Antilag

This weekend sees the return of Rally Portugal, one of the more hated and despised events on the calendar when it was shot by the FIA, with crowds that would willing throw themselves in front of cars in the hope of achieving the biggest bounce and thence entering Immortality with the most momentum. Famed for one particular jump that had half of humanity at one point to look at that has featured in 16 gazillion videos dubbed with extremely bad music, Pally of Portugal also has much history, being the rally that saw the real end of Group B, the events there of 1986 being overshadowed by the horrific death of Henri Toivonen at Rally de Corsica later in that year.

Just as an aside, here’s some info on the S4 that may provide better reading than this dribble
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_Delta_S4

Anyway, this rally was about as well liked as Danny Sordo at Chris Atkinson’s 6^th birthday party so why on earth are they bringing it back? Our sources (Rasberry and Tomato) suggest an exchange of currency as well as a nubile young 18 year old hottie for Max Mosley to sweeten the deal. Out of interest, we decided to google for “Portugal Hot Women” and……
http://chris.europe2blog.fr/chris38/images/bb.jpg

Well if THAT’S the only result Portugal has for hot women, no wonder everyone hates the place. Excuse me, I need to go rinse my brain with bleach after seeing that.
—
Also most surprisingly for such an unloved event, the entry list is actually really good, with 27 WRC cars and what appears to be at least 20 FIA seed C’s and above. There is also a big turn out for JWRC and Group N, with what appears to be three Group A cars and over 100 crews in total. Something tells me that service space and alcohol may be in short supply, with so many crews and their support staff, wives/girlfriends and such. Sometimes the girlfriends even get on with the wives in hot lesbian action too, as per the more liberal aspects of European society.

Actually come to think of it, Portugal may actually have something going for it after all.

Altho if the lesbians are like what “Portugal Hot Women” revealed…..

I think I need to shoot myself if I even for a second longer contemplate THAT.

Getting back to the point, the entry list is strong, competition for places will also be strong and as well, the service area will be a heady mix of pride, passion, fuelled with Ari Vatenen branded AVGAS and Francois Duval urinating to mark his territory around Citroen. As a result, Danny Sordo will be too revolted and overcome with fumes to enter the rally and will be the first DNS.

Sebastian Loeb will of course win the event. A combination of the Citroen C4 and a unholy desire to get the f*** out of his reeking car means he does the rally so fast, he almost makes time move backwards and turn his car into a Xara.

It would be insanely easy to predict Subaru’s WRC2007 is as big as a turd as the WRC 2006…. And a brave man to predict it’s going to do squat in this event. I’m not feeling brave today so I’m going with “spectacular DNF” and then a boozy rampage through the surrounding villages by both drivers. Petter Solberg, a man of delectable taste in groupies, has been pre-warned via the aforementioned google search that potential nubile women MAY be mind melting and thence is prepared when one flashes her boobies at a spectator point. Phil Mills however wasn’t and his brain goes blank, calling a “Do not overshoot” as a “Flat right”.
Petter has still yet to hit the valley below.

Chris Atkinson’s exit is much simpler. He is on the run after chain sawing the Ford service tent, dropping it onto Mikko Hirvonen and making the young Ford driver mad enough to actually stop being comatose for five minutes, pick up a bazooka and return fire. The resulting mess left…..
… I was going to go on with “Many Portuguese lesbians dead” but I’m thinking that’s a GOOD thing, based on evidence so far. Thence….
…. Left many puppies dead when a stray RPG round hit a breeding pen. Not that I like puppies that aren’t cooked on toast and served in a nice light wine sauce anyway.

Through the carnage and the yelping of flaming dogs raining from the sky, Henning Solberg comes second in his Focus. And yet again, I failed to think of a joke to involve Henning with, as he is such a likable and jovial person.

Third will be Jari Matti Latvala, the man with the coolest sounding name in the known universe. So cool in fact, the mere writing of his name a dozen time can reverse Global Warming. So cool that if the Fonze and Latvala were in the same area, an ice age would begin.

Fourth will be a lottery and drawn from the hat is Matthew Wilson. Beats crashing another of his dad’s cars.

Daniel Carrlson comes fifth, suffering from mental problems after seeing the same lesbian flash him, then see said lesbian destroyed in a fireball of puppies falling from the sky. The resulting carnage makes for good eating.

Sixth I suppose could be Xavier Pons, fresh from his sojourn to the wastelands of Blaxland to try to hunt down someone who been saying nasty things about his hair.

Seventh is Aporto Chicken.

Eight is Mikko Hirvonen, finding time in his running skirmish with Atkinson to finish the rally, then find a BFG to do battle with the Australian, who is likewise armed to the teeth.

And that as they say is it for now. Join us on the web at http://alliancemotorsport.org/antilag2 as we attempt to avoid the flying puppies and outraged women in comfortable shoes.

Not that there’s anything wrong with comfortable shoes, mind. As long as they are FIA approved and cost 300 percent more than the exact same shoe elsewhere.

After 20 years of driving and racing, I’ve just done gone something a bit silly.

The driving position I have always had has been close to the wheel, in the manner that Frank Gardiner states we should have – upright, wrist able to touch the top of the steering wheel with the belts on. This promotes speed, stability and ability to put enough muscle on the wheel to make it turn…..

…

…. In the days of non power steering and low castor.

For some reason, the thoughts on proper driving position haven’t changed, even if cars have. Sure, leaning by like a wog driving a VL turbo Commodore cruzzing for hot bitches in Parra on Saturday night with the DOOF DOOF shit they call music booming out and shattering windows for 10 miles with the bass line kinkin the mad beetz out and making the girlies pants fall off so they can suck the bro’s cock is fucking stupid as well as far, far too close as in the 75 year old Grannie in her Corolla with utterly no idea what the FUCK is going on around her as she is listening to John Laws and agreeing young people should get a job and a haircut and homersexuals should be shot with something hotter than dick…. both you cant control the car properly. However in rallying, the steerign is NOT the be all and end all.

You also control the car via brakes / throttle and clutch…. so if you sit properly, what happens if your legs are cramped and cant move correctly? It used to be that you were SOL and in the days of manual steering,t hat’s quite correct. But we now have power steering and the effort one needs to use to steer and control is greatly lessened. And also with the current theory of suspension geometry stating CASTOR is the king not camber, the effort in steering a high castor car is next to impossible without power steering. And thence, some of the reasons origially we used for our seating positions are invalid

So, given I’m teaching myself to use a knife and fork as well as to left foot brake, the jumble and confusion of long legs in a tight space (say…. comparable to Britney Spear’s vigina for example…. errr wait, bad example, you could drive a truck in there and not touch the sides) makes that difficult. And that also goes for left foot braking.

So, I shifted my seat back a notch.

Interesting how different the car feels and how just that bit more room makes moving feet and pedal dancing easier.

So when they crap on about proper arm length from the wheel…… remember your legs too. Otherwise if your a woman you will leave slug trails around. And men if you dont wipe your ass, there will be a shit stain from the toilet leading to you.

Oh and byt he way, we now have a forum so you can talk shit on and take the piss out of motorsport. Antilag Forums Register and say hi!

Except if your Juan Montoya. Cause your a fat useless NASCAR crashing fag.

So. Once again we have Alliance Motorsport’s Rally Predictions and to be frank and honest this time we have had to censor the reports of our rally spies (15 drunk unemployed Mexicans) due to incoherence and also…… shall we say questionable content. It’s amusing to read about Manfred Stohl’s rampage through the seeder parts of some small town in Mexico, but the details were, shall we say, just a bit TOO graphic, even for the more liberal and open journal that is the Alliance Motorsport weblog.

The most disturbing thing was mention of Gigi Galli and something about elaborate manipulation of a bum. On further research, our erstvile fact checker screamed “OH GOD GOATSE MY EYESS!!! THEY BURN!!!” and committed suicide to try to remove the image from his brain. No, I am not going to go further and no, I am not going to suggest you google what the hell it is….. I’m serious for a moment do NOT google if you value your sanity. But if you do, allow me to hint that you do so in the loneliness of your home, late at night where no one can hear you howl in horror at what will appear.

Unless you want to be sacked from work, where it will do it in a big hurry.

Get you sacked that is. Not do your work.

(I’m sure someone is curious, but believe me that you dont want to be. Forget I ever said it and never try looking – its the geek version of Fight Club. Except without fighting. And a manipulated bum. And not much of a club except for “I survived” members who shudder at the horror. And also, the good Lord help you if you have any idea what I’m talking about, cause I sure dont)

Anyway, while some may think elaborately manipulated bums are magnificent, I’m not one of them and thence we speak no more of that, but continue with a tamer tales of derring-do and how Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson ruined Rally of Mexico for everyone.

The problems began not long after Rally of Norway. After being promised an actual decent car for Rally Mexico, Subaru’s new WRC 2007 as unveiled…. and promptly broke down, because it was designed and built by an Australian who couldn’t build a rally car to save his life. As a result, Petter and Chris wont even start the event as they are on protest – but what they will do will have ramifications for the sport for a long time. Usually nightmares.

The trouble will begin when Petter, much the worse off for wear after a hard night drinking Corona, decided to have a dodgy chili taco. After the fifth visit to the hotel bathroom (which I might add peeled the paint off the walls and destroyed the toilet bowl) Chris Atkinson got the all too unfortunate idea of the “Petter Flamethrower” and decided, in conjunction with his Subaru partner, to wreck havoc on the unsuspecting drivers and spectactors.

Sebastian Loeb’s insane luck didnt save him, in fact it cursed him as Chris forgot to apply the match as Petter took aim – thence a toxic mess hits the unfortunate Frenchman’s windshield and dissolves the car. Loeb DNF’s and has to seek professional help in dealign with the terror of seeing his car melt under the blast of ……

….

God help you if I need to describe that any further

Marcus Gronholm refuses to drive past second service as there is a bad smell coming from his car. It is later found to be somthing Chris left behind and lit.

Mikko Hirvonen escapes the carnage relatively unscathed apart from a bout of vomiting caused by the fumes coming off Loeb’s car and wins his third WRC event.

Henning Solberg remarkably is left alone. And comes second. I have no idea why that would be.

Third…. Dani Sordo in a borrowed Metro. His car wasn’t hit by a Subaru sneak flamethrower attack, but in fact was stolen and sold for scrap by the local children.

Fourth…. Gareth McHale, mainly because I’m seriously running out of FIA seeds to complete this list, what with all the smelly garbage flying about.

Jari-Matti Latvala still has the WRC’s coolest sounding name and as a result, many spectators die to keep his car in fact when they shield it from a partiularly bad twin blast from the Subaru boys and he comes fifth.

Sixth, mainly because I’ve lost all command of rationality is Matthew Wilson, who not only finishes a rally but doesnt use the Max’s Golden Dunny (aka SupeRally) restart rule for the first time ever.

Seventh is Speedy Gonzalez

Eigth is awarded to anyone brave enough to actually read this crap to the end. And thence first person to do so will be granted one WRC point and the worship of two cats.

And there you have it. More proof I should get a life.

Find us on the web below!

Apparently I can log into this site too, and my name isn’t Mark. I also have some odd semblance of sentence structure and typing accuracy. I think it is sadly inversely proportional to race speed. Or not.

February 24th was a pretty regular day for most people, but it was a nice one for me. I got to race again in the dirt, which is where the real (idiots) race. My luck, unlike Marcus aka Cat Terrist aka a bloody crazy Australian, was quite nice. In his defense, none of us are quite sure why he crashed.
I had zero dramas getting to the course, from the course, and everything in between. I’m also apparently 2nd in Prepared Rear Drive in the entire SE US SCCA region.

Car #

Drivers Name

Class

Make/Model

Run 1

Run 2

Run 3

Run 4

Run 5

Run 6

Total

O/A

Class

1	Alfonso Lopez	PF	VW Golf	260	251	247	239	243	238	1478	8	3 PF
91	Chris Casale	PR	Nissan 240 SX	266	268	251	253	247	254	1539	9	1 PR
83	Juan Valdivieso	SA	Subaru Impreza	267	263	260	250	260	244	1544	10	2 SA

As you can see, I start off very inconsistent and then settle down, knocking off about ten seconds. These are in hundreths of a minute, because for some reason that’s how the timing equipment is. Nothing to complain about, really. 9th overall in a slow, old tired beaten car that needs a lot of work isn’t too awful either, although I should have gotten 7th or 8th. My first two runs hurt a lot, part of it because I don’t drive the 240SX every day, and part of it because I hadn’t been in the dirt since November. If I sound like I’m whining, I am. Goddamn do I love getting that car dirty.

Now, the list of shit that needs to be fixed:

1. The far battery mount broke, not surprising, the attachment point is 18 year old plastic.
2. Need new shocks all-around.
3. Bushings. Oh god the clunks.
4. Stiffer springs. The car rolls too much much much too much.
5. New power steering rack. A quick ratio if I can get one. The current one is a dismal number of turns to lock

So there, Mark doesn’t have monopoly on whining.

On the other hand, the future is bright! I am bringing my car up to Moroso and will smack it with wrenches (spanners) and hammers and screwdrivers and poke things.

What a fucking disaster.

Yes that’s right reader, I am a rally driver too. And I do drive.

I also crash.

Now, usually what i do is I like to write something vaguely funny extolling what happened in the event with some embellishment for people’s amusement. I find this time myself completely incapable of doing so, as this event really burnt me out physically and mentally. I very much have run out of funny after this big time and could I be blamed? The mayhem and problems of just getting the car to Thursday night are well documented and also got me to the end of my patience. Basically, far too much time spent on sorting out one problem, not enough attention spent elsewhere.

It stresses you out badly and stress, coupled with late nights leads to errors that you cant really afford.

So instead of funny, you get the other side that no one talks about – the Ugly “when things go wrong, you out of ideas and time and the cash is looking thin” side. It’s all part of motorsport and rally and believe me, you get even a bit serious, you get to know all about it all too well. Do you really want to rally when instead of racing through a forest, you get what I’ve been through just to even get to a point where the car was still not ready but at least RUNNING???? Much to my dismay too as I look back, I knew this was going t be an utter fuckup of an event. What I didnt know was just how bad.

Friday morning, was the day of too many jobs to do. I put business to one side, got the angle grinder out along with the electrical tools and jacks, got to work outside of the office at 9 am. Yes, I am free to build rally cars at the office. Tekko/Artisan is full of car mad freaks anyway so no biggie at all. Tekko is the business I’m helping to get going and that’s the reaosn it’s ended up on the side of the car. The first job of the day tho was noisy and it will make you wince – I was cutting a hole in the car’s roof. Why a roof vent – because the Galant is staggeringly hot in an event and the week before when I came 2nd outright, I just about melted with the heat. Thence a stream of cooling and fresh air is wanted badly. So after some measurements and then then a drill to size things up, out came the angle grinder and ten minutes later the vent was riveted on and sealed with plumber’s silicone. Much to my surprise it went damn well, which given the shit fight of the weeks before was a shock. So therefore were the spotlights in how easy they were to get going, the battery to clamp down and the mud flaps to reinstall. And thence before lunchtime the car was ‘ready’ to rally.

That meant that the other part of Artisan Group, Motographics was in play and Luke, who is our genius at Corel/Photoshop could partially execute the signwriting for the Galant.

Now, I bet most of you would be surprised to know most signwriting on race cars is not paint. It is 100% vinyl sticker, printered and cut on the biggest mother of a printer you have seen. Most race cars get what’s called a ‘wrap’, in other words a full body sticker job. One of these days I’ll do a thread on how it’s done, but for now the printer spat out the Tekko sticker and Luke showed me how to execute a sticker job. And if you think its a case of just putting it on, you are sooooo badly mistaken. Doing the job right is highly difficult and takes a hell of a lot of skill. One of the things I never expected to learn or to do!

When complete, Hunter Devourer turned up and we got to packing the service van. And, much to my annoyance, I had to attend to a server that had log files that were filled and thence it wouldnt send or recieve email. Fucking hell.

About 2 hours later than I wanted we were ready to go and this is what the Galant looked like –

Hell, it even looked pretty good and serious with the stickers, lights and vent, dont it?

Luke and HD contemplating life or amazed the car is actually about to leave.

8 pm, we finally got to the service crew’s place, picked them up, then filled both the vans, the jerry cans and the VR4 with 200 litres of fuel, then turned south for Narooma. 400 km drive, the Vr4 did not miss a beat and much to my delight was even feeling highly toey and ready to rumble. othing fell off, nothing failed and it was pretty nice to not have any misfire. Oh and the spot light really lit up the road.

However, arriving at Narooma at 1:20 am was not a good idea, as unavoidable as it was. That’s far too late and leads to fatique the next day, again not a good thing at a rally.

But for once nothing else was going wrong.

Saturday morning dawned….

And not long after this, it turned to complete shit. The car was running strong… but first it began to rain.

Then the windshield wipers were found to not do a damn thing.

Oh and the terratrip packed it in

Then the service crew fell ill and we suddenly had a real problem of not being able to service at the remote locations. Thence, a few tools in the car, tank it with as much fuel as possible and hope for the best. 4 stages without service is asking a lot…..

3:30 pm, we left the Naromma bowling club went south, made a wrong turn, righted ourselves, then drove out to stage one…. which when we arrived we found was blocked by a fallen tree. And we had to wait 40 minutes for the stage to clear. But that wasnt the worst of it – the worst was the rain really decided not to fuck around and upend on us. That meant already cut up tracks were getting turned to slop and the rain had a big chance to soak in, making things even worse.

And to top it off, the car began to mist up.

Which…..

… okay, have a look at the video and you’ll see what happens next.

– 21 minutes, 300 mb

Shit.

Anyway, the video explains the root cause very well. Couldnt see, I think tagged the back end on something, got forced into the bank and BANG, that’s the rally over. Still just drivable, drove it back to the hotel and then dumped it there.

And then drove the van back to Sydney in the torrential rain, fetched the WRX and then set a land speed record between Sydney and Narooma (yes KB, Geoff’s record fell and I did it in a absolute downpur the whole way), arriving back at 4 am to catch some sleep before ferrying the guys back home.

posted by admin at 8:18 am