Red Light Rescue - Providing Motorsports Rapid Response Teams and Event Operations Staff

Ahles and Associates, L.L.C. dba:
Red Light Rescue

Providing Motorsports Rapid Response Teams and Event Operations Staff

Photo of Fleet After Ojibwe 2005 (RLR Numbers-if different)
(Pictured L-R: Rescue One, Rescue (R10), Rescue 3 (R12), Rescue (R3), Rescue 2 (R11), Rescue 9, Rescue 8)
Not Pictured: Rescue 5, Rescue 6, Rescue 7, Rescue 41, Rescue 42, Rescue 51)

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Welcome to Red Light Rescue
Thursday, September 09 2010 @ 03:22 PM CDT

Ojibwe Decides on Course of Action for 2010

Thursday, October 22 2009 @ 08:55 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 281

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.

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LSPR Closes Rally Season

Tuesday, October 20 2009 @ 09:16 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 257

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.

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Quattro Closes the Road Course Season at BIR

Sunday, October 11 2009 @ 10:07 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 273

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.

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PCA, BMW and PDS close seasons at BIR

Wednesday, October 07 2009 @ 07:16 AM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 305

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.

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Labor Day Excitement

Wednesday, September 09 2009 @ 04:43 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 290

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.

Play safe and see you at the track.

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Ojibwe rounds out August

Wednesday, September 02 2009 @ 07:09 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 276

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.

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Interesting turn of events at the Driving School

Friday, July 17 2009 @ 10:59 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 522

The 7/13 Driving School at BIR provided a busy day for Rescue 1. Between the flat tows and other incidents we had a Volkswagen blow a transmission going into 3 and put oil down all the way to 4. Then the driver limped the car back into the pits. Normally I'd chew on the driver for doing that but this specific incident deserves a little more attention than that, read on....

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July starts with more excitment but not from cars.

Friday, July 03 2009 @ 04:39 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 389

June finished with about the same speed and excitement as it started. The Mini Coopers put on a really good show and in combination with the Vintage Club and the ASA club the races were fun to watch. The Mini folks were optimistic that they would like to play at BIR again so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

The big item of interest is that the Vintage club donated a 4 digit number board to Red Light Rescue for use at our events. this also included 2 sign boards with "hand", "window", "roof" and "all" for use at 6. Please take the time to thank the Vintage folks for their efforts and gift. On a side note Red Light is in the process of acquiring 2 more flag sets for the new track at BIR. This should complete the set to the extent that we can cover all manned corner stations with our own equipment if the need arises.

But the REAL excitement came today (7/3) at about 4pm...

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Track Addix News and Activity

Wednesday, June 24 2009 @ 11:07 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 442

Since the PCA event, things have continued to be rather quiet at the track. Other than a large number of spins at 12 and some clean-ups, the carnage has been limited to the incident this last Monday at Track Addix and the PCA event. Let's hope that this trend continues.

The biggest news for this week was in my e-mail box when I wrote this. Text of message follows from Dean Rumfola:
-------------------------------------
We have sold our business to a Ducati dealership located in Omaha. They are not
going to be operating the events at Brainerd so we have canceled the remaining
events schedule up there.

You and your crew have been awesome to work with over these past years. I
cannot thank you enough for the outstanding job you have done for our
organization. I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors.
-------------------------------------
I am proud to say that Red Light and it's staff come with such high praise from Dean. I hope the Dealership will change it's mind about BIR. Red Light and Staff wish Dean, Kim and the dealership continued success in it's future endeavors.

As for track news, SCCA has not certified the track for this season so the hopes are for next season with a work weekend scheduled for the first weekend in August. There are rumors floating about a new group planning on BIR on Ojib weekend. Stay tuned or details.

That about covers the news for this month so far with the Mini group this coming weekend (6/27). Look for news this coming week or after the 4th.

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Streak is broken and a new first for the road course

Tuesday, June 02 2009 @ 06:35 PM CDT
Contributed by: RLRescue
Views: 366

Sunday the 31st the quiet streak was broken before lunch by the BMW folks. The report from the follwing car was that the driver lost a hose and spun in his own fluids. The report from the instructor/passenger was early apex and lift in 2A. Regardless the result was an spin/barrel roll with a precautionary transport. The report later was that there were no injuries and the individuals involved were very impressed with the way Red Light handled the incident. Kudos to all involved.

The first for the weekend was the drag racer that Rescue One flat towed off the road course at 2. Apparently the Drag car lost it's brakes, left before the tree and found out at the top end that there was no way to stop, so having never been up past the return roads he just coasted around the barricades and to a stop drivers left at 2. Had there been cars on track it could have made for some interesting moments, but luck for the road course we had just flagged every one off for the end of a session.

June is also in full swing with a number of events on the calendar. It's a busy month so check the calendar and see you at the races...

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Older Stories

Thursday 22-Oct

Ojibwe Decides on Course of Action for 2010 (0)

Tuesday 20-Oct

LSPR Closes Rally Season (0)

Sunday 11-Oct

Quattro Closes the Road Course Season at BIR (0)

Wednesday 07-Oct

PCA, BMW and PDS close seasons at BIR (0)
Labor Day Excitement (0)
Ojibwe rounds out August (0)

Friday 17-Jul

Wednesday 24-Jun

Track Addix News and Activity (0)

Tuesday 02-Jun

Streak is broken and a new first for the road course (0)