Sand Blast Rally 2010 - Who's in?

[the dude himself]

You did better than half Jonah's speed dude, you rock! I would settle for a third.

And BTW - I must have a thousand photos of James Embro from the last year he ran - so I understand your bromance. ;-)

[code]

And BTW - I must have a thousand photos of James Embro from the last year he ran - so I understand your bromance. ;-)

First off, I give you and phil both mad props for going down there at all, let alone racing. And then doing as good as you both did I'm sure it wasn't the best way for two newbies to start off, but you definitely made an excellent go of it!

Secondly, he said "bromance" bahahahahahahahahahaha I'll be camping far opposite of ken from now on with a padlock on my tent door and my pants

[Bucho]

I'll try to give somewhat of a rundown of the weekend.
We loaded up and headed out after the morning rush.


We got in to Cheraw SC and headed over to register. After a little driving around we found the original Rally HQ, only to find that they moved it to a large room next to the local police station, (so they could keep an eye on us?). Apparently Cheraw is know for two things. The Sandblast Rally and it is the birthplace of Dizzy Gillespie. I think I saw at least two statues of the guy. I forgot to take a picture.
After registration we went back to the hotel and walked a block down to the nearest place to eat. It wouldn't say it was terrible, but it wasn't great. At least it was fairly cheap and the service was friendly.
As we walked back to the hotel it started raining. We unpacked some of our gear and pretty much called it a night.

[Bucho]

The next morning we got up and it was still raining. We found a little diner just on main street. Good simple breakfast food, nice Southern hospitality, and cheap prices. I'd bring my wife there, but I know what Ken meant. It was like the place used to be a retail store and they just put up a few tables and built a partial wall for the kitchen and started serving food.


After breakfast we unloaded the bikes and pushed them into the hotel room for some last minute wrenching.


Then we had our "newbie rally class". You are required to sit through this class till you have attended three of them. I'm not sure exactly why that is, I think once was enough, but it wasn't bad. Anders Green (the guy running pretty much the entire rally gave the class), went through things pretty quickly and gave a few funny stories. On an odd note, this is where Ken and I first saw Jonah Street. Since he has never raced in this exact format, he was required to sit through it w/ the rest of us. Kinda thought it was odd sitting four feet away from the top American Dakar rider.

After this we did a little shopping at the local supermarket for some lunch fixings, trashbags (to put in our boots), water, and Ken's black and tan PA beer. A local heard us talking about not being able to find pita bread. She laughed and told us that we could keep going up and down the aisles but we wouldn't find pita bread in Cheraw. I never really thought pita bread was that exotic...

Then we headed over to tech inspection or "scrutineering". Rain still pouring we unloaded the bikes and pushed them into a huge garage that a local car dealer was letting the Rally use. Reading the extensive regulations about this, I was almost nervous. The guy barely looked at my bike, and did even look at my gear. Here are a few pics.

[OldmanX]

Good write-up!! Looks like you guys had a blast.

I've stayed at the Inn Cheraw, and you assessment of it is spot on. We used to stay there back in the day...early 90's...when we'd go to the fall Darlington Nascar (before it became Nascrap) race. We even had to bail one of our drunken buddies out of the Cheraw lock-up on one of those trips...

[Bucho]

After tech inspection, we met up w/ Jack Splash (and Eugene "the Czech"). Jack Splash is the guy who puts on the PineBarrons 500 and is an experienced NJ sand rider. We loaded up some of our gear mostly just lunches and extra fuel in Jack's service vehicle. Then went out to dinner w/ Jack, Eugene, and two Canadians, (Flanny and Dan). Both nice guys, and only after I learned that Flanny came in 3rd or 4th overall, (super fast!). On another note this was the best meal I ate on the trip, was a nice Mexican place.

The next morning we were up early and had a quick breakfast at the diner again. Then we suited up and headed down to Parc Expose. This is where all the bikes and cars line up and the locals/spectators can check them out before we start racing.
I took a few pics.
These next couple are for Bdirt especially. Here is a nice XR650R (only one of two Hondas in the race)

And here is a highly modified Transalp (the other Honda). The engine is from a Honda Hawk, and the swing arm is from a CR500. The guy had tried to get a different front end on but couldn't get it squared away before race day.



And here are two big BMW twins. The guy on the airhead was pretty good and finished well. The other guy was struggling bad. I don't think he finished but he fought through alot of it.

[the dude himself]

Hey Code!

Ken can get his name on Johan's Bike!

http://www.rallypanam.com/riffraff.html

hehehe.

Sorry Ken, I kid cause I'm jealous. You raced Saturday; I couldn't even get to my garage to wrench on the bike with all this DAMN snow. I had to help dig out the elderly and my arms won't raise higher than my nipples from the DAMN shoveling all day Sunday.

What was the funny story about the 4x4 coming back?

[Rut Row]

Hey Code!

Ken can get his name on Johan's Bike!

Can??? looks good, eh?

What was the funny story about the 4x4 coming back?

Oh yea... nearly forgot.

So, the race is over and we have a strategy for getting home. The bride wanted me to get groceries there as rumor had it every grocery in Frederick county was bare. So we got the essentials and started back.

We were almost to Emporia, VA when I look down and the gas gauge is deep into the orange "low fuel" bars. I couldn't get over to the next exit fast enough and the signs said another gas station was a few miles down the road. So we motor on and within 5 minutes the (*&^%$# truck does one of those dreaded "I'm about to run out of gas" stutters. I said an unkind word, the motor smooths out and I slow down for better MPG (yea, right). We make the next exit and down the hill to the right is a gas station. As I turn right and start down the hill, the engine dies. I slam the tranny into neutral and we coast right up to the pump.

[Rut Row]

did we say the ruts were deep (stolen from the ADV thread)

[Bucho]

And then the race began.
We all que'ed up and were set off on one minute intervals. I'm sorry I don't have any awesome pics or video of the actual racing, (but I'll volunteer to wear someone else's helmet cam at the next one).
As Ken earlier stated the transits were cold, and wet. It stopped raining sometime the night before, but it started misting and drizzling during the first transit.
Ken gave a much better break down of the days special stages. The first five all sort of blended in together. But about 100 yards into the first stage I was pretty shocked about how nasty and tore up the stages were. It was a little intimidating. Besides the rough, and deep rutted sand, there were sections of slick, nasty clay. I never wrecked in the snotty clay but I had quite a few front end slides. It was enough to make me a little gun shy every time I came upon a long section of the wet stuff.
The other part that was unnerving was b/c the sand was wet, it was hard to tell the difference between the sand and the clay till you were almost upon it (things come up quick at 60 mph).
At the end of the first stage Ken and I were wondering what we got ourselves into and if we would be leaving the race in an ambulance (or a medivac chopper).
This is somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, (i think the rain stopped by then), we were getting ready to start the 4th or 5th stage.


Several sections in I began getting somewhat more comfortable and felt like I was getting faster. At least till the 6th stage and we were starting to lose daylight. This was the first stage where I crashed. Like Ken said, as it got darker it was tougher to see the trasitions of the terrain. Going into a faster sweeper type corner I lost control and was trying to slow to a stop and finally tucked the front end and went down a only 10 mph or so. Strangely this didn't freak me out too much and I actually felt better as the finished the rest of the stage.
Then the last stage. As we were getting started it was full dark.




I kept waiting for Ken to show up for this last check in before we started. He had mentioned earlier that he wasn't going to race in the dark. I was hoping that he had withdrawn and was already finished. I was hoping I wasn't going to be meeting him later at the hospital. I certainly didn't blame Ken for not wanting to race this last stage, it was pretty intimidating. I at least had upgraded my stock headlight, (but would have really liked a lot more light). I mentioned earlier everyelse but me pulling out auxillery helmet mounted lights and/or small lights to hang off their jackets. I had none of this but a few reflective patches on my trusty Aerostich. I certainly didn't lay down a blistering pace but I started off in the dark to finish my rally. A mile in or so I was feeling better and I turned it up a little bit. And of course soon after I went into a nasty/sloppy section and lost my front end. I kept w/ it and managed to keep it on two wheels but I went all the way up one of the berms on the side and was ploughing throw branches before i managed to get back to the course. Some where in this stage (on one of the faster straights), a bird flew into my torso. I hope he was okay, I didn't stop to check on him.
Anyway, I made it to the end and luckily there were a few guys still at the end of the stage that I could follow back to Cheraw. W/ it being totally dark, I couldn't read my rollchart. In my little group of five leaving the last stage, one of the guys had a GPS to lead us.

The only other thing I could comment on was the spectator areas. They were always placed on the mostly deeply rutted tore up corners. W/ the exception of the Rally Heros the rest of us probaly all looked like idiots in front of the spectators. I figured at least I would rather go a little slower and at least not crash in front of them.