introducing Euro style rally cross with up to 6 cars competing side by side on a closed course in a stadium style setting. The venue for this is in New Jersey and is anticipated to be 3 events in duration.
For those of you that are concerned about our event, rest assured that the options of running the event for a different sanctioning body or as a regional level event are being explored. I would encourage those that are not happy with this change to let Rally America know of your thoughts and would further encourage you to support these last three events as you have in the past with your participation. I will post more information as it becomes public knowledge. Rest assured that there were a large number of folks that were blind-sided by this announcement less than 48 hours before it became public knowledge.
More later and look for info on the rally party next month. The annual RLR party will be in March this year. Look for more on this in December. HAve fun and play safe.
The Quattro Club closed the season at BIR this last weekend (10/9-11). It was a cold weekend with highs only getting into the 40's on Friday and the 30's the rest of the weekend. The real question was if they were going to be able to play on the course at all on Saturday. With 1.4 inches of snow overnight Friday the track was in questionable shape Saturday morning. The club found a couple of places to run exercises and with the ground temps as high as they were, the remaining snow found it's way off the asphalt by the 13:00. All things considered it was amazing that they were able to run on Saturday at all.
The only work for rescue came late in the day on Sunday with Rescue 3 (Ryan) attending to petrochemical challenged car and Rescue 1 attending to an off at 4. both vehicles exited on their own power. There are a number of pictures in the gallery from this event.
The only event on the calendar is LSPR at the end of the week. more on that later this month.
Wednesday, October 07 2009 @ 07:16 AM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 133
As of this writing the only club with an event left for the road course is the Quattro club. Nord Stern closed the season a couple of weeks ago with an incident free weekend. Rescue didn't even have to go get anyone for a flat tow during the event. for Nord Stern I think that was a first as there is usually someone that needs some kind of help at the event. BMW and PDS were not as incident free.
The PDS labor day weekend indirectly provided the most excitement this season so far from a rescue perspective. With the addition of Brandon (new guy from Bemidji) we began to think that he was the crap magnet for the weekend. While in R1 we were dispatched on Friday to a number of flat tows and 2 cars in the gravel at 12. Saturday Robert was blessed with Brandon and tallied up 8 flat tows with the rest of rescue sitting on Corners. Sunday was not much different. BUT the real debate started at the end of the day.
Seems Jim was doing his level best to cause trouble by consuming 8 root beers during the course of the day. This had little effect on the stuff at his corner. at the end of the day he handed off the empties to Rescue One to take up to the Hidden House Inn and with those empties in R1 the big call came in. With R1 on the way to the tower to return radios Jim radios from 371 that Rescue 1 is needed at the front gate for a roll-over PI. After turning around and Lighting up the lightbars we headed off to the front gate.
Once there we find that a exiting drag person with a '56 chev on a open trailer exited the track and attempted to cross 371 to head south. The problem with this choice was the the person in the towing vehicle may have neglected to consider the trailer as part of the required space to hold for a gap in the southbound traffic. This lead to the left lane of the northbound traffic on a VERY busy Sunday getting cut off and having nowhere to go. The Small SUV the was in the left lane impacted the car trailer just in front of the left front tire and sent the trailer and car over onto the passenger side. the SUV deployed the air bags and with driver and passenger wearing seat belts there was far less injury than could have happened. With Paul, Brandon, Jim and a number of Track Security attending to the scene things were under control in fairly short order. When sufficient 'locals", county and State folks showed up to deal with the incident the RL staff cleared the scene. What a way to end the weekend.
I'm not sure if it was Brandon or the Root Beer cans, but from past experience, I'm going to have to thank Jim for his fine efforts. The other lesson here is always be prepared for the unexpected. Other drivers don't always think thru their choices.
The Ojibwe Rally was the second to last event for red Light in August. The BIR-PD school actually finished the month on a quiet note with only one flat tow for the day. Ojibwe on the other hand made for an interesting weekend.
The event started with two cars ditching it during the practice stage on the same corner. With Jeremiah (spelled correctly) and the new medical staff person Brandon pulling both cars out. A gathering at the local watering hole rounded the night out.
Friday, the normal attrition rate of 20% for the event was alive and well during the second to last stage. Contributers to the rate was Block by rolling his car and two other cars 'dnf'ing on the stage. That made for interesting traffic control issues on 64. Rescue one scored a 'hat trick' while stationed there with a visit from the Hubbard County Sherrif, the DNR agent (nice lady) on duty and the State Patrol that was working the area. The only 'bad' report i got was a rally spectator getting tagged for 70 while passing in a 55. The State Patrol Office didn't buy his story.
Saturday was also interesting with a rollover on the spectator stage. Google Rally Crash Ojibwe 2009 for the video. Impressive.
Sunday brought out a new activity for the weekend. Apparently Ford was filming a commercial for the 2010 Mustang that Mark Uteck used for the rally so they set up a Mark Uteck vs. Mike Hurst challenge on a stage road on Sunday. After 8 passes Mark had a 9 second lead and was awarded use of the car for the next year. Congrats to Mark as it was fun to watch.
September events are posted. Play safe and see you at the track.